Warranty-What is my responsibility?

[winstonknives]

I try very hard to do good clean work that will make my customers glad that they have dealt with me. My standard guarantee is that if you get your knife and don't like it send it back. No questions asked.

Though most of you have mostly seen fixed blades coming from my shop, I also have made a lot of folders. Slip joints, liner locks and automatics. Anyone who is a serious folder maker surely expects one to come back home occasionally. When two pieces of steel rub together something is going to wear out sooner or later. At the present time I have an automatic on my bench that has seen better days (only 18 months old). I am not very smart but I am smart enough to know what has happened to this knife is not from normal everyday use. However I am going to rebuild it. Free. No questions. I sold it to this man, its broke, so I fix it. I also have replaced a few fixed blade knives over the years. They had problems that were clearly not the fault of the owner. I think this is just going to happen but hopefully not very often.

Now lets just suppose that he had bought this knife from someone who had bought it from someone else who had bought it from someone else who had bought it from a used knife dealer at a gunshow, who had bought it from someone else who may or may not have been the original owner. By this time the knife has been treated with varying degrees of care. Its broke. Do I fix it free? Do I charge to fix it? Do I stop from my busy schedule and fix it? Do I even fix it at all?

Over the last couple of years I have read with interest some posts along these lines. It appears that some people expect a custom knife to carry a lifetime, unconditional guarantee. I am not sure I know the answer to this.

I would like to see what others think. Knifemakers and customers.

 

[SPHayes]

I would have to say that the warranty stops with the original owner. That is the way most production companies do it and I think it is the best. That being said if a knife comes back with a true flaw and not a abuse issue you could at your discretion extend coverage to the current owner. You could statrt including a warranty card with your knife, that way if someone gives one as a gift or purchases through a company like Bladeart they can fill out the card and be registerd as the warranty holder.

 

[DaveH]

This came up somewhat recently, either you cover the knife or the purchaser. If you covere the original purchaser then how, when and how much to charge is of course up to you.

If you cover the knife, you have to decide if it's unlimited coverage or not.

 

[winstonknives]

I surely do not want anyone to think I do not want to guarantee my work. However there was a post where the man bought the knife from someone other than the maker. By his own admission the knife was faulty when he bought it ( at least that is the way I am understanding what I am reading, I could be wrong). Why would he buy it in the first place then expect to get it rebuilt?

 

[bob_glassman]

Looking at life in your shoes, if it were me making the decision, I would have to say that my highest priority is how that customer perceives my service in ALL circumstances. Therefore, you must weigh the work that you spend resolving problems on "YOUR" hand made knives brought to your attention by any owner against the perceived benefit. Because that person is a custom knife buyer. Also, do you want a knife in circulation made by you that is not in top functioning order??? That is your call.

If you go above and beyond to resolve an issue like this for a knife user, that person will remember the absolutely incredibly positive experience they had with you and when they want another custom knife, they will remember that.

That, in my opinion is how you build a client base. You take every opportunity possible exceed your customer's expectations. That is the position that many, many makers take on their work.

Again, your call.

 

[Burchtree]

Personally, I say you should cover the original owner. I think your knives are inexpensive enough that it wouldn't matter to me if you had a warranty at all, besides the original "don't like it, send it back" warranty.

 

[Cougar Allen]

Most knifemakers are willing to fix an abused knife once. They explain to the customer that folding knives aren't really very well designed for chopping steel pipe (or whatever) and tell him they'll fix it this time but never again, so next time use a hacksaw.

Most knifemakers have no difficulty recognizing their own knives so the guarantee applies to the knife not the owner. Of course if it's a knife you made years ago and it's been used hard and it's just worn out nobody will object to paying for the repair, but if you refuse to repair it at all or take forever about it, people will get upset with you.

Most knifemakers hate the idea of knives with their mark on them in circulation that don't lock up properly or won't cut or look like hell, so they're happy to sharpen and polish and adjust knives for a small fee. It's probably good for your business and it's certainly good for your pride -- and if money were all you cared about you wouldn't have gotten into making knives in the first place.

Most knifemakers put priority on repair work. That's unavoidable; everybody who's been making knives for a while has a waiting list and people understand if they want you to make a custom for them they'll have to wait for it, but when they finally do get it they don't expect to have to do without it for months or years while it's sitting in your shop waiting to be sharpened and polished and adjusted. The people on your waiting list for customs can wait a few minutes longer while you do that; they're probably going to have to wait for months anyway....

 

[pfain]

To begin with, speaking from a consumer point of view, it's a big selling point to me. I want a knife that I buy to come with at least a type of lifetime warrenty. That means that the maker is standing by his work.

When I read this post, before answering I went through and visited some manufacturers websites to see what they said about warrenty. Basically, there are two main types, and then subgroups within them. There's limited (a warrenty that covers only 5 years, for instance), and lifetime (both limited lifetime and unconditional). From your post, it looks like you offer lifetime warrenty, so that's what I want to talk about. Limited lifetime basically assures the product is free from defects, and if it is not then it will be replaced, the only fee involved usually being postage or some other nominal fee. And how it works is you send your knife in, it gets inspected, and then it is judged whether or not there is a defect, and it goes from there. Some makers/manufacturers are more flexible and bargainable (I hope that's a word ) than others, so the service you get from one maker might not be the same that you get from another.

Now, unconditional warrenties are something else entirely. This basically means that if it breaks, it gets fixed/replaced. A good example of this is the warrenties offered by Strider and Busse. For me, this can edge out one maker over another, but it won't break a deal. The odds of me actually breaking a knife are very slim, so it works as a psychological reliever. Now, it's all well and good to offer an unconditional warrenty, but to be quite frank, if I was a maker, I wouldn't.

I want to clarify what I just said, and give some examples so that you can see where I am coming from (and to avoid the flames ). Now, it basically comes down to normal use v. abuse. What I consider abuse is to cut the knife in half to look at the grain. Using the knife as a pry bar and screwdriver I consider normal use. There are better tools to be sure, but if I needed to use it for such I would. For a maker to have to eat the cost of a new knife because some idiot cut the blade in half with a bandsaw is idiotic. Now, some makers will replace the knife if that happened. And I applaud them for it, but I wouldn't do it if it were me.

Where it gets sticky is when we shift from fixed blades into folders and the like. As winstonknives said, when two pieces of metal rub together, something will eventually fail. It may take 10 or 100 years, but it will eventually fail. Now, to replace a knife due to normal wear and tear is an iffy point. I would like to say that if a knife came back due to this the maker would eat the cost and repair/replace it, but I'm not sure at what point that would really start eating into their profit. I'm sure that as much as they love it, knife makers would rather eat something other than ramen noodles and mac and cheese. And sleeping on cardboard ain't that much fun. I can't imagine any of my knives being worn to a degree that they would fail in that fashion, but I've never dealt with automatics, which were mentioned in the original post.

Now, about the non-original owners of knives, well, they should get the same treatment as the original owner. In that statement there is an implicit understanding of buyer beware. Inspect it before you buy it. If you send in a knife in pieces, don't expect a brand spanking new piece back, unless something was structurally wrong or some such, even if you are the original owner or not. To my mind, it comes down to stupidity versus expectation.

I'm going to stop now to keep this readable, as I could go on for quite a ways more. There are some things that I didn't bring up, but that was for space. Ok, flame on then.

AB

 

[stich]

Hard to say, but it's your call. I love the Craftsman warranty. They have gotten tens of thousands of my dollars through the years because of it. They are not the best tools, nor the best for the buck, but they have the best warranty bar none, especially for my ability to break kryptonite in a single use. For the same reason, Busse/SwampRat will see some of my business in the near future. In the situation you described, if there is any possibility you had any part in the defect, I'd fix it promptly, no matter how many owners. If it is just multiple owner abuse, I'd offer to fix it for a very fair price within X weeks. "The customer is always right" is bullshit. However, you better treat the customer right because you generally make your money when the customer and his friends come back.

 

[notos&w]

i think that the warranty should only cover issues relating to poor materials, poor workmanship or other eventualities which are unrelated to abuse.
personally, i think fixing this knife is very generous but sets a bad precedent.
if the knife breaks when it shouldnt have, fix it. regardless of who owns it. if the knife breaks b/c of abuse, charge the present owner the cost of repair - even if he is the original purchaser.

 

[Keith Montgomery]

Some people will always want to get their knives fixed for free, it doesn't matter if they broke it from abuse or not. I disagree with this. There are knives that are built in a way that they can be given a lifetime unconditional warranty. Most however are not designed to take abuse and if people want to use there knives to do things that knives are not supposed to do, they should be willing to pay to have whatever damage they do fixed.

I have never understood why so many people think that they should be able to throw their folders or use them for prying and when they break thinking they should be fixed under warranty. This is just a totally self-centered outlook. Would they expect to be able to use their car to knock down a building and then have it fixed under warranty? Good luck!

If it is a defect, fix it for free for the length of time that you warranty the knife. If it is obvious abuse, then charge for the repair. If the person has to pay to get his/her knife fixed then maybe they won't abuse it in the future. If they aren't charged then they will just continue to abuse their knives and think that everything should be fixed for free. Of course, you are always going to run into those that say they never abuse their knives and don't know how the end of the blade could have broken off just cutting string. You are going to have to decide how to handle these situations.

 

[brownshoe]

For any small business that depends upon craftmanship I believe that if it's a defect, fix it, no matter who owns it. Your reputation is your honor and your best advertising.

Problems due to abuse or normal use, that's part of life. The owner should pay for repairs and reconditioning. The craftsman should give turn around time for repairs and keep to it.

If someone buys a knife from you in person, they shouldn't return it. People need to be mature enough to make up their mind. If someone buys a knife from you through the mail, give them a few days to return in un-used condition for a refund (minus shipping cost).

I believe that's what is fair. Anymore and you're beyond fairness into charity.

 

[Quiet Storm]

You don't need to fix knives that have clearly been abused, but if you do so, people will probably praise your customer service and are more likely to buy another knife from you or they might convince others to buy one of your knives, which of course would be a very good thing.

 

[dsvirsky]

IMHO, a maker's warranty should cover the knife, not the owner. Defects, whether they be materials or workmanship, should be covered, period. I also think it would be nice if a maker offered to reimburse for return shipping when there was an obvious flaw in the construction of the knife (something that should have been caught before the knife was shipped).

Abuse is another matter entirely. You broke it, you pay to have it fixed.

Normal wear and tear is a grey area. Personally, I expect to pay to have something reconditioned. But a maker who says, "just pay me for the parts" will win a special place in my heart -- assuming I ever use one of my knives enough to actually wear something out.

 

[Evolute]

Apparently, I see things a little differently from some of the others, here. To my view, what your responsibility is should be a simple matter of how you've obligated yourself.

Make your warranty any way you like. Your responsibility is to: 1) State your warranty clearly; 2) Honor the warranty you've stated. That's all.

If you don't think the warranty should cover multiple owners, just put in your warranty that the warranty covers the original owner exclusively. If you don't think the warranty should cover any and all types of use (including "abuse"), specify in your warranty that the warranty doesn't cover damage from stressful impacts, or from torque, or whatever. It's okay to limit your warranty, just so long as you are clear with your customers going into the deal.

Is it good business to limit your warranty? That will likely vary from maker to maker, depending on the business model s/he's created, and the types of knives being made. I would guess that, generally, you will make more money from increased sales from the better warranty than you will lose from occasionally repairing/replacing knives. Thus, it might well pay off to occasionally simply eat the cost of a repair that you know was necessitated by gross negligence, understanding that this is just a cost of operating your business. But that's just a guess.

There certainly are people, such as myself, who would only buy a knife which is intended for hard use if it came with an unconditional lifetime warranty. (I would not consider an unconditional lifetime warranty as relevant for my other knife purchases, such as a kitchen knife.)

You need to find the balance which works best for you. Then make it clear to your customers and stick to it.

--Mike