What the difference between Warranty and Wear?

[DeadboxHero]

I'm perplexed, I thought a Warranty covers bad workmanship, something that should have never gotten past QC.

I love the idea of getting a free knife sure, but will I ever need to with a quality product?

 

[NJBillK]

Some issues are hard to notice with the naked eye, such as a flaw in HT that causes a blade to fail.

In other words, don't judge a book (knife?) by its cover.

 

[bodog]

Bill, I sent you an email

 

[afishhunter]

Warranty: Sudden Failure. (excluding sudden failure caused by abuse, such as batoning, prying, using the knife as a screwdriver, stabbing cars, chopping concrete blocks or bricks, etc.)
Warranty also covers things like an off center blade, excessive blade wobble (not caused by abuse) and other QC issues.

Wear: Dings, scratches, sharpening; just general wear and tear from nonabusive use over time.

High end "name brand" knives or inexpensive knives can have QC issues. From what I've seen here on the forums, some high end brands are more likely to have QC issues than an inexpensive brand, like Rough Rider or Colt.

 

[Inazone]

I outlined a recent warranty return experience with a Schrade knife here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...king-of-a-new-Schrade?p=15359179#post15359179

This is the third knife I can recall needing to return. One was a craptastic United Cutlery knife bought from the rainforest site, which had a defective sheath; it was replaced without hassle and they told me to keep the first knife to do as I saw fit with it. The second, a defective Kershaw Shuffle, was returned via UPS return tag and replaced with a new one. The Schrade, which appeared fine out of the box, broke while I was batoning with it. Most folks would say that this constitutes abuse, but because the break was caused (based on all appearances) by a manufacturing flaw, Schrade sent me a replacement with no questions asked. My only complaint was that I had to pay to ship the broken knife back, but I understand that this is some companies' policy.

Some brands will replace a broken knife regardless of the cause, even if not actually defective. Others will resist by whatever means possible. I don't expect routine QC to find problems like the one I experienced with my Schrade, but the other two I mentioned would have been immediately obvious if given even a second look. The issue with warranties is that, much like with insurance claims, people will try to come up with some reason why it's the manufacturer's fault that a product broke, honesty be damned.

 

[Charr]

Warranty: Sudden Failure. (excluding sudden failure caused by abuse, such as batoning, prying, using the knife as a screwdriver, stabbing cars, chopping concrete blocks or bricks, etc.)
Warranty also covers things like an off center blade, excessive blade wobble (not caused by abuse) and other QC issues.

Wear: Dings, scratches, sharpening; just general wear and tear from nonabusive use over time.

High end "name brand" knives or inexpensive knives can have QC issues. From what I've seen here on the forums, some high end brands are more likely to have QC issues than an inexpensive brand, like Rough Rider or Colt.

I wouldn't say that this is generally the case, but it's more that the small issues in more expensive knifes are more of a problem to us because we spent more money on them and expect not to have those issues in that level of a knife. In a Rough Rider or a Colt knife, you more or less expect the knife to have some inherent issues from the factory, but you paid much less than say a Benchmade or a Spyderco (in general), so you don't have as much of an issue with them, and the effort required to resolve the issue or to have the issue addressed and resolved as a whole by the manufacturer isn't really as much worth it on that $20 knife as it is on a $100-$200 knife.

Case is a good example of this. I really like Case knives as a more affordable method of getting usable traditional knives, but you will expect that the blade will often be a little off-center, there might be some play in the blade itself, the factory edge might be a little toothy and wavy, and the covers might not line up perfectly with the bolsters, so you aren't generally going to have an issue with it as much as you would with say a GEC knife, which could easily cost twice as much as the equivalent Case pattern.
The difference is also that GEC is known for having a higher standard of QC, and so people will be much more likely to complain about a bad GEC than a bad Case, because they know the company will generally hold up to their product in order to maintain that appearance of higher QC and overall fit and finish.