Zero Tolerance Liner Lock Closures?

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Update: I talked to ZT customer service. I spoke with they guy who did the warranty work. He states the knife was tested for both lock rock and spine whacks and passed both before being sent to me.

So during shipping it somehow developed lock rock and the lock slips. (He did not say this and neither am I) hmm

Although he was in disbelief of what I was saying he was very nice and sent me a prepaid shipping label and said to send it in and they would fix it.

At least I don’t have to pay anymore money to ship it.
 
Don't Sebenzas fail spine wacking alot? Saw Demko on youtube making mincemeat out of the Seb 21 it failed spine wack every time and would not hold 45lbs. ZT certainly deserves a severe upbraiding, saying they fixed that previously mentioned knife but did not, along with these BS dynamics of their lockups both detent wise and weak lockup wise. I have an 0630 as my EDC it passes spine wack every time but I won't recommend them from now on. IN YOUR FACE,...ZT!
 
I have been following this thread with interest since it’s inception. I also watched many YouTube vids, and then tested my liner lock 0770 (lockup is fine).

I have had two poor experiences with Kai customer service, but admittedly only filled out a warranty card with no phone call. That said, they completely disregarded both warranty requests and did the exact opposite of what was requested. I am waiting return of a CPM 154 Leek to see if third times a charm. (Unsafe early lock up, speedsafe would not deploy blade, blade grind was very poor).

Kai makes wonderful designs and uses great materials. But in my own opinion as a consumer, if you market in the way they do it’s important to make sure your product folllows the claim.

This lock issue has prevented me from purchasing several ZT models. This is frustrating as I REALLY wanted them and had saved up for several. I just can’t warrant spending 240 plus on a knife that may not even function correctly.

In the meantime I am going to wait to see if the company course corrects QC.

It’s actually disheartening as a consumer who loves the Kai brands.
 
klute said:
Don't Sebenzas fail spine wacking alot? Saw Demko on youtube making mincemeat out of the Seb 21 it failed spine wack every time and would not hold 45lbs. ZT certainly deserves a severe upbraiding, saying they fixed that previously mentioned knife but did not, along with these BS dynamics of their lockups both detent wise and weak lockup wise. I have an 0630 as my EDC it passes spine wack every time but I won't recommend them from now on. IN YOUR FACE,...ZT!
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I once bought a used Sebenza in which its lock could be defeated by moderate hand pressure against the lock. I could put about 20lbs or so of pressure against the lock and it would just snap shut. I sent it back to CRK and they re-carbidized the lock bar face and it seemed to solve the problem. I could no longer force it shut by hand pressure. I never spine whacked it so I can't say whether it would have passed that test or not.
 
klute said:
...I have an 0630 as my EDC it passes spine wack every time but I won't recommend them from now on. IN YOUR FACE,...ZT!
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Whut? So you have good personal experience with a knife that passes muster, but you won’t recommend them “IN YOUR FACE,...ZT!”?

Did I miss something?

MolokaiRider said:
Kai makes wonderful designs and uses great materials. But in my own opinion as a consumer, if you market in the way they do it’s important to make sure your product folllows the claim
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No argument there!!!

MolokaiRider said:
This lock issue has prevented me from purchasing several ZT models. This is frustrating as I REALLY wanted them and had saved up for several. I just can’t warrant spending 240 plus on a knife that may not even function correctly.
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It hasn’t deterred me at all, provided it’s a model I like to begin with.

This whole lockbar issue has just reinforced my personal need to QC check any new purchase and make sure the retailer has a sound return policy, if I’m not buying from a B&M. I’d mostly like to see firefighterguy firefighterguy have a successful outcome with Kai CS. <<fingers crossed>>

I’ve had to send Lionsteels back to the vendor (Manufacturing Quality of the Year?). I got a dud Benchmade that wasn’t made much better by a visit to Oregon.

I got a Taichung Spyderco that I didn’t bother checking until after the return period expired—only to subsequently discover it was a dud. It went unsuccessfully back to Golden twice before I resorted to fixing it the best I could on my own. It turned out to be a great EDC knife once I accepted it was never going to be perfect and I benchtopped it to “good enough.” At the time it was extremely frustrating. In the end, heck yeah, I’m still buying Spyderco!

The only issue I’ve had with 6 ZT’s (all 2016 or later) is that my 0450 has gone a little off center after 30 months of use and neurotic flipping. (But daaanng it flipps soooo good! ;)).

TLDR; In conjunction with my personal experience, my take home from this and similar threads is:

1. Personally QC any new knife. If it ain’t right, send it back/don’t buy it.

2. If you disregard #1, don’t count on the manufacuter warranty making it perfect. That’s a sad reality, but my own experience, this thread, and similar comments elsewhere support this, IMO.

3. If problems develop along the way, dang, I’m not sure what to think...I guess a good warranty is at least better than nothing?

4. Kai needs to get that stipid STP tool on the shelf so they can take my 0609 money. (Ok, that’s just me projecting.)

5. Even though I don’t dispute the claims made in the OP video (or anyone else’s, for that matter) I’m still baffled how that guy had such a rotten experience and I haven’t.

Today’s carry of choice:

7D37CA38-89A7-40C4-A0E8-58FC3B721733.jpeg
 
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On youtube the 0630 is on the list of spine wack fails. My knife worked out but other ones no... plus the other problematic ZT models so no. I'm looking at the big picture not just what I see w my knife.
 
Obviously these locks are tricky to get right I think ZT was overly focused on having a knife that was easy to close, therefore the light lockbar pressure. Too much LB pressure and complaints will be I can't close my knife or my lock is stuck. Then lock rock and on and on. Just can't win. I personally liked Cold Steels high pressure approach w the Triad and what was the static? I CANT CLOSE MY KNIFE I AINT BUYIN COLD STEEL NO MORE when in my opinion it's an easy mod to reduce the needed pressure or God forbid it's a macho manly knife!
 
It's more about confidence a knife won't fold up when under higher than light loads for example stabbing through something then again it can be purely psychological. And no not neccessarily a car door lol. I assume people want more "lock" than a slipjoint has when we get these bad boy knives.
 
Mo2 said:
Keep sending it back till its good. Rather annoying they can't seem to fix the problem. They may end up giving you credit if they can't.
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Not sure about your advice. I am fairly certain the owner will have to pay shipping to KAI. USPS priority plus insurance is only about 10 bucks but if he does this several times, the total cost will be nontrivial. Add to that is the increased frustration and dissatisfaction and time wasted.

How about call the CS department, talk to someone there about the issue, and ship the said knife to that customer rep directly?
 
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I'm trying to figure out how literally dozens of bad knives have convinced so many people that ZT knives as a whole are all scary weak crap. They produce thousands of knives a year, even Rockstead has some bad knives. We are seeing well south of a 1% failure rate, multiple people who have had dozens of ZT knives themselves, and only a few people are having failures. This is all based off a YouTube video (first red flag) of a guy that could have easily tampered with his knives to slander the company, considering every single one of his ZT kniges have the exact same failure when so many others have had no issue, it leans closer to intentional.

I don't know the guy, I haven't seen any of these issues aside from one weak lockbar, which is a whopping ~2% failure rate for ZT (one out of about 50 total knives). I've had bad locks and play, and a myriad of other issues occasionally from most makers, and I've never written them off for one or two bad knives, I've written that off as personally bad luck.
 
dkb45 said:
I'm trying to figure out how literally dozens of bad knives have convinced so many people that ZT knives as a whole are all scary weak crap. They produce thousands of knives a year, even Rockstead has some bad knives. We are seeing well south of a 1% failure rate, multiple people who have had dozens of ZT knives themselves, and only a few people are having failures. This is all based off a YouTube video (first red flag) of a guy that could have easily tampered with his knives to slander the company, considering every single one of his ZT kniges have the exact same failure when so many others have had no issue, it leans closer to intentional.

I don't know the guy, I haven't seen any of these issues aside from one weak lockbar, which is a whopping ~2% failure rate for ZT (one out of about 50 total knives). I've had bad locks and play, and a myriad of other issues occasionally from most makers, and I've never written them off for one or two bad knives, I've written that off as personally bad luck.
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In full disclosure, I went into this thread will full scepticism. I mean, these are ZT knives we are talking about. I've used mine hard without an issue...but I never really tested them. They never folded on my fingers and they certainly feel robust.

Then I tested my knives.

The 350 I thought was fixed no longer folds under light pressure like it did, but using the very scientific method of triple folding a sock and putting it over a piece of soft wood and giving the 350 a light tap, it failed.

909, 0452, 630, and 920 all failed. I'm not talking a full on Cold-Steel-beat-the-spine-on-a-pine-board-until-it-leaves-a-dent abusive smacks. I did not strike the back of the blade any harder than what I may accidentally encounter using the knife in normal day to day usage. I'm not trying to destroy my knives, just figuring out if I can trust them to perform as they are advertised (proudly over built, etc)

Only my 850, 462, and 456 stood up to it. Oddly, the 850 and 456 were the only two ZTs that gave me a moment's bit of buyers remorse as I didn't love the designs.

So, 5 failures to 3. All 8 were purchased from a local business over the last 3 years.

I did the same quasi test using some random knives in the drawer by my bed. All tested knives have been carried and used at one point or another as daily work knives. A 12 year old Spyderco Endura (lock back), 10 year old Kershaw Junkyard Dog (liner), 10 year old Kershaw Shallot (frame), 14 year old Spyderco Rescue (lock back), 10+ year old Spyderco Tasman (lock back), 17 year old Buck 110 (lock back), 6 year old Buck 112 (lock back), brand new Steel Will Onrush (liner), and a cheap Chinese give-away knife from a manufacturer (liner) all passed easy peasy.

Once again, not throwing ZT away, but I've lost enough confidence in them to bypass them for the foreseeable future unless I hear differently.
 
WOW! Just ready this whole tread and am "disappointed" to say the least in ZT not at the very least addressing a potential issue. I now have to go home and check out my 0562 & 0620 :|
 
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I cannot speak for "newer" ZT models but I can attest through using multiple of each of the following models 0301/0560BW/0566BW over multiple years that none of these knives failed any spine wack test and the lock never failed on me. However, I did own 4 different variations of the ZT/Emerson collaborations and all had what I deemed a "bad lock". Ever since then I have done "light" testing to insure the knives I'm using have proper lockup. This is also why I love large flippers, they are more than just a deployment method... because anything man made can possibly fail, and a large flipper will protect my fingers.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
Once again, not throwing ZT away, but I've lost enough confidence in them to bypass them for the foreseeable future unless I hear differently.
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I am right there with you. Sad to see problems, even if it is just the microcosm of a few people. as I said before the most disturbing fact is they don't seem to want to fix their product. I'm not talking about the guy who takes a mallet and beats the crap out of his knife, but the gentle tap that will close a knife is unacceptable.

Like you I even took out my old favorite Kershaws to give them a look. Mainly, my Tremor, an old Shallot in 110V that has been carried so much it looks buffed, and a Junkyard Dog. those were all used for work knives in varying capacity and carried for a few years each. No problems with any of them.

So what gives with the new ZT offerings? I don't know, but I cannot afford a failure for any reason. I use my knives hard but don't abuse them. I buy big heavy knives because I do big heavy work with them. And that is supposed to be ZT's claim to fame, right?

It is a tradition of mine to buy a new work knife with birthday money. I don't need one, but of course I want one. Due to this thread, I bought the Cold Steel Ultimate Hunter. It is a utility knife built like a tank, surprisingly slicely, and with the old run of Carpenter Steel. Love it already.

Since I lost interest in the new ZT pocket jewelry line anyway, now that there are still least safety "concerns" I don't know what it would take for me to buy another ZT product.

Robert
 
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I wish ZT had a presence here on the forums. I hope they are aware of this thread and address the issue. They were at one time far and away my favorite brand, but now I own just one, an 0562 which locks up solid (seems the older models were less prone to lock failure?). I suspect BF users only make up a small minority of the ZT's sales, but still it seems if these issues persist they may take a hit.
 
jstn said:
I wish ZT had a presence here on the forums. I hope they are aware of this thread and address the issue. They were at one time far and away my favorite brand, but now I own just one, an 0562 which locks up solid (seems the older models were less prone to lock failure?). I suspect BF users only make up a small minority of the ZT's sales, but still it seems if these issues persist they may take a hit.
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I’m sure they are at least aware of this thread because they have commented on the YouTube guys Instagram page multiple times saying they would resolve the issue.

But I agree it would be nice if they would at least say something.

I don’t believe the YouTube guy has any agenda against ZT. Why would he want to destroy over $1000 worth of knives just to bash them. It cost him over $50 to ship them in for warranty.

I personally used to really like ZT and still do love their designs. However, I’m likely just sticking to Spyderco from now on. ZT won’t miss me and my few knives. Most people that own ZT don’t know what lock rock is or what spine whacks are. Sadly, They’ll truck on regardless.
 
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