Let's share warranty experiences

Climbing gear is very expensive! Which companies offer good warranties, and more importantly, which companies will STAND BY their warranties when put to the test? Let's share some data points.

I wrote this article recently where I shared my exact issues and experiences with CamelBak, Arcteryx, Outdoor Research, Patagonia, The North Face, REI, and Petzl. But if you don't want to read it (it's very long), here are my *personal* customer service ratings for these companies (in USA):

• Camelbak: 10/10. excellent lifetime warranty, willing to replace old beaten-out stuff with no complaints.
• OR: 10/10 quick and painless replacement of broken splitter gloves under lifetime warranty.
• Arcteryx: 6/10. Standard response seems to be a 40% off coupon. I was able to get them to replace a jacket but it took some pushing. Had a pair of approach shoes fall apart in one summer that they refused to replace.
• Patagonia: 10/10. excellent lifetime warranty and Worn Wear program. They are happy to make small patches instead of doing a wasteful outright replacement. Good corporate ethics.
• North Face: 7/10. good effort from their customer service team but they weren't able to solve my problem
• REI: 10/10. never had any issues returning gear myself, although I have heard stories of people who do. 1-year no questions asked policy (used to be lifetime).
• Petzl: 10/10. warrantied a broken harness under 3 year limited warranty with minimal issues.
• Sharp End Publishing: 9/10. Guidebook publisher. I had a guidebook fall apart on me 2 weeks after buying it, and the owner came to my house and replaced it with a new one! Very cool.

The warranty policy of a company is a big factor in my purchasing decision, so it'd be great if you all could share warranty or customer service experiences so we all can support companies that offer reliable warranty policies and good customer service! Beta on big retailers AND small local outfits both welcome. Policies can change so let's try and keep this limited to experiences within the last 3 years or so. Thanks!

Earlier this year I bought a pair of Remoras off of the madrock website. After just 4 sessions they started delaminating so I contacted their customer service and asked for a warranty. They sent me a new pair and asked me to "render the old pair unusable" by marking and X on them in sharpie. I now have two pairs of Remoras, one with some delam issues and a cool decal. 10/10 would recommend.

BD sent me a chalk bag because my previous one didn’t close all the way. It was a discontinued model but they still sent me a replacement for free

Osprey 8/10. I lost the helmet carrier net thingy for my Mutant 38. They sent a new one for free, but the first one they sent was for a discontinued Mutant 28; I had to send photos of my pack to help them figure out what I needed, and when they sent the right part, it was the wrong color. A little bit of communication instead of just tossing an item in the mail would have been good. With all of that being said, they still gave me a free part to replace something I lost, so I can't be upset. 

Eddie Bauer 10/10. They give you basically no hassles. I exchanged a fairly well-used jacket which had started to shed down at an alarming rate, and returned an unused jacket for a full refund after a year. 

Kelty 10/10. My sister borrowed my 10-year-old Trail Ridge 4 tent and broke one of the fiberglass brow poles. Kelty mailed me a new one, no questions asked. 

Mammut 10/10 - Had a backpack strap tear after several years of hard use (i think it was an older version of the trion guide). Sent back the pack and they diagnosed this issue as a quality control problem during production. Sent me a brand new backpack (the newer version) no questions asked.

Deadbird 10/10 - Had an FL365 harness for over a year and the belay loop was fraying quite a bit and had been partially sliced. Warrantied it for the new C-Quence harness as the FL365 was discontinued. Unfortunately, this was a downgrade but I was able to flip it to get a different harness.

Deadbird: 10/10 replaced a Alpha FL jacket due to delam. replaced a pair of shorts when zipper broke.

Mammut: 0/10. Jacket zipper broke, told me to find a local tailor. Didn't respond on what type of waterproof zipper to use.

Amazon hold reseller - Bought 10 jugs, one didn't have a bolt hole drilled all the way through. Sent photos to ask for a replacement, but they don't have single holds, since they buy whole packs from the mfg. Told me they were replacing the whole set, and that I should destroy the rest. so....

Lost the closing strap bucklee on my Patagonia Assecionits backpack, sent me a new one to Hong Kong with no charge and no questions 11/10 

Gregory 10/10- the zipper broke on one of my Gregory backpacks. Probably my fault, I abused the shit out of it. I sent it in and they sewed on a new zipper no questions asked, quite quickly.

divnamite wrote:

Deadbird: 10/10 replaced a Alpha FL jacket due to delam. replaced a pair of shorts when zipper broke.

Mammut: 0/10. Jacket zipper broke, told me to find a local tailor. Didn't respond on what type of waterproof zipper to use.

I'll agree with Mammut being 0/10. I too had a zipper break on an expensive down jacket. Was essentially told I was SOL. No more Mammut clothing purchases for me. Too many other good brands that actually stand behind their products.

For a positive, I'll say that Salomon is 10/10. Had a pair of boots that I wore in essentially the most rugged and harshest environment possible and they suffered as I expected them to (still held up better than everyone else's other-brand boots), and Salomon sent me a brand new pair for free.

Patagonia - 10/10, they've always been good to me (several items repaired or replaced)

Osprey - 10/10, quick, easy part replacement (just bought another pack from them ;-)

Petzl - 10/10, just replaced a broken drill

Arcteryx - 5/10, offered me a different (rather inferior by comparison) day pack at a discount, for a pack that was in excellent shape but had interior coating delamination.

REI - 3/10, reduced their lifetime, no questions asked 100% satisfaction guarantee policy to one year.  that's fair enough for items purchased from that time on, BUT they're using that new one year policy for items that were purchased under their lifetime 100% satisfaction guarantee policy (ie they're reneging).

Black Diamond - 0/10, did not warranty an older style #2 camalot with microcracks in the cam lobes (no falls on this cam)

REi 2/10 Tent with zipper that lasted only about 30 days of use (tho over 10 years old). Purchased under lifetime. After much arguing they gave me half credit toward a new tent that cost twice as much. Then the credit didn't show on my card and it took a month to get a "gift card" to be used on ANOTHER item.

Ben Schuldt wrote:

Deadbird 10/10 - Had an FL365 harness for over a year and the belay loop was fraying quite a bit and had been partially sliced. Warrantied it for the new C-Quence harness as the FL365 was discontinued. Unfortunately, this was a downgrade but I was able to flip it to get a different harness.

Wow I had almost the exact same thing happen and am currently amidst the warranty process. Hopefully it pans the same, although I just bought a new c quence and don’t love the skinny waist belt 

Marmot: 

2/10

Sleeping bag had 90% of its down migrate out of the chest area and down towards the feet after less then a year of light use. Bag was always stored hanging from a hook in my bedroom, foot box up. I tried to redistribute the down via an industrial dryer and a lot of tennis balls, but it never moved back into the chest area. 

First they denied my request for warranty, they after a lot of pressure, they gave in and asked me to ship my sleeping bag to the east coast. 

Upon "Inspection" of the bag, they offered  2 options:

 30% refund towards another sleeping bag usable within 30 days (Note: Comparable bag or next model up was not in stock, so my choice was a lesser warmth bag for 30% off)

I pay $120 and they could run it through there industrial dryer

They would not return my bag to me as is. 

In the end I paid the $120 and had the down redistributed, it didn't work and after one use is back to what it was.... Definitely not buying another Marmot down product for the foreseeable future. 

I only give them 2/10 because they were quick to reply to my arguments. 

Osprey. 10/10. Ski strap buckle broke, emailed for a replacement, they shipped 2 new one to me for free. Also ask me if I would like to send it in if I don't know how to thread a buckle (LOL).

Patagonia. 10/10. They repaired several of my jackets/pants. Replaced one pair of pants where the internal belt broke.

La Sportiva. 0/10. Delam on my TC Pro. Told me to pound sand. I gorilla glue the shoes myself.

Roxy. 0/10. My wife's new pants lasted 5 days of skiing before zipper ripped. Told us we are SOL.

Burton. 8/10. Snowboard bag wheels broke. They won't warranty it in store (NYC's SOHO flagship store). I paid for shipping to warranty center.

Patagonia 10/10 don't ever throw away your patagonia goods. Take them into a store and see what they say/do/offer. 

Butora 10/10 told them my shoes were delaminating, asked me for a picture and an address to send a new pair

Marmot 0/10 had a guide down jacket panel split at the stitching first season of use, all down from that panel lost, paid to ship to them to offer me a coupon. Out $400 i think, it was a while ago. Edit to add: like the post a few above mine, marmot would also not send my jacket back as it was. (I sew and would have taken the down out to use for something else.) I bought something really expensive from marmot, wore it 3 or 4 times before it exploded, paid to ship it to them, then they kept it and would not give it back, and i got nothing in the end (not using a coupon they offered me because i didn't want to purchase another of their products after that). 

Mountain hardware 0/10 for me but have heard otherwise from friends.

Adidas/Five Ten: 9/10 for warranty process, 3/10 on outcome because the replacement didn't fit due to product changes (not really Adidas's fault, I guess).

Sent in my Moccs because the leather uppers were beginning to tear. Pretty sure I paid for shipping; got a new pair back pretty quickly. Unfortunately, they'd since changed the design enough that the new pair didn't fit--too small/narrow, no matter what I did to try to break them in. I didn't bother contacting them about a new replacement and just sold the shoes instead; perhaps they would have replaced them with a size up. All in all, I wish I'd just put some glue on my trusty old pair and kept climbing in them. RIP.

kinda surprised to see all of the 0/10 for mammut... i can't be the only one who has had a good experience with them.

BD 10/10. More in the customer service realm, but a few years ago, I sent in more than a dozen C4's for their re-sling service. Long story short, the shipment was either lost in the mail or delivered to the wrong address, and BD replaced my entire rack for the cost of new slings

BD 10+/10: They’re replaced a few broken products with the newer more robust models for me, no hassles no questions asked. Really impressed by their customer service.

REI 10/10: I don’t think I need to even say anything. 

Outdoor Research 9.99/10: Very friendly and more than generous, but the process needs some updating. (As of 2019 at least.)

Arcteryx 0/10: I’ve had 2 warranty attempts with them, both of which they claimed it was standard wear and tear. They offered to sell me GearAid products...? It looks like over the past few years they'v removed all mention of their warrantees from their site, you can only find it buried deep in their customer support page, where they are pretty clear that they do not offer any sort of lifetime warrantee. "The Practical Product Lifespan does not mean for your lifetime or mean a time period that is indefinite."  I like their clothes, but I don’t expect them to fix anything at this point.