Good companies - With questionable manufacturing.
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There are 3 kinds of companies.
- Good companies that only have high quality products
- Poor companies with poor quality products.
- Good companies with that contract with #2 for some of their stuff.
Company 1 Is the best, but usually the most expensive and tend to be few and far between.
Spot 2 is where the bulk of companies lie. Production overseas done at the lowest possible cost. The definition of "you get what you pay for" and service is either non-existent or hit and miss.and 3 Is generally where you want to live as a company. It allows you to make your own high quality stuff and outsource some cheap stuff that mostly meets your standards and fills a hole in the market without requiring too much attention from your main lines. ARB is that 3rd company. Sure, the quality control on some of their overseas stuff is hit and miss...but when it's miss they don't dick around and they jump at the chance to make it right.
Case in point. I set up the bedouin tent in the yard yesterday to air out the fresh pvc stank
I was putting it away when I discovered this.
Some of the stitching that wasn't done right on a vertical double stitched seam. I was sorta "meh" on it because it wasn't going to affect it that much and I knew with the price what I was getting. Then I noticed this.
This is a fail. This will 100% lead to this critical seam failing before long. This is one of 2 primary places the tent is supported. If this fails, the tent is junk.
I sent them an email last night and first thing this morning they got back to me. They needed some details and with that they are sending me a new tent with an RMA for the old one. I don't have to send this back and wait - they are just going to send me a new one and wait for the old one on their end.
While I would have prefered not to have to worry about the workmanship of the product in the first place, the price suggested that was always going to be a gamble. The way to offset that gamble though, is to buy from companies that understand how expensive it is to NOT support customers, even on their overseas stuff with less than flagship quality.
Some kind of sentient rodent - Overland Curator.
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Just find a quilt shop, they'll stitch you right up 🧵
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@ForSweden I could sew it up myself...but why?
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Say Jeep or Chrysler without saying Jeep or Chrysler...
60% of the time, my Jeep runs every time.
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@Man-With-A-Reliable-Jeep My experience with Jeep customer service must be very different than yours.
Some kind of sentient rodent - Overland Curator.
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@HammerheadFistpunch said in Good companies - With questionable manufacturing.:
I could sew it up myself...but why?
Content for your trad-core homesteading influencer social media channels
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Neighbor one to neighbor two "First it's those damn cars. Now he's pitched a tent on the front lawn!!!"
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@HammerheadFistpunch I paid top dollar for a duvet cover from company #1, and after a short while the zipper started to come unstitched. They offered for me to take it to a local tailor and have it repaired but I told them if I wanted the hassle I could have just bought the chinese one for 1/6th the price and that I had bought the fancy 'made in Canada' one for that reason. They did give me a refund at least.
I got similar service as you got from ARB from Eureka last year (although I think they manufacture everything overseas) they sent me a replacement no problem and I even got to keep the defective piece.
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@ForSweden said in Good companies - With questionable manufacturing.:
@HammerheadFistpunch said in Good companies - With questionable manufacturing.:
I could sew it up myself...but why?
Content for your trad-core homesteading influencer social media channels
This has legs.
Like "overlanding realities" and 90% of it is glamourous shots of failed Icon shocks, bad stitching, and springs that interfere with bolt heads
10% trip shots.
The earth is round, but even-numbered BMWs don't really exist.
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@HammerheadFistpunch That's a nice chicken coop you have there.
Fresh eggs while overlanding ? That's a brilliant idea ...
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@ash78 this would go for absolutely anything in car culture. 10% of me on back roads in my Miata, sparco seat looking badass with the top down, 90% me having to rip out my fixed back sparco to replace the 02 sensor because it clips in behind the seat that I can't just fold forward anymore.
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@HammerheadFistpunch said in Good companies - With questionable manufacturing.:
There are 3 kinds of companies.
Good companies that only have high quality products
Poor companies with poor quality products.
Good companies with that contract with #2 for some of their stuff.You forgot the fourth kind. Bad companies that produce only high quality products. See: Ferrari
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@HammerheadFistpunch I hate to say it but most mid-range/higher-end brands are #3 these days. I bought first generation Bang & Olufsen E8s way long ago before Airpods and the like were the norm and they were fairly unreliable, but B&O replaced them twice fully under warranty, upgrading to the newer model each time (2nd gen, now 3rd gen). The lack of quality on the originals was fairly unfortunate (literally came unglued in my hands), but the customer service was certainly unparalleled. To their credit, the latest ones have lasted 3 years and are still going, so I guess they finally got it right. It's sad though and so wasteful that it's cheaper for these companies to just send out more free products than to build it well in the first place.
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@HammerheadFistpunch Company Type 4: They make their own stuff, but if it breaks or you don't like it, tough shit. Ran into one of those this week.
Not trying to thread-jack here; I'll just say that I learned that the game "cornhole" is so-named because the bags you throw traditionally are filled with dried corn kernels - hence you throw the corn into the hole. The corn weevils that reside in my cornhole bags may or may not be a traditional filling as well.
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@HammerheadFistpunch said in Good companies - With questionable manufacturing.:
@Man-With-A-Reliable-Jeep My experience with Jeep customer service must be very different than yours.
I'm trying to figure out if that's a good thing or a bad thing...
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@HammerheadFistpunch said in Good companies - With questionable manufacturing.:
The way to offset that gamble though, is to buy from companies that understand how expensive it is to NOT support customers, even on their overseas stuff with less than flagship quality.
This point can't be stressed enough. Like how many employers don't understand that employee turnover is bad, it's expensive to hire and train...dealing with an unhappy customer is expensive and leads to that customer possibly going elsewhere. The Cost of Acquiring Customers (CAC) is often high, just give them high quality, if possible.
