Posts: 1663
Location: Kodiak, AK | THIS IS NOT A BASHING POST! I'm a MinnKota and Lowrance repeat customer (as recently as last week on both).
With that said, I'll say this: I think this is the nature of the business. People rant and rave about Lowrance, but I use Lowrance and have two on my boat and just bought a new 27C. I like MinnKota and just bought a new Terrova. I accept the fact that I just dropped all of this money and I may be left hanging out to dry if something goes wrong. They're both brand new and under their respective warranties, but the fact of the matter is that we're dealing with overly large corporations who are owned by other companies and they all have bottom lines. MinnKota and Lowrance both know that our choices are slim. Motor Guide or MinnKota. Lowrance, Humminbird, Garmin. That's pretty much it. They've got us, and if we don't like their product or service, they know there's 1,000 customers in line behind us who will. We need their product worse than they need our business is what it comes down to. Same as getting warrantee work done on a Ford or Chevy; I've had bad experiences with dealers and getting things covered and having them cover their product and take care of me.
Compare that to say, the fly reel industry. Most quality fly reels are still made in USA by relatively small companies. Some are corporate and are part of larger corporations and so forth, but the flyfishing equipment industry is still on a relatively small scale, where when you call them and deal with them, you'll be talking to one of maybe twenty people who work there, if not the owner! I had a problem with the annodization on a reel a few years ago; I had some pitting start to show up. I called the company down in Florida, the owner/designer answered the phone, appologized for five minutes that that reel had made it out the door, and sent me a new one second day air. It's a small company, which is actually a tool and die company that makes reels, and he needs my business as much as I want his reels. He knows that I could go to Bauer, Abel, Islander, Loop, Ross, Hardy, or Orvis and he'd be out a customer.
Motor Guide and MinnKota will both have lemons in the field, smoking pedals and problems on 10, and will each have good and bad stories of customer service. It's the nature of dealing with the majority of large corporate companies. Doesn't make either of them bad companies.
Jeff |
