I like to start a discussion on Rod Warranties & how people are handling them. If there's enough interest, please reply & I'll start with specific comments & questions.

What are your questions and comments?

I've been building high end rods for about 25 years as a part time thing. Recently, decided to do it full time. As a result, will probably be building 150-250 fly rods per year. Was interesting in discussing the financial, from a cost vs pricing perspective and the labor time perspective.

I'm OK with the blank manufacturer's warranty perspective but would like to know how other professional builders deal with the parts (guides, reelseats, etc.) & labor costs/pricing. Any insights are welcome.

I tried to look at things from the perspective of the customer. If a rod failed due to an actual parts or workmanship defect, I replaced it free of charge. If it failed due to abuse or neglect, I would charge the customer for a new rod, less any parts that could be transferred over.

Luckily, 99% of all broken rods get that way due to neglect or abuse and not from an actual defect. (Yes, even those rods that are "broken on a fish" are usually not defective, but have been fractured at some previous time.)

Just as important as the warranty issue, is what the custom builder can do to help prevent problems before they occur. Educate your customer on the proper way to care for and store a fine fishing rod. Show him or her the things that break rods and how to avoid them. Also learn how to reconize which breaks are due to abuse and which are true defects. (The January/February 2000 RodMaker went into great detail on this.)

And finally, have your warranty policy in writing and explain it to each and every customer before the sale is made.

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Thanks for the feedback Tom. I'll look up the article in RodMaker.....

But playing devil's advocate for a moment, it's relatively easy doing the upsell on a custom vs. factory assembled rod but it's difficult to match up with the "no fault" policies of some of the high end manufacturers.

By the way, keep up the great work on the magazine. Your and your staff's insights are both enjoyable & informative.

Thanks, Rich

If the customer selects the blank and components, then I let him or her worry about the warranty on those items. I warranty my workmanship only. If a rod comes back broken I leave it up to the customer to return the rod to the factory that made the blank and then he can bring me the replacement blank and I will rebuild it for the labor cost and any components that cannot be exchanged from one to the other.

I know it is a hard sell to compete with the no-fault warranties so I don't try to. I try to emphasize that what I am selling is quality and not an insurance policy against breakage. Sometimes it's not enough but most times if the customer is looking for something special, a no fault warranty is not very high on his list of priorities anyway.

On rod warrentys, pad your bill to cover your labor. Blanks have a warrent y against factory defects. I dont warrent against abuse.You can salvage the guides and ree-seat. The forgrip and but grips you can not save
Bob

Sorry about the secound imput. I have built custom rods for about 20 years. My custermers satisfaction is most important to me. I have 5 or 6 custermers that order a new rod from me every year. So I due my best to comply with there wishes. I would hate to lose there business over a warrenty disagrement. As I explain to them. I do not massproduce my rods. That the rod I buid for then is designed for them. I have my custermers come in and try the feel of their handles 2 or 3 times to make sure it fits them the way they want, then they come back to test cast it with their reel. So in realiy they help build there rod. I explain this to each custermer. If a new custermer comes in tells me these are the guides, blank and handle he wants. Then he has whiplash when I tell him what it well cost and he says I can the same rod off the shelf. Then I tell him he better because that rod is not custom built for him, but for 6.000 other fishermen like him.
If you build a excellent rod do not sell your self short. There are rod builders out there, but there are a select few that are custom rod builders

Have been using these since '86. The customer has to sign the custom rod warranty. The reel and rod repair warranty is on the back of the workorder.

Rod and Reel REPAIR WARRANTY:

Bolt's Tackle Service warrants that any item it repairs will be free from mechanical failure for 3 months from date of invoice. This warranty applies only to specific labor and parts listed in the service record, not to the design or operational intent of the manufacturer. Misuse, abuse or neglect voids this warranty. Parts lost or damaged due disassembly of the item by anyone not authorized by Bolt's Tackle Service are not covered by this warranty. Bolt's Tackle Service's liability is limited to the value of the repairs performed.

CUSTOM ROD WARRANTY

CUSTOM RODS have an original-purchaser 10 year warranty against any defects in workmanship. Bolt's Tackle Service is not responsible for defects in materials. We pass on the manufacturer's material warranty, if available. If any defect in workmanship appears, we will at our option, repair or replace rod. If any defect in materials appears, we will contact the manufacturer concerning replacement cost, if any, and provide the customer with a repair estimate. NOTE: blank manufacturers may not warrant a blank that has been altered in any way including cutting to length, or cutting to make a two-piece rod.
The BOLT CUSTOM ROD WARRANTY does not cover failure due to damage to a rod caused by workmanship of others, misuse, or negligence.

customer price and warranty acceptance:
name:_______________________________________ date:_____________

Let's say a rod was broken due to a defect. You guys charge for a replacing the grips - the seat and guides are slavaged. So you build him a new rod at no cost basically. What about butt wraps, weaves and any other custom +++'s you put on the frst rod, do you re-charge for this on a rod that was broke due to a defect.

I have this great fear of building a rod with a complex, long butt wrap, and handle inlays, then a month later the rod comes back to me broke due to a defect. How do you go about this - recharge and risk losing the customer, or just suck it up and do it again at no cost. Too bad we can't slide the wrap off teh old rod and onto the new one!

Billy

You can't salvage a reel seat! The only materials that you can salvage are guides and tops. You can't even salvage a properly installed butt cap.

The repair/replacement estimate includes the price to do all work to restore or replace the rod to its original condition. All original work gets charged back just as it was priced in the original estimate.

I would rather risk loosing the customer than spending 10 or 12 rebuilding a highly decorated rod for next to free. You could easily loose your butt rebuilding rods for free. Lets say you get a hold of a batch of 10 bad blanks. You build highly decorated rods on those blanks with a labor time of 10 hours each at 20/hour. All of the blanks fail. You now have to rebuild these rods reducing your labor rate to 10/hour. Takikng it to the next extreme, lets say that you are unlucky enough to get another bad batch of blanks to rebuild on. You now reduce your labor rate to 5/hour. Now not only are you only making 5/hour you are loosing 15/hour on lost new work.

Factories can get away with replacing rods for free. When you have cheap overseas labor and next to nothing in material costs it is no problem to build 3 or 4 replacement rods for every 1 you sell.

I have lost business in the last couple of years because of the warranty and the fact that I (with the kick in the ass from Kirkman) now price my rods for what they should be priced at. I will NEVER price a custom rod for less that what a factory or another high quality custom builder prices theirs for. If I can't charge 20or25/hour of which I might clear 10/hour, I would just as soon quit building customs. If I wanted to work for minimum wage, I would just as soon flip burgers and not have to put up with running a business and the dreaded paperwork every month.

Billy,

Your point is well understood by most custom rod builders. From the customer's perspective, if the failure ocurred due to an actual defect in the blank, why should he or she have to pay anything for a replacement? From your standpoint, it's a real pain to have to eat the labor on all that intricate work just to keep a customer who may or may not buy more rods from you.

All the more reason to charge a bit more. I ended up adding an extra $15 to each rod that I built. I built up a fund with which I could "pay" myself for any rods that I had to replace. In effect, a broken rod actually created another rod sale for me. This is not altogether different from what the manufacturers do. Those "no-fault" warranties aren't free - the custom pays for it when he buys the rod. Some amount of additional money is added to what the price would have been otherwise. The factories know about how many rods will come back during a year and can accurately figure how much extra to add so that the replacements don't really cost them anything. (Free replacments do cost in other ways however, such as fewer rods being sold down the road to people who would otherwise have to purchase new rods.)

Tom I agree with what you say entirely. What a custom rod builder must understand,is that he is not in compition with a massproducer.
It his knowledge and his special care in detailing his custermers rod for his custormer alone and no other rod around well look or act as his does,If they want a copycat they should buy one off a shelf. As for a warrenty. I add a little more to the custorms cost. I have built enough butt paterns that most are easly replaced. I also put changes in all my patterns so that unless I make a note some where I can't even replace it
Tom how about emailing me about what I say I love critasium as long as it is constructive......warren321@yahoo.com
Hope to hear from you Bob

Thanks to all who provided input on this topic.

Obviously, we all feel strongly regarding this matter.

To this day, I don't understand why the industry (i.e. rod manufacturers) felt compelled to implement "no fault" warranties on their products. I firmly believe that there are NO winners with this policy..... and I include consumers.

I will say that No Fault warranties have hurt my business. Regardless of the quality, aesthetics and personal service which I can tout as an "added value" as it pertains to the custom built rod, a significant portion of the customer base's first question is "Is there a no fault warranty?"

I guess in retrospect, the bottom line is that we really don't want to build rods for those consumers who consider our product a disposable commodity. We focus our efforts on our own self satisfaction, our never-ending struggle to achieve perfection and that occasional customer who really "loves & cherishes the @#$%&" out of what we build them.

I hope one of the blank company reps will answer this. If I take a blank, before I build a rod on it, and put it into a full bend, let's say a good 90 degress down into the power section, and do this on several axis's. Really stress the blank good. Is it reasonable to assume that it is a sound blank and is not defective. And that any future failure can be attributed to customer abuse?

It seems to me that custom builders should be able to stress test these blanks when they come in and determine that they are structurally sound and tell the customer that any breakage will be due to abuse and not a defect. But maybe I am missing something and defects won't show up until much later in use. Any thoughts here?

Pete:

You are right on here. I show all of my customers the very same demonstration. If the blank is structurally sound before it is put together, there is no problem with the blank. The only "defect" is from either neglect or misuse. In either case, not the blank's fault.

I like Mike's idea about the warranty for customers to know up front.
We do a similar arrangement without handing to each customer this paper, although I am considering implementing such ideas.
For customers wanting 'matching' warranties like the lifetime factory ones for any reason breakage, it's often a hard sell and as Mike points out a loss of a possible sale, and so be it. You'll save grief as Tom points out rebuilding and rebuilding.
For those who have an 'inborn talent' of breaking rod tips no matter what (abuse, car doors, stepping, etc.) it's only justifiable to charge them for the rebuild to a reasonable amount you can absorb.
The labor charge mentioned is not unreasonable, and as for fancy buttwraps on the replacement rod will become more of an option with a higher price. Perhaps that is an extra line to include with the warranty card given to a customer.

As Tom also points out it's a good idea to include an extra 'insurance' charge, call it 'materials' for lack of a better justification. Over time it will take care of the very few that are returned for rebuild. Remember also, as a custom builder also can do the rod repair which usually a guide replacement is no problem and can keep your customer happy without charging for the service of the small repair.

One more point, Tom earlier suggested to 'educate' your customers about the use and handling, care and 'luck' with your new custom rod. It can go a long way in the way the rods are treated. We build tournament rods for certain folks we know will treat them specially from other rods. Even with the excitement and turmoil of tournament activity, we find these customers treat these as their 'special favorite' rods and will assure their continuing use for the future by the 'extra care'. One duty I feel as a custom rodbuilder is to help your customers appreciate the beauty, function, and 'luck', personalization with the custom rod by informing the reality of the rod as a fishing tool and nothing beyond that (reefing it when snagged, for instance).

Rich
Solyrich Custom Rods

Found my pricing and approval sheet. This is for new customers.

CUSTOMER PRICING AND APPROVAL

NAME:________________________DATE:__________ PHONE(DAY):__________________________(NIGHT):____________________
ROD ESTIMATE FILE NUMBER:________________

SUBTOTAL: = $__________

EXCISE TAX: + $__________ 10% OF 60% OF SUBTOTAL

STATE TAX: + $__________ 6% OF SUBTOTAL
==========

SELL
TOTAL: = $__________

DOWNPAYMENT: - $__________
==========

BALANCE DUE: = $__________




BOLT CUSTOM ROD WARRANTY

BOLT CUSTOM RODS have an original-purchaser 10-year warranty against any defects in workmanship. Bolt’s Tackle Service is not responsible for defects in materials. We pass on the manufacturer’s material warranty, if available.
If, by chance, any defect in workmanship appears, we will at our option, repair or replace rod.
If, by chance, any defect in materials appears, we will contact the manufacturer concerning replacement cost, if any, and provide the customer with a repair estimate. NOTE: blank manufacturers may not warrant a blank that has been altered in any way including cutting to length, or cutting to make a two-piece rod.
The BOLT CUSTOM ROD WARRANTY does not cover failure due to damage caused by workmanship of others, misuse, or negligence.

Customer price and warranty acceptance:
Name:_______________________________________ date:_____________