Rifle Scopes Venting on Leupold warranty process

[Rob01]

I might suggest that with a $100k car you'll wind up using warranty service more than with a $30k to $40k car as there is a lot more fancy stuff to go wrong.
At least that's been my experience.

Last car = $30k range = essentially only regular maintenance for 100k miles
Current car = $70k range = used warranty service several times in under 15k miles for various little things deciding they didn't like to work.
(But yes on the current one they do offer pickup if you want them to do it & also offer loaner cars and such, I however just drive it in myself & pickup the loaner car, as I'm not all that interested in somebody I don't know driving my car around town or trusting that a tow truck driver isn't going to mess stuff up)

We pick up less expensive cars than $100K too. Even down to the $30K range if an issue.

 

[blbennett1288]

I have had Thunderbeast, Nightforce, Manners, Surefire, Accuracy International, Steiner, and B&T (Atlas Bipods) all pay for shipping labels when enough information is provided with pictures to know who is at fault for the issue.

In my experience with any optic, as it is a specialty craft, the lead time is always 4-8 weeks.

Back in the day I had a MK6 I sent in for service and Leupold's customer service was an absolute joke.

I recently ask for a replacement on a specialty item for bino's, even offered to pay cost, and was told to take a hike and pay full price, even though the item could not withstand "field" conditions. I took my business elsewhere and purchased from Really Right Stuff.

I choose to purchase items, even if they are more expensive, for a company that will stand behind and do you right.

 

[Sum Ting Wong]

Primary Arms let me send in an older SLX that was well out of warranty for tracking issues. They emailed a label and had it back to me within a month all fixed. That’s great CS!

 

[Threadcutter308]

When someone posts WITHOUT quotes, it is assumed they are replying to the OP. In this case, @redneckbmxer24 was asking a question to the OP. What is unclear why you had to address the issue when this is generally universal practice across all forums.

Back to the thread...

I would definitely hit up Leupold one more time and explain the situation to another person. Given the scope was new and received DOA, Leupold should honor shipping both ways. Like I said above, it is unusual for a company not to send a shipping label to evaluate a potential problem for a product out of the box. Maybe the CS rep was having a bad day or didn't understand etc etc etc

Not going to go back and sift through every post........

The scope was new and dead out of the box ?

1. I'd go back to the dealer I purchased it from and ask for a return for refund. If they didn't do that, I'd ask for a return for credit. If they didn't do that, I'd go to Leupold. I also wouldn't do business with that dealer in the future. They're just sucking margin and providing nothing in return.

2. After number one above, I'd go to Leupold and ask for an exchange for new. If they didn't do that, I'd take what could get, sell it and wash my hands of Leupold forever.

Granted, 1 and 2 above are a lot screwing around. But, at least a person would have done his diligence and made good faith efforts through every step. I've been accused of flaming people that come onto the Hide and trash vendors and/or manufacturers. My criticism is when someone has NOT even contacted the vendor/manufacturer and given them the opportunity to make things right before lighting them up publicly.

If (generally speaking), number(s) 1 and 2 above have been followed and still no joy, I have zero issues with someone torching a vendor or manufacturer. I'd even go so far as to say that a person is actually doing a good thing for the shooting community for pointing out shitty service or "policies".

 

[redneckbmxer24]

I might suggest that with a $100k car you'll wind up using warranty service more than with a $30k to $40k car as there is a lot more fancy stuff to go wrong.
At least that's been my experience.

Last car = $30k range = essentially only regular maintenance for 100k miles
Current car = $70k range = used warranty service several times in under 15k miles for various little things deciding they didn't like to work.
(But yes on the current one they do offer pickup if you want them to do it & also offer loaner cars and such, I however just drive it in myself & pickup the loaner car, as I'm not all that interested in somebody I don't know driving my car around town or trusting that a tow truck driver isn't going to mess stuff up)

Good chance your current car just isn’t a reliable vehicle, there’s vehicles in every price range that are good and ones that are pieces of shit. $70K and little things not working I’d guess German.

 

[RobbinsHGray]

Not all dealers are like that. Our`s surely isn`t. Even if we have service work done, they always have a loaner vehicle of our choice waiting and warmed up when we get to their dealership. If we have to have one towed, they come and get it, and leave us a loaner vehicle to drive. They will also bring our vehicle(s) back when its fixed. Some dealerships WANT to keep you as a customer. And we aren`t spending even $40K for a vehicle either, sometimes even less, they still take care of us.

I don’t mean to derail the thread but what dealer is this? If you complimented dealer you should say who it is so we can all benefit. I bought a $100,000 plus CLS Mercedes from Fletcher Jones and they suck. Love the car hate the dealer.

 

[Dead Eye Dick]

When I was a young man, my mother’s little business was located next to a pawn and full service gun shop. The Gunsmith was Steve Brooks. He was not much older than i was but I can say despite his age, he did good work and backed up any issues.

Tacked up in plain site in his gunsmithing area he had a one panel cartoon. A cartoon I will never forget. It feathered a man handing his double barrel shotgun to a gunsmith.

The caption…

”If I wanted it fixed tomorrow, I would have brought it in, Tomorrow!”

Read into this what you will.

In July, I sent my scope off to Leupold on a Friday. They rebuilt the erector, It was sitting on my rifle the following Friday (7 days including mailing both ways)

 

[jbuck88]

I recently recieved a pair of leica geovid pros from EuroOptics and they were DOA. Euro's initial response was to let Leica deal with it thru their warranty department, eta was 2 weeks. So in the back and forth and looping leica in they decided that Euro would replace them instead of shipping them to Leica.

However as this dragged on I ran out of time to get them in before I left for my hunting trip. So I splurged on a set of binos that I couldn't even take hunting. Lol.

 

[Ksracer]

Did the OP ever confirm if this was a new purchase?

If it was new, it definitely sucks balls and Leupold should have done better.

If it was 2yrs old and purchased second hand, I'd be pretty happy.

 

[beetroot]

Did the OP ever confirm if this was a new purchase?

If it was new, it definitely sucks balls and Leupold should have done better.

If it was 2yrs old and purchased second hand, I'd be pretty happy.

I recently recieved a pair of leica geovid pros from EuroOptics and they were DOA. Euro's initial response was to let Leica deal with it thru their warranty department, eta was 2 weeks. So in the back and forth and looping leica in they decided that Euro would replace them instead of shipping them to Leica.

However as this dragged on I ran out of time to get them in before I left for my hunting trip. So I splurged on a set of binos that I couldn't even take hunting. Lol.

Dead on arrival vs failed in service makes all the difference in this situation.

Buying a new set of binos from a business that are broken from new is something I dealt with recently.
Being that mine were very obviously defectively as they rolled off the production line leaves a pretty poor opinion of a company, then to have the repair/replacement process be a total nightmare seals their fate in my opinion.

 

[SRPowah]

Show me a company other than Vortex that will cover your shipping for warranty. It will rarely happen with even the most premium of companies.

Funny, Kahles and NF both provided prepaid shipping labels for my warranty issues. Multiple others in this thread report the same. What premium companies do you actually have warranty experience with?

 

[Dave62677]

Zco offers prepaid shipping for warranty.

 

[Poorboyr]

Funny, Kahles and NF both provided prepaid shipping labels for my warranty issues. Multiple others in this thread report the same. What premium companies do you actually have warranty experience with?

I had to pay for shipping when I sent a Nightforce scope in for repair. It was an ATACR too.

I think it comes down to who you get on the other end of the phone.

 

[NiteQwill]

I recently recieved a pair of leica geovid pros from EuroOptics and they were DOA. Euro's initial response was to let Leica deal with it thru their warranty department, eta was 2 weeks. So in the back and forth and looping leica in they decided that Euro would replace them instead of shipping them to Leica.

However as this dragged on I ran out of time to get them in before I left for my hunting trip. So I splurged on a set of binos that I couldn't even take hunting. Lol.

People in the photography world know too well about Leica (for years and years). It's a big reason no one will buy one. They are notorious for terrible CS. The price they command on their products is not in line with the service you get when something breaks. I would never buy a Leica product because of this.

When they started selling 'hunting' products, I was like, "oh boy, here they go..."

 

[EotS]

It's a different world now.
Nothing is remedied at the mfg level quickly,and likely won't be for a decade.
Shutting down the entire earth for 18mo has consequences.

 

[bohica17]

Unlike most other rants on the Hide, the fact is that;

A: You've documented your experience quite well.
B: You've given the vendor ample opportunity to "make things right" (as opposed to coming on to the Hide and trashing the vendor before "you" have ever even contacted them).

The wait time definitely sucks. But, in addition to "every hunter wanting to get their scope/spotter fixed" at this time of the year, you have employees burning accrued but unused vacation time by the end of the year and the usual shipping migraines. On the one hand, Leupold may be quoting longer leadtimes than what the repair might take. On the other hand, with the factors noted above, you receiving your unit back may actually take all of 5 weeks. It's just a shitty time of the year to have to go through this.

You may have stated this already, but how long have you had the unit ? Point being....if it was new, out of the box, that would really suck.

By way of example, I bought a very expensive pair of waders from a dealer in Hood River, Oregon. When they arrived, I closely inspected them and found a small blemish on them. I stewed about it for a few days, but finally concluded that if I'm going to spend that kind of money, I have every right to expect that they are perfect. So, I contacted the place that I bought them. They got right on it, contacted the manufacturer and had a return label back to me via e-mail within about an hour of me contacting them. I have never had that level of service in my life. I was ecstatic. I received a new pair of waders promptly and as I recall, the retailer sent the replacement pair out before I even had the damaged pair boxed up for the return.

I have since bought thousands of dollars of gear from that retailer and I will not buy any other manufacturer's waders/clothing. With the way both of them handled that situation, they have far and away earned my loyalty.

That is a very good point of employee’s using their time. Haven’t thought of that, even tho we deal with it at work year round with the absolute ridiculous amount of time off we get.

 

[SRPowah]

I had to pay for shipping when I sent a Nightforce scope in for repair. It was an ATACR too.

I think it comes down to who you get on the other end of the phone.

I almost wonder if it also depends on the issue. If its a known defect or an "unknown issue, but know it doesn't work right" kind of thing.

 

[Rog2069]

Show me a company other than Vortex that will cover your shipping for warranty. It will rarely happen with even the most premium of companies.

A lead time on the order of weeks is not uncommon with the exception of a few companies. You might get it sooner but it's better to quote a longer lead time and have the company get it back to you sooner than quote you a shorter lead time and blow it because you'd be here complaining. You also have to remember we have the holidays coming up and then SHOT so it's about to get stupid busy for a lot of people.

I have yet to encounter a company with a loaner program. You have three matches, you not having a back up is on you. I'd hope you have some kind of shooting buddies who will let you borrow something.

Burris, US Optics, Bushnell, and even Nikon have provided shipping labels for warranty purposes. Fyi

 

[diggler1833]

I know I may get slack for publicizing my experience with Leupold, but I think sharing will allow for an open discussion about what we as shooters/hunters/outdoors people should expect from the companies we support. I totally anticipate some will say my venting here is unjust, but I would also expect some to say "see...that's why I buy Swaros". Both can be true. In full disclosure, I only have service history with Schmidt, XLR, and Accuracy International to compare to...I don't know how others (i.e. Vortex) compare.

What Happened

• Bought a Leupold MK5 12-40x Spotter with the TMR reticle.
• When I dialed-up the magnification (i.e. from 12x to 40x) the TMR reticle would spin in the same direction of the dial. (i.e. counter clockwise when I zoom-in)
• In addition, the scope was making an audible click sound when I was turning up and down the magnification quickly.

Timeline of Events

• Nov 21: Contacted Leupold regarding the issue and requested a warranty repair / replacement. Account created for Warranty.
• Nov 22: Shipped spotter to Leupold via UPS
• Nov 28: Leupold received scope
• Dec 7th: Received the following email from Leupold "...We have received your product and estimate warranty service to be completed in approximately 5 weeks from the date your product arrived."

My grievances with Leupold (because I live in a first world country)

• 1) Leupold does not cover shipping for warranty issues. This just seems absurd. These devices are not cheap to ship. I understand that some may take advantage of their flexible warranty and send items in for service that should not be covered, but in this case, Leupold should have at least offered to cover shipping up front with a prepaid label or advise me that they will pre-pay, but charge for shipping if the item is deemed to be outside of warranty. Accuracy International offered a pre-paid shipping label for warranty service no questions asked.
  
  
• 2) Leupold provided an unreasonably long lead-time: When I initially contacted Leupold about the warranty service the service rep wasn't able to provide and estimated turn around time beyond " a couple weeks". It took Leupold OVER one week to check in the scope upon receiving it (Nov 28 -> Dec 7). To then find it will be another 5 Weeks to inspect and repair my spotter was another kick in the balls. The reasoning was a big peculiar. Apparently, December is the busiest time of the year for optic warranty service because "every deer hunter in the country that dropped their scope or rifle out of a tree stand send their optics in for service right now". Really???? Ok, fine. But still, imagine waiting 5 weeks to service your GE Washer/Dryer....5 Weeks to repair your Samsung TV.....5 Weeks to replace a water gasket on your Chevy Silverado. I get that my scope is not mission critical to daily life like those other items, but it costs >$2K and I would have expected different. FWIW, when I wanted to have a reticle replaced in my SB PMii, it was only ~ 1 week for J to do the retrofit.
  
  
• 3) Leupold has no replacement / loaner program: For a company of Leupold's resources, I was a bit surprised that they didn't offer to send a replacement or have a loaner program in place. In addition to the 5 week lead time, there is the 1+ week receiving time plus ~2 weeks for round-trip shipping. All in, I could be out for 2 months without a spotter. I have 3 matches during that time and I'm just super irked to have no backup. My plan is to mount an old Nightforce I have lying around onto my tripod. How absurd.

I'll get off my soap box now.

Paid $5K for a brand new Pulsar Thermion XP50...dead on arrival.

* Had to ship and insure on my dime.
* No replacement on standby.
* 7 weeks before I got a new unit.

This is turning into the 'new normal'.

 

[Bantam1]

Actually they do. They will send a driver to your house to pick up your car and leave a loaner. I know as it's my part time job.

When I was a tech at a few dealerships we would only send a tow truck when the vehicle would not move.

 

[Rob01]

When I was a tech at a few dealerships we would only send a tow truck when the vehicle would not move.

Yeah for a totally broken down vehicle but we go pick up cars for normal service and for other warranty issues. Not all $100K and up cars either. In the $35K and up area and sometimes lower although not many cars are lower now. Guess it all depends on part of the country and services the dealerships offer.

 

[LRhunter13]

Rant enjoyed!

Do the atf next please

Haha seriously!!! Tagging in just in case!

 

[Senor_Barney]

Update:

Received the spotter back from Leupold this morning. Whereas I was somewhat cordial in my rant before, I'm compelled to just go off on these clowns at this point.

To recap the warranty issues, they were two fold:
1) The reticle rotates within the scope when magnification turned up or down. The reticle would rotate the same direction the ring is turned.
2) An audible clicking noise when rotating the parallax ring. Doing so in rapid succession (back and forth / in and out) would cause a "click, click, click" sound.

Per the Repair Order (see below), Leupold performed three things:
- Reworked Erector System
- Replaced Eyepiece Assembly / Lens
- Complete Internal Inspection
- "...final, comprehensive mechanical and visual inspection to ensure each product meets our performance specifications..." Clearly this was not done

This company sent me back the spotter and it still has the same GD issues as before. The clicking sound is still there. Worst yet, the reticle rotates, however now it rotates when I set the parallax...not when I set the magnification (seriously!?!?!?)

I will be calling them Monday and will try very hard to not go totally postal. But its beyond comical at this point...

 

[aaronk]

This company sent me back the spotter and it still has the same GD issues as before. The clicking sound is still there. Worst yet, the reticle rotates, however now.it rotates when I set the parallax...not when I set the magnification (seriously!?!?!?)

I will be calling them Monday and will try very hard to not go totally postal. But its beyond comical at this point...

Leupold has reps watching this forum, hopefully one sees this and reaches out. I had a Leupold scope that went in for warranty and they sent it back saying it checked out OK. I posted extensive testing results on the forum here afterwards showing it was not in fact OK, and one of them PM'd me and expedited a replacement.

 

[Huskydriver]

Update:

Received the spotter back from Leupold this morning. Whereas I was someone cordial in my rant before, I'm compelled to just go off on these clowns at this point.

To recap the warranty issues, they are two fold:
1) The reticle rotates within the scope when magnification turned up or down. The reticle would rotate the same dorection the ring is turned.

2) An audible clicking noise when rotating the parallax ring. Doing so in rapid succession (back and forth/ in and out) would cause a "click, click, click" sound.

Per the Repair Order (see below), Leupold performed three things:
- Reworked Erector System
- Replaced Eyepiece Assembly / Lens
- Complete Internal Inspection
- "final, comprehensive mechanical and visual inspection to ensure each product meets our performance specifications"

This company sent me back the spotter and it still has the same GD issues as before. The clicking sound is still there. Worst yet, the reticle rotates, however now.it rotates when I set the parallax...not when I set the magnification (seriously!?!?!?)

I will be calling them Monday and will try very hard to not go totally postal. But its beyond comical at this point...

View attachment 8041018

Bro I would just ask for a straight refund at this point if you bought it new...

It's shit like this why I laugh and shake my head at how Leupold is still in business....

 

[Ronws]

I don't have any Leupold optics but I know someone who has and he has never had a problem with them.

I have had great experiences with Vortex warranty. I lost the Rev Stop ring for one of my Venom scopes and they sent me one when I was prepared to pay for it.

I have Arken scopes and had a problem with the turrets spinning free. Their tech support suggested Vibra Tite VC-3 or the 122. I got the former and it has worked fine and solved that problem.

But what do you do if you really like the optic but have problems with the warranty? I get it. One scope by a company just works comfortably with your eye, regardless of the "tacti-cool" fashion of the day. But it doesn't work and you are having a tough time getting it to work right.

Reminds me of the YouTube channel Backfire and their problems with Mossberg Patriot rifles. I know what the problem is now and my solution for mine was a chassis.

 

[Scopeye]

Chiming in on the $100k car analogy, rarely any issues with the cheap Toyotas I drove but my Audi was constantly in the shop more times than I can count and my BMWs and Mercedes all had issues even at very low mileage I'm done with German cars period. Lexus seems reliable and made by Toyota I highly recommend.

I'd go to the dealer who sold me the Leupold and get a replacement or refund at point of sale. I've had relatively good luck with not needing to use Leupold's warranty up until recently but the scope is a few decades old and on the flip side a lot of popular brands of my Chinese made scopes had to be sent in for warranty mostly Vortex including brand new straight out of the box and didn't even use yet and couldn't return since I had it sitting for a while before attempting to use it. The best luck I personally had with Chinese made scopes are the Athlons.