headlamp repair

[johndavidjr]

Black Diamond tells me they won't repair a busted cord on one of their headlamps for love or money. The 2-year warranty expired, but not before the cord.

 

Petzl is much worse.

 

They simply ignored two emails in which I asked about replacing a cracked housing on one of their $40+ lamps which is still under warranty.

 

The Petzl housing is liable to crackage at point where flimsy plastic wings clamp to body of lamp. If my other wing cracks, and it probably will, the whole thing must apparently go in the trash.

 

You bet I'll then be looking at Princeton Tec.

 

[Blake]

Did you buy them at REI?

 

As long as you are going to permanently seal on the cracked housing (rather than need to take it on and off) you could easily use Seam Grip or Aquasal (slightly thicker) to bond the pieces together.

[murraysovereign]

 

We've warrantied a number of Petzl headlamps over the years for that cracking problem. We just give the customer a new one, send the broken one to Petzl, and they either credit our account or send us a replacement unit. No problems, ever.

 

Not sure about BD's headlamps, specifically, but in general we find them pretty painless to warranty things with as well.

[johndavidjr]

I bitched and moaned to the retailer, and THEN Petzl got back to me and was very kind and apologetic etc., and said they'd repair the thing. My mistake was probably relying on email to Petzl (rather than what I'm not sure.)

 

Black Diamond, on the other hand, was very prompt and definite in telling me they don't repair their lamps. A 2-yr warranty expired.

 

Do Black Diamond LED headlamps constitute hazardous waste or can I just toss it in the garbage? -

 

 

Edited March 27, 2008 by johndavidjr

[counterfeitfake]

Bust out the soldering iron and go at it.

[mattp]

It seems to me that a two year warranty period is not all that unreasonable. I return things when I think the product did not perform the purpose for which it was sold and, depending on how much use it got two years may be a rather short life for a headlamp but consider this: headlamps are prone to getting knocked about and are not something that most people will take super careful care of. Even if you are careful with them, they use batteries that sometimes leak and they have wires and connections that always fail eventually. A fixed warranty period seems fairly reasonable though may be it should be three years or something.

 

[mike1]

It seems to me that a two year warranty period is not all that unreasonable. I return things when I think the product did not perform the purpose for which it was sold and, depending on how much use it got two years may be a rather short life for a headlamp but consider this: headlamps are prone to getting knocked about and are not something that most people will take super careful care of. Even if you are careful with them, they use batteries that sometimes leak and they have wires and connections that always fail eventually. A fixed warranty period seems fairly reasonable though may be it should be three years or something.

I tend to agree with you. Am I understanding that BD has expressed that they will not repair their lamps at all after the warranty expires? Has anyone ever had a BD lamp repaired under warranty? I’m guessing the cost of the lamp is less than any repair so they would just replace all warranty lamps. I agree that self repair is a good plan. I’ve got 3 different BD headlamps and really like each one for different reasons.

[johndavidjr]

Yeah, I'm okay with a two-year warranty. I was offering to pay them for a repair. Their policy is no electrical repairs on headlamps.

 

There are at least two morals to this story:

 

1) Lamps with integral battery packs avoid a potential failure point (no news there) and 2) the wings on certain Petzl lamps that clamp the housing together are weak points.

[woodchips]

I've had great luck with petzl replacing stuff. They just replaced a 5 year old headlamp which the wiring had gone bad with a brand new one for me. Keep trying. They responded to my first email right away, but it went to my spam folder, so you might check that. I've had nothing but "NO" from BD on repairs. I don't buy much from them anymore.

[johndavidjr]

Hmmmm.... maybe it WAS a spam-folder snafu and I'm being unfair to Petzl. When a retailer told them of my complaint, they were very helpful (via email communication.)

 

Yeah Black Diamond certainly talks a good game, and they do make sure to charge the high-end prices. Perhaps because some of their core products are so strong, they figure customer service isn't a priority.

 

I have a 20-year-old REI lamp that still works good....