SIG Sauer: The Break Up - Terrible Customer Service - Never Buy Used

[springer99]

tirod -"There's another perspective. It IS a worn out used gun. And being so, the smith could evidently see it. If there were ways to correct the slide it would likely be expensive and the question of repairs costing more than the gun would come up.

Suggesting SIG warranty replace a worn out firearm to a second owner gets him off the hook, makes SIG the bad boy, and a discussion over the fees to fix the gun is avoided.

I make the speculation based on no mention of an estimate to repair. If so, the story is incomplete, and that brings up the selective inclusion of all the facts.

I see the best explanation is someone had high expectations but reality intruded on the romance. The amount of cognitive dissonance after the fact is in direct proportion to the amount of emotional deflation. We see it on the forums over and over. Placing too much faith and trust into one brand as a token of perfection will always result in some incident readjusting someone's mental perspective.

That gun is an inanimate machine that appears to have been extensively shot - no round count report - and apparently purchased without a cursory inspection. If there were high expectations the reality is the gun didn't deserve them and the acquisition process that lead to buying it included some risky assumptions of value.

All I'm reading is "I Blame SIG." a gunsmith who's deflecting having to do a repair, and no revelation of how and why it was purchased.

I see no acceptance of responsibility in the purchase of a well worn gun that would be obvious at first glance. If someone was an enthusiast of a particular brand, aware of exactly what areas of design are always a concern, then how did this one get home?"

Very well put and so true. It still misses the point that it's 6years old and he is not the original owner. Voids any warranty.

It's hard enough sometimes today to make certain that mfg. honor their warranty even when it's strictly followed. What amazes me is that we've come to expect that they go beyond their written warranty as a standard practice. Does it happen sometimes if you hit their return department on the right day or really sweet-talk your way thru it? Yup, sometimes but sometimes not. Happens at SIG, Ruger, Springfield, S&W, Ford, GMC, John Deere, anywhere. Time to move on.

 

[Lohman446]

Interesting thing about customer service and the "odd" things

Rather than paying the money to add an entertainment system into my wife's van I purchased both of my toddlers Apple I-pad Minis. Knowing what they would be used for I purchased AppleCare extended warranty. It took over a year but eventually both screens cracked - one catastrophically.

So I go to the Apple Store to pay my $49 each to have them repaired / replaced. I hand them both to the customer service rep who seems really interested in the catastrophic one. He tells me "this should not have happened like this" I explain to him that they belong to young children. He tells me something to the effect that it should have been able to be dropped out of airplanes and cracked but the glass should not have begun to separate like it was. I kind of just shrug.

He hands me the bill for $49 and two new I-pads. I ask about it and he told me even though they were both broken the one failed in ways that it should not have and it was going back to the Apple campus to figure out why. He was not charging me for this.

Apple sells a premium product. By specification they get substantially more money for their products than competitors. Now do they expect to give things away often? No there are obvious limits. Still they are invested in making sure that next time I purchase a similar product I am still willing to pay that premium.

However there are times when premium companies see failures that are outside of the norm and invest the time into finding out why. It often requires the product in hand. Repair / replacement of these issues is fairly cheap in terms of having others torture test equipment in ways they cannot envision.

Do I think SIG has every right to not repair it? Yeh I do. Its out of warranty and purchased use. While the OP has every right to be disappointed I think sometimes its easy to turn disappointment into anger. Personally I would have paid SIG the $55 to have them look at it... part of SIG "knowing" its customers is trying to cultivate customers who are not entirely budget driven. Unfortunately somewhere in here the relationship turned adversarial.

SIG missed an opportunity as well. Out of all the firearms they sell few are going to get tens of thousands of rounds of ammo through them. I would guess most, in the course of a year, get a few hundred through if that. Many sit on shelves. So what if it had 50K rounds through it? Learning how your systems fail has a great value to it going forward. Sometimes you make exceptions to a customer to increase perceived value of the brand and learn more about yourself. SIG is a premium company that charges a premium price. It may be a cost of doing business.

Of course I also have another question for the OP: Is this the first time you have dealt with SIG customer service or have you asked (and presumably received) "good will" service in the past that goes beyond what they were required to do? I know many companies track such things to avoid "abuse" of it. For instance I would expect your experience with Glock is not repeatable indefinitely.

 

[Uncle Malice]

Very well put and so true. It still misses the point that it's 6years old and he is not the original owner. Voids any warranty.

It's hard enough sometimes today to make certain that mfg. honor their warranty even when it's strictly followed. What amazes me is that we've come to expect that they go beyond their written warranty as a standard practice. Does it happen sometimes if you hit their return department on the right day or really sweet-talk your way thru it? Yup, sometimes but sometimes not. Happens at SIG, Ruger, Springfield, S&W, Ford, GMC, John Deere, anywhere. Time to move on.

A serious manufacturer's defect should be outside of that. This is not a case of parts breakage. This is a problem of poor machining that did not rear its head until the gun was actually shot a good bit, and then quickly developed.

Who cares what is within the written legal warranty? I think everyone here knows that fixing/replacing this would have been the RIGHT thing to do. Sometimes doing what's right is more important than hiding behind your foolish legal disclaimer.

This is exactly why Ruger doesn't have any warranty whatsoever... they just do what's right by their customers.... and on a MUCH cheaper product. Smith & Wesson or Springfield Armory would NEVER let this fly. Hell, even HK would repair or replace a gun that was legitimately out of spec from the factory. It's a dangerous liability to have out there.

 

[TailGator]

I might understand Sig's position if Constantine was complaining about a problem that developed from use, wear and tear. This seems more like a manufacturing defect. To my mind, that's qualitatively different.

Exactly. A written warranty states the minimum that a company must do to support its customer. It does not limit a company in what they can do to make things right when they put out a defective item. A company that cared about its product, its customers, and its reputation would act differently than this.

I don't know how a purchaser could screw a gun up in this way, if they tried. Maybe putting the slide in a bench vise without supporting its shape, but it sure doesn't sound like that was the situation.

 

[TunnelRat]

What amazes me is that we've come to expect that they go beyond their written warranty as a standard practice. Does it happen sometimes if you hit their return department on the right day or really sweet-talk your way thru it? Yup, sometimes but sometimes not. Happens at SIG, Ruger, Springfield, S&W, Ford, GMC, John Deere, anywhere.

I think the argument by some is that some companies are more willing to go beyond than others. This applies to a number of companies in other industries as well, since you bring up cars and tractors.

The skill level of those who are building the pistols on the line are not the same.

If we're talking about the SIG of Exeter, I do and don't agree at the same time. I know people working at the factory now, as well as people who worked at the factory in the 90s. It's not so much the skill level of the employees, as what's expected of them in terms of production. I imagine there will be those that will claim I'm letting the employees pass the buck, and maybe that's so. What I know are guys working like mad cranking out parts on CNC machines. It's not that they themselves don't have the skill to handfit parts or give parts specific attention. They literally don't have the time. Produce or you're shown the door. Make a mistake and you're shown the door. Some might say, "Life's tough, they need to get over it." Okay, but the end result is relatively high turnover for SIG. That hurts quality as the experience isn't developed like you might want it to.

To be honest, I wouldn't have sold the SIGs that were working fine. You or someone else already paid for them and SIG already made the profit. Selling them again doesn't hurt SIG really at all. In the stores near me are shelves and shelves of used SIGs and people still someone fork over the money for new ones so I'm not sure it will even cost SIG future sales by people buying your older pistols. This thread might indicate a good reason to buy new, though in reality they're not usually doing it for the warranty.

 

[TunnelRat]

However there are times when premium companies see failures that are outside of the norm and invest the time into finding out why. It often requires the product in hand. Repair / replacement of these issues is fairly cheap in terms of having others torture test equipment in ways they cannot envision.

Do I think SIG has every right to not repair it? Yeh I do. Its out of warranty and purchased use. While the OP has every right to be disappointed I think sometimes its easy to turn disappointment into anger. Personally I would have paid SIG the $55 to have them look at it... part of SIG "knowing" its customers is trying to cultivate customers who are not entirely budget driven. Unfortunately somewhere in here the relationship turned adversarial.

SIG missed an opportunity as well. Out of all the firearms they sell few are going to get tens of thousands of rounds of ammo through them. I would guess most, in the course of a year, get a few hundred through if that. Many sit on shelves. So what if it had 50K rounds through it? Learning how your systems fail has a great value to it going forward. Sometimes you make exceptions to a customer to increase perceived value of the brand and learn more about yourself. SIG is a premium company that charges a premium price. It may be a cost of doing business.

Well said.

Who cares what is within the written legal warranty? I think everyone here knows that fixing/replacing this would have been the RIGHT thing to do. Sometimes doing what's right is more important than hiding behind your foolish legal disclaimer.

Maybe. Is it what I would want in my mind a company to do? Absolutely. But SIG is a company pushing hard for profit (they eliminated their Christmas bonuses for the guys in the factory this year because sales didn't meet expectations). I don't think they honestly care about one customer, and frankly I think the same is true about a lot of companies out there. I don't not if that means SIG didn't do the RIGHT thing, but it's not unreasonable for Constantine to choose not to patronize them in the future. In the end that's the only power we have, the power of where to spend our money.

 

[jnichols2]

It seems Sig missed an opportunity to showcase it's customer service.

Back in the sixties I broke a Sears Craftsman ratchet wrench with a pipe and mallet. I took it back to Sears and told them the truth.

The guy said let me take it in the back and check it. He cane back 30 seconds later with an obviously new wrench.

He handed it to me and said "I can't find anything wrong with it, these Craftsman wrenches never break".

I thanked him and left. Never broke another Craftsman tool since.

 

[WVsig]

If we're talking about the SIG of Exeter, I do and don't agree at the same time. I know people working at the factory now, as well as people who worked at the factory in the 90s. It's not so much the skill level of the employees, as what's expected of them in terms of production. I imagine there will be those that will claim I'm letting the employees pass the buck, and maybe that's so. What I know are guys working like mad cranking out parts on CNC machines. It's not that they themselves don't have the skill to handfit parts or give parts specific attention. They literally don't have the time. Produce or you're shown the door. Make a mistake and you're shown the door. Some might say, "Life's tough, they need to get over it." Okay, but the end result is relatively high turnover for SIG. That hurts quality as the experience isn't developed like you might want it to.

Same difference. They are not training or do they have the time to hand fit pistols and the parts that are going into them. It is not a knock on the people doing the work. Stop taking it personally. Its not personal. Your statements dovetail with mine in that Sig is not a volume move the metal company not a house of German craftsmanship.

Maybe. Is it what I would want in my mind a company to do? Absolutely. But SIG is a company pushing hard for profit (they eliminated their Christmas bonuses for the guys in the factory this year because sales didn't meet expectations). I don't think they honestly care about one customer, and frankly I think the same is true about a lot of companies out there. I don't not if that means SIG didn't do the RIGHT thing, but it's not unreasonable for Constantine to choose not to patronize them in the future. In the end that's the only power we have, the power of where to spend our money.

I think people overestimate the profit being made on a individual pistol. It is razor thin. When you scrap a single pistol the profit from "many" pistols is wiped out. If you "do the right thing" as so many of us are advocating very soon there is no profit left.

 

[TunnelRat]

Same difference. They are not training or do they have the time to hand fit pistols and the parts that are going into them. It is not a knock on the people doing the work. Stop taking it personally. Its not personal. Your statements dovetail with mine in that Sig is not a volume move the metal company not a house of German craftsmanship.

I'm not sure I was taking it personally. To me not training your workers to the level they could reach is not the same as them not having skill. To you that's the same difference, to me it's not. Exeter made fine pistols in the past in the 229s, it's not just German "craftsmanship" that reigns supreme.

 

[WVsig]

I'm not sure I was taking it personally. To me not training your workers to the level they could reach is not the same as them not having skill. To you that's the same difference, to me it's not. Exeter made fine pistols in the past in the 229s, it's not just German "craftsmanship" that reigns supreme.

Is the workforce at Sig in NH skilled at this point? I was not speaking to their potential I was talking about the reality inside the factory. The avg worker there is not "trained" enough to have skill beyond the basics needed to produce the pistols as fast as possible as within spec as possible.

You make it personal everytime anyone questions the skill or competence of the workforce at Sig. I know who live close to the plant and know people there. I think you take comments about the workers in general and apply them to people you know "personally" making it personal. You took my comments about their skill level within the company and took it as if I said they were limited in their capacity to become skilled. Untrained = unskilled.

 

[Tactical Jackalope]

Guys. The gun was barely fired when I got it. It more than likely sat in a safe. I don't have safe queens. I ran it through it's paces and it has failed in being a long lasting pistol because of an out of spec slide from the factory that slipped through QC. That's the point everyone seems to be missing. Also, I'm noticing a number of people haven't read my post fully. Cause I answer pretty much all of the things I'm being convicted of or what has/hasn't happened. Please, read the whole thing before commenting before getting too excited.

The gun left the factory with a factory defect. It sat for 6 years, this asshat bought it, shot it, and found it to be messed up after only 1,000 rounds. I didn't send it to SIG because it was Gray Guns when they FINALLY responded to me. Bruce told me what he did and I figured it's better if he throws his weight around. So he took it with him to N.H. and this all happened to turn out of my favor. If you have any doubts about me or his findings about the slide being messed up, I encourage you to email or call him. I've been updating close friends of mine every step along the way. You can't even begin to imagine the amount of F bombs Uncle Malice and Spats McGee have heard from me.


Oh! And I especially sold the P226 because it was of the same year of manufacture and started to do the same thing but at 10k+ instead of 1k.

 

[Tactical Jackalope]

Please don't fight on my thread, gentlemen. I do not want this thread to ever be closed down and I still have a LOT to update. Stay tuned. I have several things I may do to handle this situation.

 

[WVsig]

The gun left the factory with a factory defect. It sat for 6 years, this asshat bought it, shot it, and found it to be messed up after only 1,000 rounds. I didn't send it to SIG because it was Gray Guns when they FINALLY responded to me. Bruce told me what he did and I figured it's better if he throws his weight around. So he took it with him to N.H. and this all happened to turn out of my favor. If you have any doubts about me or his findings about the slide being messed up, I encourage you to email or call him. I've been updating close friends of mine every step along the way. You can't even begin to imagine the amount of F bombs Uncle Malice and Spats McGee have heard from me.

Odd that all along you continued to defend the high quality of the guns coming out of Sig NH while this was going on.

Did you not know that a used Sig has no factory warranty?

 

[Tactical Jackalope]

I was told the slide was out of spec about a month or so afterwards. I purchased a Glock 19 Gen 4 before I sent it out.

It's "quality" I didn't need to care that they didn't. *POOF*

 

[foolzrushn]

Hmmm.....

my $200 SCCY has a warranty that stays with the gun. Snide remarks to come aside....if they can offer that kind of service for a $200 gun....we are saying Sig shouldn't?

And you shouldn't need to pull strings or swear loyalty to get service....should be the same for everyone.

 

[TunnelRat]

Is the workforce at Sig in NH skilled at this point? I was not speaking to their potential I was talking about the reality inside the factory. The avg worker there is not "trained" enough to have skill beyond the basics needed to produce the pistols as fast as possible as within spec as possible.



You make it personal everytime anyone questions the skill or competence of the workforce at Sig. I know who live close to the plant and know people there. I think you take comments about the workers in general and apply them to people you know "personally" making it personal. You took my comments about their skill level within the company and took it as if I said they were limited in their capacity to become skilled. Untrained = unskilled.

You're free to think about me what you will. To me it's a difference of opinion in terms of phrasing. If you want to discuss it further I'd suggest moving to pm.

 

[Tactical Jackalope]

And you shouldn't need to pull strings or swear loyalty to get service....should be the same for everyone.

Thank you! Jumping through hoops shouldn't be required to get the customer service you deserve. I've had way better from cheaper companies.

Funny you mention SCCY.... My father had SCCY CPX-1 and at a time it was "out of warranty", the firing pin broke and guess what?! They replaced it free of charge and paid shipping both ways! Look at that.. He bought it for $230.

But my $1,000 SIG? Nope...


I think SIG knows that in theory, a weaker metal (aluminum) vs a stronger metal (stainless steel) is an disaster mixed with time. Maybe that's why they do this? Heh...

 

[WVsig]

Thank you! Jumping through hoops shouldn't be required to get the customer service you deserve. I've had way better from cheaper companies...

I think SIG knows that in theory, a weaker metal (aluminum) vs a stronger metal (stainless steel) is an disaster mixed with time. Maybe that's why they do this? Heh...

I am not sure you "deserve" a new pistol. I do think they should give you one. If you look at their warranty you are not "entitled" or "deserve" one. You can't always compare one company to another based solely on price point because business models alter profits at all price point levels. Higher price does not always mean higher profits which is where CS $$$$ come from. Again I think they should replace the defective pistol I just don't think you "deserve" it if you know what I mean.

Most of the heavy galling issues that have been seen on Sigs started when they went to all stainless steel slides when the tooling for the folded carbon steel slides were retired. Stainless steel is known for galling IIRC, which is why Les Baer won't do a 1.5" guarantee gun in stainless steel. Make it tight like a Baer and you will get galling. The stainless steel slides were an economy of scale cost cutting measure which has increased the galling of alum frames IMHO.

The preference of the carbon steel slide over the milled stainless steel slides for many Sig shooters is not just a matter of weight and balance.

 

[Lohman446]

Thank you! Jumping through hoops shouldn't be required to get the customer service you deserve. I've had way better from cheaper companies.

I think this is one of the issues. By the warranty that SIG has offered and the fact that you bought it used you really do not 'deserve' anything. Obviously I am likely taking the statement here somewhat out of context in that you have typed a lot and this has not come up. I will tell you that when a customer explains what he or she deserves it often goes differently than with a customer that asks.

I still think SIG screwed up in not taking care of it. But I think you have made an equal error in believing that they are obligated to you or that you are entitled to exceptional service. You are ASKING for service that goes beyond the stated warranty.

Then again - there is a lot of type and its likely not entirely fair for me to take a couple sentences out of all of that and make a judgement on. I acknowledge that.

 

[Tactical Jackalope]

That's cool. Except I didn't demand anything. Again, you did not read.