There are many companies that "sell" lifetime warantees in the price of their product. Tools, luggage, or whatever. They must operate on the above formula or they cannot survive as a business. When you pay a high price for a product that could be less expensive, you are paying for that warrantee/insurance. Nothing wrong with it. Just another "Business style".
We've thought about it. We think that the warrantee that we have now works best for us and our customers.
Assembly of a high tolerance knife is an expensive part of manufacture. We're not saying that you can't disassemble your knife....we're saying that if you disasemble the knife and it's not as good as we do it, we don't want to incur the cost of reassembling the knife properly without charging you for the labor.
Where it is really a problem is when an amateur dissassembles a knife (tinkerer), reassembles it and then sells it as "new in the box". Then the buyer finds a problem and sends it to us for "Warrantee repair". Then what? We can tell it has been disassmbled and reassembled improperly. It is not "new in the box". "New in the box" means tht it is assembled by a skilled and trained knifemaker. Perhaps the original owner simply wasn't skilled or knowledgable enough to know that their assembly wasn't expertly done. We would prefer that you don't, but if you do, we don't feel that it is our responsibility to fix it at no cost.
sal
Thank you for your clear answer Sal. I guess that brings the argument to an end.
As you said earlier, you know that most aren't skillful enough to take a knife appart with messing it up somehow. That being the main reason you say knives shouldn't be disassembled. It'll avoid trouble for both parties. On the other hand you're fair enough not to void a warranty if nothing was messed up.
Between Spyderco always trying to do good by the customer unless their hands are tied I think this topic always gets a bit blown out of proportion.
If you can prove you have at least the knife making/assembly credentials that a W2 employee of the company has (including any propriety training) I'm sure a judge would side in your favor. If you do though, I doubt you would monkey-up the knife to begin with or try to fall back on the warranty.
Anyone without these skills is clearly abusing the tool. Even over-torquing the tool to non-factory specs is abuse. Abuse is clearly not a covered peril.
Instead of arguing for sake of being heard just remember your fighting for the rights of people who:
1. Have shown little to no skill assembling knives to the point of damage
2. Are attempting to pawn damaged goods on to the maker for free repair
I find it hard to believe the shadetree assemblers want these people in their camp to begin with. I've messed with cars wih factory warranties for years and those hacks made me sick. Just man (or woman) up...you broke it by non-oem means, now pay for your idiocy. At the least let the company decide if they are going to throw you a bone or not. Just don't consider it your irrevocable right as a bipedal walking creature.
