So about a year ago the scissors on my swiss army knife gave up the ghost. The screw fell out somewhere, leaving me with two distinct single-bevel edged pieces, prone to falling out and being totally useless.
After letting the knife sit on my shelf for a long time, I finally went down to the local knife shop on a rainy day.
“Can’t help you,” they said, “but here’s the address for Victorinox. They’ll fix it.”
So, I mail off my knife, with a letter saying how the scissors broke, and could they please fix it pretty please.
Yesterday a package arrives at my home. It’s from Swiss Army! And they didn’t fix my knife.
They replaced it. Free.
My knife was eight years old, scuffed, scarred, with grunge all over the hinges from being carried in my pocket. And now I have a brand new knife.
No, they are really cool. A friend of mine sent his in because the red plastic on one side had partially broken off. They sent him back his old blade, but compeltely refurbished, all blades sharpened, hinges cleaned and oiled, new tweezer-n-toothpick set, all in addition to the repair requested (no charge of course!)
If anything happens to one of my Swiss Army knives (other than losing one to airport security - forgot that I’d left it in that knapsack, durnitall!), I’ll remember this.
I haven’t been without a Swiss Army Knife since the 1970’s. (Make sure to get Victorinox; better quality.) I must admit, though, I have flirted with the idea of switching to Leatherman – anybody made a comparison?
Yeah Zippo does the same thing. I requested info from them on collecting Zippo’s and in return the sent me the info plus extra flints and a key chain that has a penny in it. On the back it says “the cent never spent to repair a Zippo Product”.
Leatherman’s have an enormous flaw, apart from being ugly pieces of kit with no style: they have no bloody corkscrew on them! The corkscrew is one of the really essential tools on a penknife, so this is something of a remarkable oversight from the chaps who make them.
The Swiss may be a boring bunch, but they pay attention to detail.
A lot of my co-workers in theatre and film had, at one point or another, a Leatherman tool. Most ended up having “issues” with them. (Mine I tossed because the pliers got all weird and useless and mostly just ticked me off.)
i have the BIG swiss army knofe. As well as several of the “tinker” size. And about a dozen of the penknives. I have sent them all back to Vic, and they always repair or replace them free; here’s the amazing thing: Most of the time they do actually fix them. They fixed mine, and the only way Iwas able to tell was a piece of pocket lint jammed in between the blades of the tweezers that cam from my pants! They did SUCH a good job of repairing it it was almost indistinguishable from a new knife!
I have a Sog paratool, a Leatherman, a leatherman wave, a Gerber Multi-tool, and several others. I still like the Vic the best.
BTW, Vic makes a nice leatherman-like tool as well. And the quality is everything you’d expect.
