Daiwa reel not happy

I bought a daiwa crossfire reel after everyone saying they were one of the best reel manufacturers 1 year and 10 months ago, it hadn't had much use and before it was a year old it broke.
I took it back to the shop i bought it from who contacted daiwa for me, they said that it was my responsibility to return it directly to them for repair under warranty but they agreed that it was ok for said shop keeper to return it on my behalf but i would have to cover the postage.
I thought great thats ok it cost me £5 and a few weeks later i had my reel back working, the shop keeper happily informed me that it actually had a 2 year warranty which he wasnt even aware of when he sold it to me.
Some time later the reel broke again exactly the same fault which was annoying as i didnt have a spare reel with me and it cut my day short.
I couldnt be bothered to send it back again as this would cost me another £5 (the reel was only £30 new) and i had now lost confidence in it.
I was looking at it in the draw today and thought i would take it apart to see if i could fix it myself, as soon as i opened it i could see what the problem was the gear which is used to make the spindle go up and down had come away from its correct position. The gear in question sits on a plastic holder which is part of the case, and was molded at that.
I know they gave me the same case back after it was repaired because you could still see a bit of dirt on it, so the only conclusion i can come to is that they must have superglued this piece of plastic back on when they carried out the repair, otherwise it would have meant scrapping the best part of the reel, how shoddy is that.
I wont be buying another reel from daiwa in a hurry thats for sure.
Believe it or not two of the best and most reliable reels i have ever bought was a dam which cost £10 almost 20 years ago and i still have it the most simple thing in the world to service, and a redwolf reel from about 7 years ago i have give that a hammering and it still works just goes to show.

Interesting post that mate.

Have you written to or emailed Daiwa?

No i have only just discovered this the reel is still in bits on my dining room table.
Do you think it would be worth it?

---------- Post added at 19:42 ---------- Previous post was at 19:35 ----------

Do you know what i just sent an e-mail to daiwas complaints department be intersting to see what sort of response i get if any.

I think writing to them will give them the opportunity to sort it properly and their response will give you some idea if it is a company whose goods you want to purchase in future.

yes your right we shall wait and see its just annoying that's all if i hadn't have taken it apart myself i would never have known, i suppose it could have been down to the individual who repaired it on the day.

If the reel was still under warranty then the shop is responsible.....your contract is with them, it is wrong for Daiwa to say otherwise and that in itself needs sorting.

Angling is full of bollox, we accept anything......these reels are cheap **** that we pay a lot of money for.

Take them all the way to the small claims court!!!

most of my reels are Daiwa i cant fault them,but i did pay more than £30 for them,
but im surprised it broke they usually are well made from Daiwa,
and i dont think Daiwa would say return it to us ,your contract is with the shop,.
A normal letter works better than EMails on occasions i had to contact Daiwa
and they were very pleasant to deal with

I had an issue with a quite cheap ledger rod that I broke - I dealt with Daiwa customer services (in scotland somewhere, can't remember exactly) and they were very pleasant to deal with.

Are you 100% sure that the shop keeper actually sent this back to Daiwa? Do you have a service report (or any other documentation) to say it's actually been to daiwa? This may be unexscusable cynicism, but if you haven't - it's possible it was the shopkeeper responsible for the superglue which he charged you a fiver for!! (when the reel was under it's two year warranty with Daiwa)

It is true that the shopkeeper is responsible for the repair or replacement of this reel as he is the one you exchanged money with, however you have now accepted a repair already under different conditions, you paid the postage, so it changes things slightly.

As regards Daiwa, this one you have may have been a Monday morning reel (or 'Friday night' if you prefer) and is a one off. That said I have a Capricorn model that developed a fault, and Stu Dexter (editor of Coarse Fisherman) had the same fault and he sent three different reels back before getting one that worked. The problem was the bail arm started to fail to close when winding it round, but the problem as I discovered was a simple washer in the release mechanism that wasn't centred before the screw was tightened down on it. A very simple fault that must have affected quite a few reels and cause by poor workmanship rather than bad design. Since I corrected it, the reel has served me well for the past 6 years or so.

I've had problems with cheaper end daiwa reels.

I bought 2 emcasts to use as marker/spod reels. The one on the marker rod didn't last the first weekends outing, it felt like the gearing inside was slipping.

A few years back I bought a cheaper, £35ish, dawia 'float' sized reel. I think that made around 20ish trips before the reel started to slip, again the gearing I think.


The conclusion I've come to is too completely avoid cheaper end dawia reels, TBH I'm not sure I will buy another dawia reel again. Yes, I'm aware of the saying 'buy cheap buy twice' but surely a £35 reel should last a season or two?

mol said:

surely a £35 reel should last a season or two?

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The moral of this story is not to buy cheap, no matter what make it might be. It's false economy, especially with reels. I don't buy a reel very often but when I do it's normally a top end Shimano or Daiwa. These reels have never let me down, and one particular Shimano has lasted me 15 years and has been through hell and high water. It still runs as smooth as the day I bought it.

to me £35 is not cheap

Cost/price is all relative, and of course relative to ones' disposable income.

Whilst £35 is certainly not bargain bucket, neither is it top end. However, regardless of price tag, it should be fit for purpose.

nicky said:

to me £35 is not cheap

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Compared to 1960. it's ridiculously cheap!

In 1960, a decent fixed spool reel such as a Mitchell 300 or an Ambidex cost between 7 and 8 quid! In those days that was an average weekly wage to some.

Look at today's average weekly wage of about £450.00. Top of the range Shimanos and Daiwas can be obtained for a third of that, and some good ones can be got for less than a quarter.

The anglers today have never had it so good.

Ron The Hat Clay said:

Look at today's average weekly wage of about £450.00.

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I think you're confusing a working mans average wage with that which the unmarried mother of nine kids gets in benefits in Rotherham.

Isn't the average wage nearer £250, but I take your point, by comparison to 1962 when I first bought a Daiwa at about £6 and I earned about £6 per week (more if I did overtime).

I read somewhere Jeff that the average annual wage in the UK was £24k. That's what I based my figure on.

Come to think of it, the Ambidex reel in 1960 was nearer to £10 if I remember right, and the top of the range Felton Crosswind was around £13.00. A split cane Mk IV or Mk IV Avon from the likes of B James cost around £11-19-6d. As a technical apprentice in 1960 I was only bringing home about 4 quid a week.

I made virtually all my own rods in those days, from kits supplied by Dawsons of Holme Lane - Sheffield, or JB Walker of Hythe, Kent. Walt Dawson, who is still alive and in his 90s by the way, went out of his way to help the poor struggling specimen hunters of the early 60s.

It's the same with rods, most of which are ridiculously cheap today. The reason for this is obvious. Most are made in "sweat shops" in the far east for pennies.

I'm not too sure of the reel prices Ron but I remember my MKV Avon was £8- 11/6 from Jimmy James in 1957.
Jerry

Jeff Woodhouse said:

Isn't the average wage nearer £250 . . .

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Ron The Hat Clay said:

I read somewhere Jeff that the average annual wage in the UK was £24k. That's what I based my figure on.

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You`re both right, sort of.

The average wage is about £450 a week. However that figure is achieved by adding everyone`s salaries together and dividing by the number of people to get the mean. That gives a distorted picture because of the 2.7 million people in the country who earn over £1k a week.

If you go for the median (the person truly in the middle) they`re earning about £375. However if you ask a random person they will most likely be earning £200-£300.

barbelboi said:

I'm not too sure of the reel prices Ron but I remember my MKV Avon was £8- 11/6 from Jimmy James in 1957.
Jerry

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Hell Jerry, you must be older than me.

Your price on the James Avon is about right for 1957. In 1959 I used to drool over the Mk IVs and Kennet Perfections in Harry Handley's shop in Rotherham. He also had a range of the top fixed spool and centre pin reels in stock. The best centrepin for the money was the Speedia by WR products of Sheffield. Many anglers who I fished with never rated the Mitchell, except if they were left handed. The top reel amongst the Sheffield match anglers was the JW Young Ambidex, and if you could afford one, an Allcocks Felton Crosswind. Top centrepin would be the Young's Rapidex.

Mol

If you were to look at that price point again, check out something by Okuma. I've had two of their interceptor 40 reels for about five years now - one spool has six pound line and does all of my feeder/ general fishing, the other spool has twelve pound on and i use those for carp and pike and they're still going very strong.