Warranties

For the life of me - I can't figure out why I have never taken advantage of product warranties before! They are SO great! And I'm just now beginning to realize that I can use them! What's up with that?!?

Behold exhibit A) My trusty camelbak - or rather, Jessica's camelbak that I stole from her a while ago. (Sorry Jess! I owe ya!)

Recently my camelbak has decided it's a good idea to leak from the lid. I wear it a lot when I go on my roady rides and it gets my back SOAKING wet! When it was warm outside this was actually a good thing. But now it's cold and by the end of my rides I am freezing and wet.

I ordered a new bladder online, but it ended up being the wrong size. So then I decided to go to Camelbak's website to see if I could find what I needed there. I saw a link for "warranty information" and boy am I glad I clicked on it! They'll replace any defective bladder for free! Awesome!

Exhibit B) My trusty Tevas:

Hands down the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn in my life. One slight problem though - the black part of the sole is coming off. I've already super glued it 3 times! And it's coming off again! After my neat Camelbak discovery I decided to visit Teva's website. A few other customers have complained about this problem on this specific shoe so Teva has posted a note saying they've updated the shoe and you can mail back defective ones for a brand new pair for free. Woohoo! I can't find these guys in any stores these days and I really want a new pair. Now it looks like I'll get one for free!

Exhibit C) My not very old Levi Strauss 501 Jeans:

Super comfortable! Love the button fly. They're only like 4 months old! That really big hole started out as a super small one. I don't know what caused it. It grew a lot last night as I was playing volleyball. And yes - it happened during an amazing save by yours truly. Anyway, you better believe I'll be on the phone with their customer service reps tomorrow. Hopefully I can get a new pair of jeans out of them... don't know if it'll work but I'm sure going to try.

The moral of the story is: When something breaks don't rush out and buy a new one immediately - do some research and see if it has a warranty. Most companies want your return business so they're going to try to make you has happy as possible. I'd be willing to bet that if you push hard enough you'll end up with a new item every time - even if they don't have a great warranty. They'll do it because they want you to come back and buy from them again.