Jetboil warranty won’t return my cup!

Matthew,

Yes, you make a good and quite apropos point. This thread has indeed gone "nuclear" and though I didn't necessarily want the "Occupy Jetboil" result, it has gotten the attention of their Marketing and Sales guy and I just got off of the phone with him. I guess he has been out of the office between the time I talked to the customer service person last week and now so he was very apologetic about not getting back in touch with me sooner.

We had a frank conversation about the situation and apparently this whole ordeal has resulted in a project to re-evaluate their RMA/Returns/Warranty system.

At any rate, he's promised to work with me to try to come to a fair conclusion to this, so let's cut the guys a break while they work out the details.

Thanks for all of your suggestions and other efforts.

_SHig

Don't worry, you won't get an Occupy Jetboil result. I'd walk over 100 miles for Occupy. At most I'd send an email to REI about Jetboil. That seems to be about the most anyone else here will do too.

And yet, if you Google the title of the OP you get this very thread.
Do not underestimate the power of the internet to spread information.
We have a lot of power here on Back Packing Light.
We need to exercise our power carefully.
Seriously.. go ahead an google up a random piece of your gear.
Very near the top of that list will be a post from BPL.
It is uncanny.

deleted

Google uses your search history to personalize your results.

Yes, google knows that when I type "il co" (without the quotation marks) I want the Italian paper called Corriere della sera.
Like typing "the ne" for New York Times…
Franco

So, what would be the likely history of a newby backpacker making searches for gear…
Golite, MSR, Jetboil…
They will come upon similar results as I have.
Have you two run the experiment I suggested?
Go ahead and Google Jetboil right now.
You see, people of the same interest will come upon similar results.
The point is; we should not jump the shark and crucify companies using BPL until we have exhausted our options.
Frankly, the fellow had not even pressed the point with Jetboil and suddenly the company is getting random posts to it's facebook site, but all connected to BPL.
It dilutes the forum to use our power unwisely.
And based on a single phone call to support related to us, and judging our reaction, I believe we have over-reacted.
The danger is becoming a flameware like Craiglist.
BPL has always been lauded for it's careful scientific study of the lightwieght movement.
Let us not degenerate into reactionary attacks until the facts are in.
To do so debases all that is good about this site and i include myself in this criticism foremost.

I'm not a fan of a company controlling perception to the point of deleting negative reviews that could inform the buyer of a potential hazard. That just seems extremely unethical.

deleted

What if it's wrongly posted?
What if the fellow gets a brand new kit tomorrow from Jetboil?
He just posted above that the customer service rep contacted him and "promised" to make it right.
So what about all this negative stuff above?
Does it just get swept away?
You see, a week had not even passed.
It's not like we are talking about an artificial heart here.
We were all taken in by our need to be righteously indignant at the big "company". before we really had cause to be.
If someone posted a negative thing on your facebook account that you knew or suspected to be untrue, and that could hurt your reputation, would you let it stand?
Heck, that person is probably in Columbus Ohio and the sales rep is in Nebraska.
Heck even if it was true.. why would you leave it there?
See, this is the problem with pulling out the ICBM's when a toothpick will do.
I have made this mistake with a company.
It turned out to be true in that case but honestly i had no grounds ,at that time, to defame them.
Who cares about their bottom line here.. nobody.. the real loss is our perspective.
If we collectively "cry wolf" every time a member cries foul, we lose our credibilty.
Honestly, re-read this thread, the OP is getting his resolution within two weeks.
Is his SO bad that it deserves the fury we have generated?

They deleted several posts on their Facebook page. Not returning the cup is one thing. However not responding to pot failures and then deleting posts about such pot failures is of the greater concern. It suggests they are trying to hide something.

Have you lost a Jetboil cup?
Do you personally have a claim to disparage this company David?

How in the World am I disparaging this company by posting a link to this thread so that they can read it? Time to step off the soapbox, methinks. Or do some research on the Ti pot failures on these forums. Or re-read one of my previous posts where I mention that the fins on my flipping pot are starting to tear away from the pot. Yup, I Want JetBoil to read this thread for all the reasons mentioned previously. There is also no way that I believe only 1 (one!) person could help the OP but he happened to be out of the office. Pure stinky bunk in this case.

Why not send your pot in so they can learn from it's "failure" instead of sniping by proxy?

Maybe he's afraid he won't get it back…

I don't find anything wrong with them deleting posts on their own Facebook page. I do have a problem with them getting BPL to delete threads.

I have been blocked from being able to post on their facebook page. I think it is time to ramp it up with them. We have several posts about the fins failing or starting to fail. I would imagine that, given for canister fuel burning systems, that a failure of this type would be considered dangerous. and a government entity would like to know about it. Perhaps a few posts concerning we are on to their design flaw and are willing to turn them in would help motivate them?

The last option idea I have is for everyone that has had the Jetboil fin failure (or is having it occur slowly) call the better business bureau and report them for the faulty product and lack of response to warn the public about the issue. This occurance of it not only shows they are unwilling to do right by their customers, it is also an admittance that this issue is dangerous by their stance to not send the cup back. Especially if that was in writing (but even if it is not) they would have a hard time disputing this. I am sure the BBB would follow up on a dangerous product claim.

Guys, let's give it a break. They've said that they're working on changing their system. As long as the conversation is continuing, let's give it a chance to see if they can do right by people.

_SHig

Looks like somebody got paid to keep his mouth shut

Sorry I'm just having fun. It seems too me a little more communication could have avoided this whole thing. At least they're talking to you now.

-Tim

I don't want to sound like I hate this company, hell I own half of their products. But they need to know there is a price to be paid for by not doing the right thing.

I understand that they told you that they are looking into changing their warranty program. Did they say aything concerning the fin failures and anything they were planning on doing to fix that issue or are they going to continue selling failures?

Gee dude, sorry we got their attention for you.

First heard of melting fins in February.

JetBoil has been silent. But now that we know they only have one person in the company allowed to help, the silence is understandable.

I am with Cameron on this. You wanted help and now have it, due entirely to this thread. I'd say that is pretty darn efficient. Heck, more than JetBoil.

Nobody was paid anything. I guess the wheel squeaked, and now there may be grease in return. I agree about more communication may have prevented this, however I felt like Jetboil had put down a hard line in the sand, and that their line was unreasonable and unacceptable.

I posted here looking for other what others had experienced, not for a flaming pitchfork mob. The fourth post said that they had experience and suggestions, but they never responded to my PM. But whatever the methods, the outcome was a dialog with the manufacturer. Let's take advantage of this and see if we can make forward progress without additional foment.

As far as the fin failures, I was told of their top notch quality control and that it was unlikely that any units could have left the factory with unbonded fins, but clearly mine did somehow, and it seems like others may have as well. I'd love to talk to their engineers to see what sort of solder/braze they use to affix the aluminum to the titanium and what surface prep they do. With the thermal coefficient of expansion of aluminum being nearly three times that of titanium, I wonder with temperature cycling the solder joint becomes weak? Not the case with mine as it failed on the first heating, but food for thought for the other failures.

Also, from the few photos on the web of the melted fins, there seems to be at least two failure modes. Like mine, where it seems like the fins weren't bonded or became unbonded – the entire unbonded fin has melted away and the adjacent well adhered fins are untouched. And some others where it looks like the fins are still bonded to the cup but the tips are burned/melted away. This failure mode seems more consistent with heating the cup without water or cooking somthing other than water at too high a heat which allowed the bottom of the cup to overheat. This would allow the parts of the aluminum fins furthest away from the heat sink of the bottom of the cup to burn away first. Interesting that I haven't seen any failures on aluminum systems where this failure mode would be just as likely as on Ti units.

I think using titanium fins may be cost prohibitive, or perhaps the low thermal conductivity of titanium would make the resulting flux ring inefficient. Again, talking to their engineers would be really interesting.

I really wasn't out to skewer anyone, however, and I'm a bit embarassed at how rabid this has become. I was just a bit miffed about how they were dealing with my problem so I reached out for some input. I got it. It worked. Let's see what comes of it.

Thanks!

_SHig

Now is not the time to play nice. They made a major customer service faux paux. They should have never said they were going to keep your cup without restitution. It is not their right. They are now trying to make amends with you, but they need to make amends with the community. They need to post a full mea culpa on BPL and list exactly what actions they are going to take to prevent this from happening in the future. What is happening on the customer service side and what is happening on the fin separation issue? How is it possible that one and only one person at Jetboil could properly respond to your issue? Their customer service department shuts down when he is on vacation? If Jetboil wants this to go away, they need to respond to the people who brought it to their attention. It was a community response which drove them to respond. Blocking a community chock full of their own customer from their facebook page does not seem like the appropriate response. Jetboil: This community loves your products. (That is why we are so passionate about them) Please assure us that we can trust you to stand behind your products!