Flight Time wrote:I wanted to let you all know about the fantastic shopping experience that I had with Cabrinha. They wen't above and beyond the call of duty in resolving my issue! Here is my conversation with them in it's entirety:
Me:
"Question: I have been looking all over the site, but I can't seem to find a link to actually purchase replacement bladders. The smallest strut on my Switchblade has a major leak, and goes flat in about 5 seconds. I watched the video, and the repair seems straightforward, but I need the actual bladder. Where can I buy it?"
Them, today, 2 weeks later:
"Aloha Matt,
Sorry - but we're not set up to sell direct. You'd need to contact either you local dealer or the main Cabrinha distributor in your own country. They should be able to further assist you. Contact details are below. Please note that OEM strut bladders are not sold individually, but as a set (all 5 in your case). If you would like to only purchase one single bladder, your best bet is to contact www.airtimekite.com to see about ordering an aftermarket version.
http://www.cabrinhakites.com/distributions.html
Best Regards,
Cabrinha Support"
Me, Today:
"Hey that's great. I'm so glad companies don't service what they manufacture and sell these days! I am also extatic that I can't buy exactly what I need, and that I need to pay for 4 things I don't need to get the one that I do need! Thank you so much for the fantastic customer support, the timely response to my question, and the absolute failure to resolve my issue! You can be sure of my loyalty to your brand in the years to come, and I also can assure you that I will always be willing to talk to my fellow kiters about my wonderful experience shopping with Cabrinha!
Aloha!"
Is this ok? Does anyone see anything wrong here? Is this normal?
I think its a kiting thing more than a Cabrinha thing, but I do keep an eye out for Companies that do better on customer service.
When designs settle down, we may be able to get repairs done cheaper, but with things changing so often, its not condusive to keeping lots of spares for older designs.
I have 09 Cabs and a pulley failed. I read that there were bad batches of pulleys that failed but Cabrinha only replaced a pulley after it broke, so I bought all the pulleys myself and replaced and upgraded them at the same time. The 09 bar ends bend if you wind the lines on under any tension and the lines then fall off, so you have to wind them onto the back of the bar in a figure 8 . Not ideal when you have to do an emergency packdown, so I am currently modifying the bar ends using 4 parts cut from a 3 Peaks dog tugger and some Black Witch neoprene adhesive.
At the moment, that's the way I see the kite industry, but if someone comes out with a good design and sticks with it for years, then we hopefully will get the sort of service we would like.