The Truth behind Naish Warranties

[Starsky]

What bothers me with this whole thread is that the OP wouldn't offer up pictures of the damage to the kite....this is the first time that I have ever seen anyone do that. The shop quickly displayed the photo's as it clearly shows the damaged area's to the kite and how there was something sharp that had to be involved. This is not a Naish issue or the shops issue with the leading edge failure. I do agree that the shop had a great opportunity to step up and help this guy out and it appears that they did offer him a reduced repair bill. I don't see why this should have been made public as it is a means to try and flame a company to hand out a free replacement. No kite company is going to hand the customer a brand new kite (even Dimitri) but a little good will does seem to mend some hurt feelings.

Jimmy

To the original poster....if the kites suit your style of riding than I would suggest that you continue to use them. I would take hands down a good session with gear that rides well for me over my pride and gear that just isn't quite what I want. You don't need to support that shop but ride what makes your sessions killer.

exactly.

[Mike27]

I i was looking on internet if what happened to my kite has ever occured to someone else...and i am not disappointed !

To resume i bought 6 month ago a brand new Naish Torch 10M 2015 kite to a famous german internet shop (at this moment i will not communicate the name of the dealer). i have used it maybe 10 times.

After a failed tricks, the kite felt in flat water (nothing special i think?).

When i get back to the beach i saw that the leading edge was open by a failed seam (the fabric itself has no damage). All the guy on the beach (and some have kiteshop in the city) told me that it is obvious that the seam or kite had a defect.

I send a waarranty claim to my shop and they denied it !! Reason : "you have crashed the kite on water and it is not designed to resist that !!!"

So when you by a Naish kite it is not designed to resist to a felt on water when you are riding ? Is it Naish official policy ?
If they are right i think it is good to inform future customers !

[Topaz]

^^^ Same here.

My 2015 12m Torch started to 'bulge out' on a sewing at the leading edge. I don't know if it was after a crash or just because. I saw the bulge while pumping it.
It was out of warranty already. I didn't wait for the problem to get worse and put a preventive patch on the inside of the LE. I used a strut/LE patch from KiteAid.com.

I used the kite some more times without problems.

Staying clear from 2015 Naish's for the moment. I love other years though, great kites.

[tautologies]

I i was looking on internet if what happened to my kite has ever occured to someone else...and i am not disappointed !

To resume i bought 6 month ago a brand new Naish Torch 10M 2015 kite to a famous german internet shop (at this moment i will not communicate the name of the dealer). i have used it maybe 10 times.

After a failed tricks, the kite felt in flat water (nothing special i think?).

When i get back to the beach i saw that the leading edge was open by a failed seam (the fabric itself has no damage). All the guy on the beach (and some have kiteshop in the city) told me that it is obvious that the seam or kite had a defect.

I send a waarranty claim to my shop and they denied it !! Reason : "you have crashed the kite on water and it is not designed to resist that !!!"

So when you by a Naish kite it is not designed to resist to a felt on water when you are riding ? Is it Naish official policy ?
If they are right i think it is good to inform future customers !

Few kites are build as tough as Naish kites IMO...I've been absolutely astounded at how much abuse some kites have taken...I would try to work a little closer with the shop. Clearly we put kites through much much tougher use than what they are designed to take, but if the kite has weaknesses I think there are compromises to be made like shared repair costs or repairs for nominal monies. Its really hard to knw exactly what is going on...if you use a kite hard for 6 months and do a lot of slams obviously a kite can wear a lot in that time. On the other hand if the kite never slammed before and has barely been used it should definitely not have a problem on a soft crash. The problem is of course that it is hard to judge...we've had people here be completely unreasonable (see OP's post) so people here will be a bit skeptical.

[jonysan]

Dear OP.
What is your aim here, to get us on your side ? do you want to bring down the Naish company? are you here to kindly warn us ?

[cglazier]

I have been kiting since the early days. I just checked my list and I have owned 35 Naish kites out of my total of 52 kites. I can't recall ever getting a Naish warranty because I never needed one.
I have certainly needed repairs but only when it was my fault.
Just my experience.

Chris Glazier, Vancouver, BC, Canada
(I pay for all my kites)

[Mike27]

^^^ Same here.

My 2015 12m Torch started to 'bulge out' on a sewing at the leading edge. I don't know if it was after a crash or just because. I saw the bulge while pumping it.
It was out of warranty already. I didn't wait for the problem to get worse and put a preventive patch on the inside of the LE. I used a strut/LE patch from KiteAid.com.

I used the kite some more times without problems.

Staying clear from 2015 Naish's for the moment. I love other years though, great kites.

I had exactly the same problem than you on my older 12M torch 2015, and did exactly the same than you .

To "jonysan" i am totally honest my aim is clearly to have a response from a naish representative, as the shop where i bought the kite has closed the discussion. (maybe i can go to justice, but what a lost of time...). And i think a forum is also aimed to help the kitesurfing community (advise help etc....)

And no as i said the kite has been used more or less 10 times. i live 200km from a beach and kiting only during my holidays (and no all of the time on my 10m). But this fact is really easy to verify; if at least they had propose me to send them the kite, they would have see that the fabric is still crisp without any sctach or defect !

Furthermore i would like to say that i like Naish kite and particularly the torch, i think i have already bought 7 since 2005, And i love the flying charaterisctic of the Torch. But for me it seems that maybe there is a defect on the seams on some 2015 ones...every brand can have some problem on some units, but is is tooeasy to say that is "customer fault" without any real expertise
But till now the problem is maybe only my dealer !?

[Kamikuza]

tl;dr

Was it Naish HQ or some dealer/distributer?

[Mike27]

tl;dr

Was it Naish HQ or some dealer/distributer?

German online dealer

[Mike27]

I saw that it was impossible to see my pictures....