Thanks to INGOers' helpful suggestions, I picked up a Zero Tolerance 0556 a couple months ago from Bradsknives. I've been VERY happy with it and I was satisfied with what the Zero Tolerance brand offered in terms of quality and value.
A few weeks ago I was approached at work by someone who carried a ZT 0350. He was hard up for some cash and knew I enjoyed guns and knives. He offered me his 0350 for just $30. It was a few years old, had some carry wear, was a bit gummed up inside, and had a less desirable (to me) stonewash blade. But it was only 30 freakin' dollars! Of course I jumped on it.
I brought it home and was thoroughly impressed with my score. Here it was:
According to its model number it was originally sold as some kind of special run through Knifeworks.com. It was an "0350KW". The blade needed sharpening, and the SpeedSafe assisted opening mechanism was slow (probably because of all the pocket lint). I had heard that Zero Tolerance and Kershaw offer free sharpening for life, so I thought I'd send it to them and try out this service. I thought if I was lucky they might even clean it up and fix the slow SpeedSafe action.
I started by visiting the warranty page on their website: Warranty | ZT Knives
I followed their instructions and filled out the provided warranty form, printing 2 copies. On the form I asked for the blade to be sharpened and the SpeedSafe to be fixed. I indicated a "No" where it asked if the knife held any sentimental value.
I took the knife to my local shipping store. I didn't have a box so they packaged it for me (ZT says no padded envelopes). I had it shipped with a tracking number, per ZT's instructions. It cost me $10 to ship it, plus the cost of the packing materials.
ZT says to allow 6 weeks for processing, but everything took only 14 days in this case.
Though I did receive an initial "confirmation" email from ZT after I filled out the warranty form, I will note that I never received any updates or communications once they received the knife, or once they closed my claim. This is not a big deal, but worth mentioning. I imagine they process so many claims that doing so would be too time consuming.
I arrived home from work today to a box on my porch. Inside the unnecessarily large box under a bunch of packing material I found my original warranty form, and a small bubble-wrapped envelope. Nothing else.
Eager to see if they cleaned up the knife I opened the envelope. Damn it was clean! But wait . . . . something's not right. It had a black blade! Giving it a good once-over I then realized that they had REPLACED THE ENTIRE KNIFE. Wow!
I'm not sure what their thinking was-- maybe the SpeedSafe issue was bigger than I realized, maybe they don't want to work on the KW knives, maybe they broke the old one while sharpening it. I dunno. But I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth!
Here's the new 0350:
Not bad for a $40 investment!
I believe Zero Tolerance is one of those rare companies that feels so strongly about their products that they don't want older sub-par knives out there in circulation. They also appear to want to keep their customers happy. And I am!
If you've never owned a Kershaw or ZT knife I would encourage you to consider them. Obviously they take care of their products and their customers. If you do have a Kershaw or ZT lying around you might want to think about utilizing their free sharpening service. I'm not promising a completely new knife, but you'll certainly get back something better than what you sent.
I'd be curious to hear others' experience with Kershaw/ZT warranty service. Anyone else ever sent their knives in?
Here's the new 0350 next to my EDC 0556.
A few weeks ago I was approached at work by someone who carried a ZT 0350. He was hard up for some cash and knew I enjoyed guns and knives. He offered me his 0350 for just $30. It was a few years old, had some carry wear, was a bit gummed up inside, and had a less desirable (to me) stonewash blade. But it was only 30 freakin' dollars! Of course I jumped on it.
I brought it home and was thoroughly impressed with my score. Here it was:
According to its model number it was originally sold as some kind of special run through Knifeworks.com. It was an "0350KW". The blade needed sharpening, and the SpeedSafe assisted opening mechanism was slow (probably because of all the pocket lint). I had heard that Zero Tolerance and Kershaw offer free sharpening for life, so I thought I'd send it to them and try out this service. I thought if I was lucky they might even clean it up and fix the slow SpeedSafe action.
I started by visiting the warranty page on their website: Warranty | ZT Knives
I followed their instructions and filled out the provided warranty form, printing 2 copies. On the form I asked for the blade to be sharpened and the SpeedSafe to be fixed. I indicated a "No" where it asked if the knife held any sentimental value.
I took the knife to my local shipping store. I didn't have a box so they packaged it for me (ZT says no padded envelopes). I had it shipped with a tracking number, per ZT's instructions. It cost me $10 to ship it, plus the cost of the packing materials.
ZT says to allow 6 weeks for processing, but everything took only 14 days in this case.
Though I did receive an initial "confirmation" email from ZT after I filled out the warranty form, I will note that I never received any updates or communications once they received the knife, or once they closed my claim. This is not a big deal, but worth mentioning. I imagine they process so many claims that doing so would be too time consuming.
I arrived home from work today to a box on my porch. Inside the unnecessarily large box under a bunch of packing material I found my original warranty form, and a small bubble-wrapped envelope. Nothing else.
Eager to see if they cleaned up the knife I opened the envelope. Damn it was clean! But wait . . . . something's not right. It had a black blade! Giving it a good once-over I then realized that they had REPLACED THE ENTIRE KNIFE. Wow!
I'm not sure what their thinking was-- maybe the SpeedSafe issue was bigger than I realized, maybe they don't want to work on the KW knives, maybe they broke the old one while sharpening it. I dunno. But I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth!
Here's the new 0350:
Not bad for a $40 investment!
I believe Zero Tolerance is one of those rare companies that feels so strongly about their products that they don't want older sub-par knives out there in circulation. They also appear to want to keep their customers happy. And I am!
If you've never owned a Kershaw or ZT knife I would encourage you to consider them. Obviously they take care of their products and their customers. If you do have a Kershaw or ZT lying around you might want to think about utilizing their free sharpening service. I'm not promising a completely new knife, but you'll certainly get back something better than what you sent.
I'd be curious to hear others' experience with Kershaw/ZT warranty service. Anyone else ever sent their knives in?
Here's the new 0350 next to my EDC 0556.
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