JagMagMan

I just had a 5 year old, babied, Simmons Aetec fail on me! I had decided to just trash the scope and upgrade, but for 10 dollars I can't resist testing their warranty service!
As soon as I get a day off I'm sending it in! I'll let ya'll know how their service department is!
I am a firm believer that the best warranty in the world, is the one you never have to use! The second best warranty, is one that does what they say it will do! I'll find out soon!

timbercruiser

Simmons, Weaver and Redfield are now owned by Meade. In the past they havn't had the best reputation.

okcmco

Timber cruiser is right. But Meade has had good customer service. I would hope they have addressed past issues when they bought simmons.
Let us know how it goes. I am considering an Aetec myself for my black powder rifle.

JagMagMan

Okcmco,
This is not the new model Aetec, but it lived a fairly sheltered life! There should have been no reason for it to go bad like that! I know that ANYTHING man-made can break, but I "thought" that the Aetec was a good, cheaper alternative to higher dollar scopes. The clarity, and light transmission was plenty good enough for legal hunting light. But this has totally soured me on cheaper scopes! If they replace/repair it, I still won't use it for hunting! I am still planning to upgrade to a Leupy, or probably a Nikon Monarch! I'll let you know about their customer service though!

North Texan

I'm always interested to hear about somebody's customer service. Keep us posted.

vadeerkiller

I found out that when you call customer service you have to leave a messsage. So far I've called twice and they haven't returned my call.

okcmco

Jagman. I understand about the scope not being abused but still breaking, and how this makes you uneasy about using it. Don;t know if it makes you feel any better or maybe worse, but I have a friend who has a Zeiss scope that went down for no apparent reason. We are talking a scope that went for 1300 bucks. His experience with Zeiss customer service was a good one. So one can never tell about a product even with a good reputation. As you say, any man made thing can break.
I throw alot of opinions around on this site, and not all of themmay be useful.But I can tell you from direct experience that my dealings with the customer service of both Leupold and Bushnellwere excellent. With Leupold, They reset the paralax on my M8 4x scope with no questions asked and they paid for return shipping. This was a scope that was maybe 10-15 years old and I bought it used. I told leupold that but they fixed it anyway.
With Bushnell, I had an old Banner 3-9x40 which they had not the parts to fix, so they replaced it with a new one. And btw the new one was a better scope even though they were the same series.

CalHunter

The only scope or bino warranty I've ever had to deal with was Swarovski. The binos still worked but one of the knobs got messed up when my father-in-law borrowed it for an antelope trip. No big deal but I needed to get them repaired for an elk hunting trip. I called Swarovski and they said they could either ship me the part free or I could ship them the binos and they would make the repair for free (parts and labor)--my choice. I decided to let them fix it since they're the experts. I told them about my elk hunting deadline and they said no problem. Long story short, I got my binos back and they had upgraded about 20 or so parts on my binos and essentially made them a new pair of binos (including my knob that had been messed up). I got the binos back in time for my elk hunt and they worked flawlessly. I haven't tried any other company's warranty yet (knock on wood) but have heard extremely good things about Leopold's service also. I too am curious to hear abnout Simmons' warranty service since I own an aetec scope also (10 years now on a .338WM). Let us know the final results.

DannyD

I posted this about my experience with Simmons early this year. hope it helps




Around Christams I bought a Savage 243 rifle and scope package. The scope was a Simmons Blazer in 3-9. Well, I sighted it in and took a deer at 150 yards first time out. Went back to the range and tried to use it on 9x (first time trying it) and I couldn't get it to focus properly at 8x or 9x.

So I sent it back to Simmons with the explaination of the problem and a $7 check for return postage.
I received a postcard telling me that they received the package and will look into the issue.
In the mail I received a new ProHunter 3x9x40.
The Blazer shows $29 at Cabelas and the ProHunter shows $159.
I'd say that was fairly good service [align=right][/align]