Vortex and their "VIP Warranty"
 

A few years ago when I started hunting and needed a range finder. I decided not to go cheap and spent around $500 on a Vortex Ranger 1000. It was an awesome little rangefinder and out performed my friends "Bushnells and Nikons". Over the last month I've noticed it having a tougher time ranging dark targets and shorter distances for archery (basically less then 100 yards). Some times it was accurate and sometimes it was off by a few yards. Dark targets were the worst.

I decided to send it in to get it checked out and possibly recalibrated. The Rangefinder showed up at Vortex last week. Today a brand new, in the box, Ranger 1300 arrived and they even included my old bungee I used to attach it to my bino harness and 2 spare batteries.

First class service. I am very impressed. This type of service/support keeps customers for life. Well done Vortex.

I haven't needed it for my Viper HS-T, and hopefully won't need it for the Golden Eagle I'm getting.

I've heard nothing but positive reviews for their customer service & warranty.

Glad to hear you were no different.

:happy0034:

Yup. Good service
 

I had pair of razor binos with a worn diopter and they fully rebuilt them including a new lense that I scratched by my own negligence. Good as new. Not a brand new set but pretty sweet.

I have a set of binos that in all other instances should have been thrown in the garbage after they went for tumble down the mountain. They were finished, with scratched objective lenses, torn body rubber, one lens was cracked and smashed focus adjuster.

They rebuilt the binos, basically one tube is original but every thing else they changed up, under warranty for a butter fingers.

Vortex has earned my business

A thought:
A little looking on-line can find many many hundreds of stories like these with experiences of their exceptional warranty. Which raises a couple points in my mind.

Why are there so very many warranty claims?
Why can they easily replace so many units without question and still remain a profitable company?
Perhaps it is because they sell cheaply made junk for much more than any of it is worth.

Lol

I understand your reasoning. With my rangefinder, any decent rangefinder at the time was a similar price. I actually think the quality of the Vortex was awesome, I didn't baby it AT ALL. I was actually really rough on it.

You will also notice almost every other manufacturer has gone to lifetime warranty now, so it can't be hurting profits that much.

I have 2 thoughts about it.

1) Vortex has been very aggressive with advertising and sponsorship and their VIP warranty is part of that. It seems to be working, they have a huge share of the market now which allows them to build in much bigger quantities allowing for lower cost of manufacturing.

2) Once you have good "feelings" about a company, people will often remain loyal from then on. Think of the warranty as a way to ensure future purchases.

Vortex makes a decent product for its price but it’s not any better than the similarly priced brands at the same price point. I have vortex knockers and I’m looking to upgrade them as a starter pair they worked well now that I know a little more I know they are bulky and heavy and I would like something a little higher quality. Just have to decide on the swaro Leika or zeiss.

That's good to hear. I've got to send a set of bino's in that the strap holder broke on. Actually, I will do that today. Thanks for the reminder. Lol.

One more story of the great Vortex Warranty. As others have pointed out, it needs to be or no one would buy Vortex. I have a Leica CRF that is going on 13 years old, still works like the day it was new, and it has seen a ton of use. Not much more than the Vortex, far better glass, fast ranges and stellar reliability.

Buy Vortex if you like but after every Vortex product I have owned needing to go back for repair, I sold all of them. Resale values weren't great, even for new in box replacements.

I had one of the early Vortex Razor AMG 6-24x50s and had the O-Ring fail on my elevation turret, locking it up. Sent it in for warranty, shipping to them was on my dime. When I received the scope back it was no longer in the same condition as when I sent it in. It came back with 2 chips in the anodizing on the objective bell, the purge screw slot was chipped, and there was a long hair like scratch on the objective lens. I am anal about my lenses and cleaning and have yet to clean it. It just didn't need it. I emailed them about it and instantly received an apology and a return slip. A brand new in the box AMG was sent to me after they received mine.

That is great to hear. I understand that any company that you deal with, you will always have an issue if you deal with them long enough. To me, what defines a company, is how they deal with the issue when it comes up.

Well not really: Leupold 55 years with many many products not a single return, only one that went back I dropped off a mountain. Told them that and they still didn't charge me. Vortex less than 3 years, 6 returns on 4 products. Will not own stuff I can't rely on. Nuff said.

I had two vortex scopes fail, cant trust them to perform on that once in lifetime shot

I had the same problem, sent in my viper pst twice, once I could live with but the second time it was gone. Went to nightforce and never looked back. I'd still run their binos and spotters just not interest in their optics unless you get into the razor line.

To me what defines a company is not having an issue in the first place. The best warranty is the one you never use. All my scopes & spotter are Swaro and never had an issue. Just bought my first Votex (Viper HST) and after the second shot all kinds of little black specks on the inside of the glass. Called Vortex and they will repair but I still have take it off, box it up, mail it away and then re-install, bore sight and hope I don't have another problem. I should have spent the extra couple hundred bucks and kept with Swaro. Lesson learned.

I guess I should have prefaced with I am an archery only hunter so I don't have to bother with rifle scopes. I have had excellent products and service from Vortex in regards to their spotting scopes, binoculars, and range finders

I’ve had to send swaro back for warranty on a spotter because the coating was blistering off on the inside of the eye piece, Leupold for fogging up and reticle that didn’t reflect on 1/4 of the cross hair vortex for lenses that fell out of a spotter. Spending a little bit more doesn't always mean you’ll never have warranty issues. All of the companies warranty’s that I have used have been repaired with no issues and no cost to me.

I feel like vortex kinda went down hill once they did what every company does once it has success. They move manufacturing to china. I bout a scope and a pair of binos about 8 years ago and have not had a single issue.

Then I saw they were starting to make in china... the real lesson about any product is not to be brand loyal.

What you should be wondering is why so many other companies couldn’t offer this service because they would go broke and now after Vortex has hit the market it’s an industry standard. You were getting screwed before.

I also think you see so many of them for 2 reasons. 1 they sell a ton of optics, there are bound to be a few flaws however guys are hard on equipment even more. 2 people post about how happy they are that the $1500 spotting scope they ran over or dropped is being replaced at no charge, even though it’s their own darn fault.

I’m looking for a range finder myself and although I hate to be that guy with everything the same brand, it’s hard not to with the vortex warranty.

I have had 3 vortex scopes and 2 of them went in for warranty.
Bino’s are 3 years old and the eyecups broke on year 2.
Warranty is great because you’re going to need it.
I’m done buying Vortex

There is going to be problems no matter what you buy. You think people don’t have issues with their million dollar cars? What defines a company is how they handle these issues and I think we’d have seen how vortex is handling them. There is a reason they have gotten so popular so quickly and it’s not because they sell garbage.

When you raise production levels, QC will suffer to a point, some products in a vast product line will be designed poorly, but function, for the price point. And like they say, one bad word of mouth will lose you 10+ sales, so you have to try to prevent that as much as possible. Seems like they are doing it right overall in the cust service dept. I don't have any Vortex stuff, only things I've ever sent back for warranty were Kershaw,Lyman, Bushnell and RCBS. All got handled well. Got lots of 30+yr old scopes and an electronic scale, 20yr+ binos and spotters, a 30+ yr old freezer, a 37yr old stereo. Best products are definitely the ones that last without issues.

I have over 20 vortex products, and I have used the warranty twice. Once because the computer in a new rangefinder had an error, so I shipped it to ontario, and had a brand new unit back within 5 days round trip. The other warranty time was because while climbing over a fence, my rubber eyecup got snagged on barbwire and ripped in half, vortex fixed it. the other 18+ items have worked flawlessly. I've contacted vortex to ask if they could send me an extra set of lens covers, to replace a set that I had lost, they sent them out no problem.

do what you want with your money, Vortex is decent choice, both for putting out a quality product at a good price, and for taking care of their customers if/when something happens.

I had the diopter go in my razors as well right in the middle of a sheep hunt. Same thing came back good as new, crappy part is it took almost 3 months to get them back. A few people I know have had to send stuff back as well and there is no questions asked, but the problems seem to be a little more common with the vortex stuff. Not going to write them off for ever or anything but recently looking for a scope Vortex wasn't on the list.