MEC is taking the Mark's side

[Jarrydlee]

I recently went into MEC to return a tent which had some faulty zippers, I bought this tent in 2010 and used it for two seasons. It was a good tent but it had zipper issues. I returned the tent and received store credit, for the same value as my "nimbus 4" tent. Later on while browsing I learned that MEC's policy on return does not accept gear used for "industrial work" ie tree planting. I apologize for using "quotations" twice in this message body but I feel it is important to stress these words, I think it is intrinsic... I digress though. The point is, if you are returning anything to MEC do not say you are a "treeplanter". A sales representative there said that MEC products were for "self propelled adventures only". Maybe this was a rogue MEC employee with something against tree planting. MEC seems to be following the Mark's work wearhouse precedence though.

Do we treeplanters deserve this discrimination? A funny topic...

[Scooter]

Funny, I was giving this exact same advice to someone yesterday.

[Jarrydlee]

synchronicity...

[jules]

This is probably not going to be a popular opinion, but I think it's totally MEC's prerogative as to whether or not they want to accept returns of gear used for planting. I don't think it's particularly discriminatory; MEC is not a charity. If you're living in a tent for 70 days in a row, you're getting a lot more use out of it than someone who buys the same tent and uses it a few weekends over the summer for camping. Barring some quality defect, it's likely your gear performed as well as it was supposed to and there's no reason for it to be free.

[jono]

This is nothing new. They have been doing this for at least the past twelve years.

[twitch]

I agree with Jules, although it would be nice to take your tent with busted zippers after two years and get a new one for nothing. I have had my MEC tarn 3 for 6 seasons, and have replaced the fly twice, and two of the poles before. This year I went in last week and tried to purchase a new body as my zippers are done. Pretty impressed they've lasted 6 seasons planting and through 6 years of end of summer sloppy music festivals. I was shocked when i found out they don't sell the body by itself very easily anymore, which is odd, because you can replace every other part on that tent, but they came to my rescue and actually broke apart a tent right from the floor and sold me the body so i wouldn't have to purchase a whole new tent. Another thing I thought was awesome, that I never knew about until just last week, is that you can buy new pole sections for your tent and easily replace them yourself, which was great for me, because i only had a couple bent sections on my poles, so instead of buying a whole new pole set for $65.00. i bought three new pole sections for $10. Not only that, they cut the new sections to length and helped me put them on right in the store while the store was packed to the tits busy.

I have to say i'm feeling pretty awesome about the customer service and overall products that MEC sell right now.

[bhappy]

I'm going to have to agree with Jules on this one.... There is a big difference between the lifespan of gear and defective gear.... I've had mec happily give me store credit on defective product within the realm of their warranties... But I don't expect them to replace gear that has been well used and reached the extent of its intended use... If anything it's unfortunate that many companies make gear that cannot withstand the elements for extended periods of time... MEC is a coop if you are buying there you should keep that in mind.... The more gear that is given freely, the higher the prices have to rise to compensate.

The other thing is ( and others have mentioned it on this forum), how we'll you take care of your gear.... If I spend 400$ on boots and thrash them and they fall apart because I didn't take care of them....it's my fault. If I use boots for two days and the sole splits or falls off... The gear is probably defective and will likely get replaced.

Unfortunately...I think that the reason for which these return policies are in place and the reason why planters tend to get flack is because in some ways it's pretty cheap to use gear intensly for 70-100 days or more and expect it to be replaced for free.... Investing 300$ on a tent every couple years isn't that bad, you can cover that expense in a day.

In all honesty, if you want to be cheap about your gear, do it, but don't complain when you don't get a free replacement.

[Scooter]

Agreed. If your gear lasts for the whole season, you shouldn't be expecting to return it.

I guess to clarify, when I was saying that I was giving the same advice to someone above, it was to one of the rookies in my camp who was asking if a certain pair of boots was going to be sufficient, or whether she should spend more on a high-end pair (she was looking at something mid-range). I suggested that she should go with the pair that she was looking at and try them out for the first shift and we'd take a closer look after that to see if they were appropriate. I'm hoping that she can try them on and wear them just for a couple days so if she does decide to upgrade, she hasn't put much wear on them.

[Mike]

Meanwhile, I brought my tent (5 years of planting) into MEC last fall and told them it needed a zipper job. I just said something like "Hey, do you guys do zipper fixes for tents for free? I heard a rumour you did?" and their answer was "Yes, just fill out this little form with your e-mail and phone number so we can call you when we get it back in."

I had several poles that were very slightly bent (like, 5-6 degrees, not a big deal) and several pegs slightly to moderately bent (some 5-10 degrees, some 20-30 degrees). They replaced that all, too. And a place where I had patched using black ducktape because an extremely desperate rodent chewed through my tent to rip up a plastic toothpaste tube a bit (something I still find strange) --- patched.

Never said anything, never asked anything. Though it was October, and I was looking super city when I brought it in.

[twitch]

I wish they would have told me they fix zippers! I did mention that's why i was buying a new body. Oh well that thing was pretty dank anyways.