Anyone have experience with delays for getting parts from Smith and Wesson?

Murray Charlton ordered a barrel for one of my 27-2s months ago....still nothing. Their horrible wait times won't keep me from buying old wheel guns....if something does go wrong with one, I can always shoot the others while I wait. Not a very good operating principle though.
 
While I would agreed that made in america / north america doesn't mean the same as it use to… it isn't a matter of that. The issue here is how they are treating their customers. Regardless of us being in the limited market of the great white north where our gun laws are "crazy and so restrictive" to them, we are paying customers. Hell I had a friend who bought one of the first wave of Kia Rios that came to canada and that thing was really…REALLY a train wreck. Each month there was some new f*%ked up problem with it…including, and this was my favourite, after 6 months the power steering rack died….but every time he had it in for warranty work it was completed, they were pleasant to deal with and apologetic for the hassle….he was never told "well these are parts that we have to manufacture…or ship here from Korea etc…etc.. that resulted in his car up on blocks for almost year with no end in sight. I know people who have classic cars that have parts machined for them that don't take this long….

I am not approaching this from some spoiled, first world internet instant age mentality….These delays that I am seeing, and many other people are professing on this form as very real and significant. Really I think that from square one when the first months or so passed it would have been prudent for someone to contact me as I had inquired as to the delays…and just tell me the "needs machining from scratch, this will take a while" deal and maybe I could be better prepared for this whole thing. I am not financially able to just go and purchase a new pistol, let a lone a revolver (as they seem to be very pricey as I look around).But if I had know that this long a wait was coming I could have started to save and maybe by start of the season I would have had a replacement to shoot in competitions,etc. I just think that customer service can be a lot more than just "we got it done now", and good customer service is IMHO a huge indication of a good company that builds quality relationships with their customers new and old. Just my 2 cents….which I am going to put in a jar now and start saving…maybe eventually I can buy a FA to replace the one that is lost to the warranty ages…
 
Just as follow up…. here I am sitting at home waiting on a delivery truck. I have been notified that my revolver has been repaired and is out for delivery today. I am of course very happy to be getting my revolver back however there are a few things that are still bothersome. First of all the time line….like a lot of people have described on various forms and this one, it has been almost a year to get this completed. Second of all the parts that were replaced will not match the original revolver. As a special order it had engraving on the cylinder, frame and the replacement cylinder could not be engraved because that programming was gone,,etc.etc as per SW. And lastly in respect to the time…well I submitted the FA for repair in Sept of last year. I was notified that it would require a new cylinder and that parts were on order…same story for 9 months. So June 4, 2015 I sent inquiry to SW through their website and never heard back. June 24th I send another one complaining about the lack of response..etc. That day I had a total of 3 emails sent and returned to me from them regarding the status of my repair, that the parts have to be repro individually for the revolver and that hasn't been done yet. On Aug 4, 2015 I get notification it is done and being sent back to me that same day. I can not believe it is coincidence that after I start to pursue them, tell them about the bad PR I am giving them about this to everyone I can in the FA community etc…that it suddenly gets done in 2 months after 9 months of nothing. I really hate the old adage that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" but I guess when you deal with this sort of thing the take home lesson is squeak, squeak a lot, loudly and frequently if you want to get this stuff done. Sad really….I don't know if I will ever buy another SW firearm again.
 
eldenhiemer said:
Just as follow up…. here I am sitting at home waiting on a delivery truck. I have been notified that my revolver has been repaired and is out for delivery today. I am of course very happy to be getting my revolver back however there are a few things that are still bothersome. First of all the time line….like a lot of people have described on various forms and this one, it has been almost a year to get this completed. Second of all the parts that were replaced will not match the original revolver. As a special order it had engraving on the cylinder, frame and the replacement cylinder could not be engraved because that programming was gone,,etc.etc as per SW. And lastly in respect to the time…well I submitted the FA for repair in Sept of last year. I was notified that it would require a new cylinder and that parts were on order…same story for 9 months. So June 4, 2015 I sent inquiry to SW through their website and never heard back. June 24th I send another one complaining about the lack of response..etc. That day I had a total of 3 emails sent and returned to me from them regarding the status of my repair, that the parts have to be repro individually for the revolver and that hasn't been done yet. On Aug 4, 2015 I get notification it is done and being sent back to me that same day. I can not believe it is coincidence that after I start to pursue them, tell them about the bad PR I am giving them about this to everyone I can in the FA community etc…that it suddenly gets done in 2 months after 9 months of nothing. I really hate the old adage that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" but I guess when you deal with this sort of thing the take home lesson is squeak, squeak a lot, loudly and frequently if you want to get this stuff done. Sad really….I don't know if I will ever buy another SW firearm again.
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Just a thought here, maybe the problem is not only the factory but the repair depot for not staying on there case and asking where the part is every month?

Just a thought.

Graydog
 
Very true, however I can say that I was on average contacting them everyone 3-4 weeks for some sort of update on what was going on. I assume they may have checked into it when that happened, if for no other reason than to shut me up. Regardless of the outcome, what side of the border the issue was on, it all counts as warranty work and in my opinion, took way to long regardless of the issue. My 2 cents.
 
In my case it was a mixture of both the repair depot waiting for the paperwork apparently to ship it out (over 5 months) to S&W dragging their heels for a year and a half then another 6 months to reship back to depot then to me.
I would definitely not recommend that service or product to anyone unfortunately.
 
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