**Update: I’ve heard of multiple experiences where Dillon has wanted to charge customers for this kind of service (fixes, etc). Your mileage may vary!
A friend of mine Lewis Curtis recently managed to negotiate a great trade on a used Dillon XL-650 outfit loaded with extras. It’s rare to find a good deal on these machines used because they are popular, and people tend to hang on to them, especially in “uncertain times”.
Not too long after getting the machine, one of the dogs that Lewis and his wife were taking care of (a “rescued” dog) jumped up on the table where the XL-650 was propped up, and brought the machine down to the ground – which smashed up the case feed bowl. Bummer! Lewis then approached me and said- what if we do a real life before and after story showing the Dillon No B.S. Warranty in action? Sounds interesting I thought… So we took a complete set of photos of the machine so that we could document what Dillon does when you send in a machine for a free rebuild/upgrade. Yes, that’s right- they will upgrade your machine, repair parts, and send it back to you (even covering the shipping back to you) free of charge- even if you are not the original owner. Sound too good to be true? Let’s find out!
It was clear that this machine was used quite a bit. Lewis indicated that there was still powder in at least one of the powder measures when he got the machine (had been sitting for years).
So what will Dillon say? No paperwork, not the original owner, and not “normal wear and tear”. In fact, this unit looks more like it fell out of the back of a pickup truck rolling down the highway than something that broke while loading 🙂
Stay tuned and we’ll find out what Dillon will do with this. Should be interesting! Do you have Dillon warranty stories that you’d like to share? Please leave a comment documenting your experiences!
Want to see how this turned out? Check out PART II
**Edit: Note that Dillon Precision was not informed that this repair job would be highlighted on this website, and these articles were posted following the repair job.
Thanks,
Gavin
“No warranty cards, registration or serial numbers are necessary. Whether you are the first owner, or the seventeenth, all our hobby-level reloading machines have a lifetime warranty. If you break, damage or wear out anything on them, it will be fixed or replaced – whatever is necessary to restore the machine to normal operating condition. If a minor part is all that is needed, contact us and we will ship the part. (International customers pay the return shipping costs) If something major is damaged or broken,contact us and we issue the customer a return merchandise authorization-RMA- to return the item to us for repair. The customer pays the shipping; we fix or replace as is warranted. Only our commercial machine, the Super 1050, has a one-year warranty, as do all electrical/electronic products and textiles.”
I would not expect the case feeder to be covered as it is likely considered an ‘electrical product’ as opposed to a press, especially by obvious physical damage.
I received replacement parts promptly when I had some plastic bits break on my primer feed tube, and I just sent my SDB back to get the frame replaced, and I’m not the original owner. The no b.s. warranty has allot to do with the high resale value and a big reason why I just upgraded to an XL650.
My experience with Dillon would leave me to believe that they will take care of your friend in a manner that will all but shock him. I mean this in the most positive manner. They do remarkable things when it comes to customer service. I know of no better in the industry. I can’t say that I personally have had the same type of service with RCBS.
Mark
Just a thought, but the warranty test would have been more objective if it had not been announced on your blog prior to receiving the 650 back from Dillon. Especially as responder Tim seems to be either a Dillon employee or distributor when he refers to “us” and “we”.
This should not be interpreted to doubt the “no BS” in Dillon’s warranty. All my warranty dealings with Hornady have also met or exceeded my expectations.
Love the site and your blog!
Ken- the machine was received back from Dillon in May- well before the posts were posted. (Lewis sent the machine in himself as himself)
Ken, I don’t think it would make any difference. I have a used dillon machine and they have come to my rescue three times, no questions asked. When I apologized for breaking the part the dillon tech tried to make me feel better! No BS!!!
@Ken,
Pretty much sure the “us” and “we” you are referring to is a QUOTE from Dillon that Tim had copy/pasted? Not too hard to miss with the QUOTES around that paragraph?
I have no gripe with Dillon replacing broken items. My one gripe is with Dillon failing to honor the lifetime warranty on my old 1050 press. On the back page of the operators manual in black and white is Dillons no BS warranty..lifetime it says, no exclusions listed. Granted, this is over twenty years old.
Dillon says it’s a commercial press, no lifetime warranty. How times change.
I have dealt with Dillon for right on 31 years as I type this. Three Dillon 30’s a 550 and a 650 are part of my equipment along with two of the big tumblers.
I to bought a “used” 550 several years go, cost me $50.00, and it had a few parts gone. I drove over to their shop, I live about 15 miles from Dillon, and told them I needed some parts. They took my list and ten minutes later I was gone parts in hand and no charge. Forward a few months. The primer system just wasn’t working for me no matter how I adjusted it. I took the whole press over and dropped it off. Ten days later the call came in and I picked up the completely rebuilt press with lots of replaced parts, no charge.
Last fall I had a FL-2000, first big Dillon tumbler from the early 90’s.I had it for almost 20 years. The springs just wore out and it wouldn’t “roil” at all. They rebuilt it. Now last December I hear a loud sound outside where I am polishing some brass and go out and the bowl has cracked where the hold down bolt comes up in the middle. Not good.. Packed it up and took it over and asked if I could get a new bowl. The lady there laughed at me!! She pointed to the wall where the new tumblers were at and told me to grab one of those and “Merry Christmas!!”
They have replaced bolts, swager rods that I lost, a cracked case separator bucket that I broke while moving, and even a CED screen holder that broke when the wind blew the tripod over. What can I say?
Color me Blue!!
Greg
Dillon has never turned me down when it comes to help or fixing any of their products. I had a 500 Shaker motor go bad. Boxed it up and sent it to them and they replaced it with a 750. I’ll never own anything but a Dillon.
Yes sir I drink the blue coolaid….He! He!
Have to agree with Ken. If the point of the article is truly a test of Dillon’s customer service, rather than promoting Dillon, not publishing the article prior to Dillons response would have been the best course of action.
Dillon has probably already received numerous of emails with links to this article. Maybe they would ahve responded the same regardless of the publicity aspects.
But we’ll never know.
Just want to confirm that the repairs were done prior to the blog posts (machine was delivered back to Lewis in May)
Thanks Rich, that was my only point. I DID miss the quotation marks and never meant to doubt Dillon’s sincerity. On the other hand, although I would not have expected them to replace the case feeder bowl or the powder drops (for basically being dirty), now they might.
WELL LET ME BUST SOME OF YALLS BUBBLES.I HAVE BEEN DEALING WITH DILLON FOR YEARS AND NEVER HAD MUCH PROBLEMS GETTING PARTS REPLACED.I HAVE 6 DILLON MACHINES IN MY GARAGE,AND NO IM NOT AN AMMO MAKE FOR OTHERS,JUST MYSELF FAMILY AND VERY FEW FRIENDS.IVE SPEND WELL OVER 20-25 GRAND OVER THE YEARS AND I JUST SENT IN AN ORDER FOR OVER 500 BUCKS WORTH OF ITEMS,HOWEVER,APPROX 127.75 WORTH OF ITEMS WERE REPLACEMENT PARTS FOR A COUPLE OF MY MACHINES,AND A FEW WORN CONVERSION KIT PARTS.I HAVENT SOMUCH AS RECEIVED A RESPONSE FROM DILLON AS TO WHY THEY WANT ME TO PAY TO SHIP OLD PARTS BACK TO THEM.I TOLD THEM ID BE GLAD TO TAKE PICTURES,SO THEY COULD SEE THE WEAR.IT WAS GOING TO COST ME APPROX A THIRD OF THE PARTS COST TO RETURN TO THEM.I SENT AN ADDITIONAL EMAIL TO CONFIRM THEY HAD GOTTEN MY ORIGINAL REQUEST,AND THEY SENT BACK THEY HAD AND A RESPONSE WAS IN THE MAKING.AFTER AT LEAST A WEEK,STILL NO RESPONSE.SO FOLKS,THE NO BS WARRANTY IS NOT ALWAYS THAT SMOOTH.SOMETIMES,ITS ALL BS.
It pissed me Off< I cannot get my new Stuff cause there to Busy sending you your BS warranty Parts. Oh well it could be me. I will live with It. Or not. But the thing of Contention I have is You can Never get a hold of anybody by Phone. E-mail is also Impossible. They will take care of it. If you are able to contact them. I have to send Pictures and e-mail, Ill get it in the mail usually in about 3 Weeks. I had a wrong primer tube sent to me, they sent another. They did not ask for the other one back. and i have had some problems with the powder Measures. the Springs are not well made, they are poorly Engineered and cause quite some problems in returning the Powder bar to it's Home position. Polishing all of it will increase the productivity and accuracy. Unique-tek has some really nice parts for it.
Sounds like bull, I have had a Dillon Square Deal B since some time in the early 80’s. Never had to pay for a thing on it. Recently took it down 2011 they rebuilt it and upgraded it at a cost of $0. They were curtious and had not issues. It runs like a top,no issues with dillons but reading the differances in warranties I could have a problem with thier competitors. LNL waranties does not cover anything considered a wear item. Dillons replace all my wear items several times over the years
Spend the time to teach your children! don’t let the America we know get lost!
Dillon does not honor every thing.
Purchased a 550b w a carbide die set
Pin broke on DE priner. Want 4$ + 10 to ship
Rcbs has sent me many for my 223 due set.
And along with that the threaded rods that hold the pin in place . Along with free shipping.
1st and last die set I will buy from dillon
I just got told by Dillon that I needed to send $64.95 with my 550B to cover the upgrade and repair.
I recently got told the same thing! I got a 550b on trade and wanted to get it all fixed up for videos. I figured Dillon would be happy to refurbish it for me. Nope! Never had an experience like that with any other company.
I have a Square Deal I bought used some years ago and have just started reloading again after a four year hiatus. I was a novice 4 years ago and am still somewhat of a novice now.
I have called the Dillon tech people on the phone quite a few times and they have always been polite and very helpful to me. I have also received a few small replacement parts at no charge, including a primer alert buzzer which I most likely broke because I tightened the screw too much.
My machine is now out or time and the primer feed is not working. I plan to telephone them today (it’s a Saturday and I hope someone is there) for help. We’ll see how it turns out.
I called RCBS the other day for a bit of tech help, which I did get but had to wait for quite a long time. Nothing against RCBS but the wait was much longer than it ever has been with Dillon.
The no BS warranty use to be great and they stood behind the warranty no matter what.Ive probably bought 20 machines,however now that i wanted to use one of my old machines that hasn’t been used in years,they emailed me back and said if theres any rust we wont warranty that.Well my shaft is stuck and its possible that it froze up and has some rust making it lockup.So much for Dillons no Bs warranty