Their quality is a shit. I bought a wave+ 2 years ago, broke within a couple months (spring in pliers broke making pliers unusable). Sent it back and they say it’s not repairable so they give me a different one (mine was laser engraved). Then the replacement breaks (spring that holds pocket clip in place). I don’t even use the Leatherman that much, and wasn’t doing anything that could be outside of light use.
I have a Wave and a PS4. Great tools, had them for years.
I bought a Wave 2 with the flat bits about 4 to 6 years ago? What a piece of junk. All the bolts were tightened so much I could barely open the damned thing. I contacted Leatherman about this and they said “just use it and it will loosen up”. Apparently, poor workmanship isn’t a warranty issue.
For a while, it stayed at home on a shelf. I kept applying oil in the hope it would loosen enough I could use it. After several months it sort of loosened enough I could use it.
The belt case is the perfect example of bad design. Made of webbing, which I knew at the time of purchase. What I didn’t know is the bit holders can fall out the bottom of the belt case. Total crap.
I lost the tool and I don’t even care. Never again will I buy a Leatherman. I expect better workmanship from a company not located in a third world country.
Most everything I’ve acquired made in this capitalist shithole has been shit. Always there are exceptions but generally nationalism, a cunt hair away from racism, is a poor way to judge quality…
That’s not exactly nationalism.
Whether you call it “third world” or “developing” the fact is that nations without the resources to hire and train skilled workers and purchase and develop high-quality machinery will generally be limited in their ability to produce high-quality products.
I mean, not even just that; companies don’t move manufacturing overseas to build a better product. There are plenty of product segments and individual products that demonstrate China and Taiwan are more than capable of producing high quality stuff with good QA, but no one moves manufacturing there to make high quality stuff, they do it because moving to a place with poor labor laws, cheap labor, with low expectations of health & saftey in the workplace, and weak environmental regulatory oversight is a unchecked-capitalism wet dream, and allows for more “competitive pricing” (a race to the bottom), and better profit margins.
Companies don’t move or start manufacturing overseas because they wanna build a good product, they do it cause it’s cheap as shit, and that’s reflected in a lot of what we associate with things being made poorly made. The manufacturing groups set up in other contries are perfectly capable of hitting QC goals, but it’s not like the folks doing business with them are generally asking for much with respect to product quality standards.
that’s a big part of how I look at it anyway
And the countries you mentioned can produce quality products if the company ordering the products cares enough to demand it and reject anything substandard.
See Apple. But you better believe they have QC experts at every level and if the suppliers don’t deliver they’ll never see another dime from Apple.