ABU........ build quality

[monkeynuts]

how many of you have noticed the quality of ABUs reels ?

i bought a 7000c3 5 years ago and its outstanding

but early last year i went the same tackle shop and bought another one,
but the was some differences,
for 1 it looked cheaper with stickers insted of it been stamped in and the reel was now made in tiewan (a sticker on the bottom)
thinking nothink of it (after all its an ABU) i went out the next weekend to christen it and the free spool botton packed up . any why, got it home and thought it cant be much so opened the side up to find the guts were plastic , even the gears . so no wonder the reel was broke.
i took it back to the tackle shop who then gave me another one saying "we'v had one or 2 do this and guess what the new one done the same, so i took it back again and had a look in the display cabinet for somethink different and noticed a ABU with made in sweden stamped(like my 1st one), so asked for that reel , but the shop refused to let me have it cos it was more expensive ???, but thay are the same reel, a 7000c3 i said . with that he just shruged his shoulders and said thats the price . by this point i was ready to t*** him in the mouth and demanded a full refund which after a bit of a strop i got th full refund
later on i found another tackle shop who found me a" made in sweden" reel and it is faultlees just like my 1st one ;D
my moral of the stroy is dont pay out for the crap tiewan made reels

have any of you found the same?

[Pete B]

Yep, ebay's flooded with the stuff, if I do purchase from ebay its the first question I ask. Agreed, the Taiwan stuff is plop!

[Pete B]

oh, another thing to watch for is the 'assembled in' tag. Alot of cheap components made abroard are then sent elsewhere to be assembled just to avoid the 'made in taiwan' tag.

[reelbargains]

Yep, agreed. Please please please don't purchase an ABU Ambassadeur just because it is an ABU Ambassadeur - things are nowhere near as good as they used to be - watch out!

[dean macey]

why is this

[Pete B]

It seems madness to let these cheap 2nd rate reels leave the factory with the Abu badge on them. Surely Abu dont expect the drop in quality to go un-noticed but it does seem as though Abu are getting away with selling poor quality gear on the back of their excellent past reputation.
I take it that Abu are still making the decent stuff? I would like to know what percentage of their sales are the proper Swede built Abu's we've always known rather than this tat.
It does seem a bit of a p*ss-take to sell cheap sh*t off the back of a reputation this latest gear dont warrant.
IMHO

[eddy]

monkeynuts said:

how many of you have noticed the quality of ABUs reels ?

i bought a 7000c3 5 years ago and its outstanding

but early last year i went the same tackle shop and bought another one,
but the was some differences,
for 1 it looked cheaper with stickers insted of it been stamped in and the reel was now made in tiewan (a sticker on the bottom)
thinking nothink of it (after all its an ABU) i went out the next weekend to christen it and the free spool botton packed up . any why, got it home and thought it cant be much so opened the side up to find the guts were plastic , even the gears . so no wonder the reel was broke.
i took it back to the tackle shop who then gave me another one saying "we'v had one or 2 do this and guess what the new one done the same, so i took it back again and had a look in the display cabinet for somethink different and noticed a ABU with made in sweden stamped(like my 1st one), so asked for that reel , but the shop refused to let me have it cos it was more expensive ???, but thay are the same reel, a 7000c3 i said . with that he just shruged his shoulders and said thats the price . by this point i was ready to t*** him in the mouth and demanded a full refund which after a bit of a strop i got th full refund
later on i found another tackle shop who found me a" made in sweden" reel and it is faultlees just like my 1st one ;D
my moral of the stroy is dont pay out for the crap tiewan made reels

have any of you found the same?

had a problem with two viper ppt rods from penn,the first one is tickety-boo,i've still got it,the second(brought 1 year later)absolute crap,totally different build quality,penn had at this time changed factories to china(i think there was a bit in an article by barney ? in tsf,on testing the rod)the tip snapped off,it had only been used about 6 times,my first one is still going strong after countless visit's to the channel and hauling up 2 large congers from chesil,the last being around 30lbs(ish)
what tackle shop did you buy it from? ;D