This story is most assuredly not the position that Samsonite takes, but rather the feelings of a someone who sold me a suitcase at a big German retailer in Germany.
My old Rimowa suitcase, trolley actually, needed to be replaced. It was not that it was so old but actually it had been abused by me. The suitcase was over 5 years old so I didn’t feel that it was unreasonable that it broke. So I wandered downtown to the mall to purchase a new one. Knowing that this suitcase may also be over packed and generally abused I decided on a soft sided. My first carry-on was a soft sided Samsonite which also held up well so without looking too hard at the other models I picked out a nice Samsonite and went home.
I don’t have a lot of vices but the one thing that I do indulge in is to get my shirts cleaned at the dry cleaners. As I travel a lot it does get old to drag the trolley everywhere you go, so while at a fairly long term job I decided I could simply leave the trolley in the closet at work, just simply drop off the dirty shirts on the way to the office on Fridays and pick up clean shirts before checking into the hotel on Monday
Given this situation, my trolley only has to move perhaps 700 yards each week. Broken down perhaps 50 yards to the bus stop from work, and then another 300 yards from the bus station to the hotel. Simply reverse at the end of the week.
It was almost exactly two months later that on a rainy day I was looking at the wheel of my new trolly when I noticed that it was falling apart. It was as if someone had done a small cut down the middle of the wheel and then the layers of rubber were flaking off.
Well it was well under the 5 year Samsonite warranty, under the general 2 year European warranty and not more than 6 months old. In this case, standard operating procedure is that the company who sells the product has to take care of getting it repaired. So I grab my receipt and toddle back to the store.
The lady who was working there was amazed that the wheel could look so bad, while the rest of the trolley looked factory new. It turns out that this particular suitcase shop was connected to the <redacted retailer> just across the hall and that I should go speak with her colleague Joachim.
I went over to speak with Joachim about this and I did find him quite quickly but once he knew that I was there to get something fixed and not purchase something he pointed me to the boss. As luck had it, she was actually just making a quick phone call at the far end of the suitcase display.
Once she was finished with her phone call she put on a stern demeanor and looked at the wheel and asked me how often I use the suitcase. I was trying to formulate a really witty answer when she continued. She said that these suitcases weren’t intended to be used every day. I had to try hard not to laugh, but I was able to assure here that my travels are weekly and I would only be using it Mondays and Fridays. She seemed quite content with that and informed me where in the basement I had to go to so someone would send this off to Samsonite for repair.
I was however, pleasantly surprised when she did ask if I needed a replacement suite case while was being repaired. Yes I did and she brought me one down personally – I have been using the loaner trolley for a few weeks and it’s wheels appear to be fine. Perhaps that Delsey gets their trolley wheels from a different manufacturer.
Oh, the new trolly wheels worked great. I used the suitcase every week for a few years and the wheels are fine.