Two ways I think Surefire could greatly improve...

Redesign the clicky switch and redesign the U2. Do you think a petition or something could make this happen?

I originally started a database for myself that copied posts from CPFers to record failures (of all types) for the different manufacturers. I then noticed the high number of Surefire tailcap failures and started to specifically record them. (I have a list of the different CPF members in alphabetical order with a small caption of their problem). I then started a list specifically for the U2.

I have found over 200 CPFers have had problems with Surefire tailcaps, mainly their clicky tailcaps. Many have had troubles with multiple tailcaps. I have had a E2E tailcap fail, also. I am sure there are many posts that I have not found.

I have found over 150 CPFers have had some type of problem with the U2. Most of these owners had more than 1 problem. Some of these U2s even flat out died. I didn't search too deeply to find these U2 problems, so there must be a great deal more.

Not only would these changes benefit the buyers, they would also benefit Surefire. It would be benefitial for their reputation, with more long-term buyers. It would also save costs. I would imagine the number of switches that they send out is very high, plus the shipping, and time and energy to send them.

Sorry for the long post.. this issue is not exactly new, but I think it would be great to see a change. I have multiple Surefire flashlights and have enjoyed owning them, but I think this is an issue that would really improve the company.

With the competition out there, in that price point they need to put a better emitter in there. Better tint and better output.

From my reading they need to concentrate on quality control, not fixing stuff later. While guarantees are good, not needing them is better.
Greg

I agree Greg. That's what I was trying to say, actually. Redesign the tailcap, so it does not need to be repaired or replaced in the first place... Redesign the U2 and improve quality control to eliminate its problems (switch, electronics, dust/lint/fingerprints, etc).

InfidelCastro, yeah, I don't think U2 owners should I have to buy a bad-tinted light at that price point. That is one thing I like about HDS flashlights, specifically the guaranteed tint (GT) ones. Surefire does seem to replace lights that you are not happy with, though, which is good.

petition VERY BAD IDEA we've gone over this before, some of yall dont know but it is surefire that gives us ( CPF)a lot of access passes to the big show, to get to see and talk to paul kim and every body else that is big in the flashlight world ,there are lotsof other companies to jump on and yell at, lets not cut our own throats, true complaints are fine but lets keep it were it belongs QUOTE=iamerror]Redesign the clicky switch and redesign the U2. Do you think a petition or something could make this happen?


I originally started a database for myself that copied posts from CPFers to record failures (of all types) for the different manufacturers. I then noticed the high number of Surefire tailcap failures and started to specifically record them. (I have a list of the different CPF members in alphabetical order with a small caption of their problem). I then started a list specifically for the U2.

I have found over 200 CPFers have had problems with Surefire tailcaps, mainly their clicky tailcaps. Many have had troubles with multiple tailcaps. I have had a E2E tailcap fail, also. I am sure there are many posts that I have not found.

I have found over 150 CPFers have had some type of problem with the U2. Most of these owners had more than 1 problem. Some of these U2s even flat out died. I didn't search too deeply to find these U2 problems, so there must be a great deal more.

Not only would these changes benefit the buyers, they would also benefit Surefire. It would be benefitial for their reputation, with more long-term buyers. It would also save costs. I would imagine the number of switches that they send out is very high, plus the shipping, and time and energy to send them.

Sorry for the long post.. this issue is not exactly new, but I think it would be great to see a change. I have multiple Surefire flashlights and have enjoyed owning them, but I think this is an issue that would really improve the company.[/QUOTE]

I don't mean a boycott against Surefire or anything. I like Surefire.

Maybe the tailcap issue is more problematic than Surefire realizes. Why do complaints belong only on CPF? I think it is the company that needs to know the extent of the problem in order for it to be fixed. It would be ultimately in Surefire's best interest to have a more reliable clicky.

iamerror,

those statistics you've accumilated are quite significant.

From a marketing point-of-view though... It may actually be beneficial to have some kind of problem with a flashlight. I can't remember but it was in one of my University textbooks (marketing or consumer behaviour) which stated that creating controversy will actually help boost awareness of a product. Controversy brings a lot of publicity or at least boosts word-of-mouth-marketing by getting people talking.

For example, now that a lot of the Gladius's problems are ironed out, there is hardly any discussion about it around here as compared to the number of threads about it when it was first launched and had a few switching/tailcap issues. The U2 (because of all its problems) is still talked about a lot despite being launched before or around the same time as the Gladius. SureFire also doesn't need to be worried about sales due to this bad reputation. Their U2s and other LED lights are often sold-out.

In addition to this, it's also well known that a customer is more likely to be impressed with a flawed product that is fixed by great customer service than a product that doesn't have any flaws. In the former situtation, the customer is impressed by the entire company (and in this case, may explore SureFire's other products with the confidence of great customer service) while in the latter, the customer is impressed more by the product than the company as a whole.

The other matter is that whatever is sent back to SureFire for repair/replacement will have to be covered by profits coming from somewhere else in the company. In a corporate structure, the consumers are the ones who eventually pay for the warranty/repair/replacement service. SureFire is not going to go into loss to pay for tailcap replacements, re-designs etc... It will all be financed by us, the consumer. If not, then the replacement costs/damaged reputation is not significant enough for SureFire to warrant a re-design, at least not yet.

I'm not accusing SureFire of having these flaws on intention but I'm just stating that it could acutally be working to their advantage, whether they intend it or not.

Whatever it is, I do hope they make amends quickly.

I like surefire, but I don't like their pricing policies

Just simply knowing how many problems exist doesn't really tell us much. As somebody who is directly involved in calculating returns vs sales in a manufacturing environment you need to have all the data to really have a good picture. Usually a return rate of higher than 2% of sales is unacceptable to manufacturers and requires improvement. Most mangers and CEOs agree on this. This is defined as a sustained return rate at that level. If it sustained then there is design issue or serious QC problem. If its just a bad batch then we need to understand that this kind of stuff is going to happen. People and machines are not perfect and they will make mistakes from time to time.

Flea Bag said:

...it's also well known that a customer is more likely to be impressed with a flawed product that is fixed by great customer service than a product that doesn't have any flaws...

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, fixng problems by product rework or customer service is much more costly than making the investments to lower the defect rate in the first place.

This may seem counter-intuitive but is the foundation of modern manufacturing quality control. W. Edwards Deming helped transform Japanese manufacturing quality by using this approach. Prior to Deming, the prevailing view was simply accept a certain defect rate, fix it with rework or customer service. IOW, making the investment to lower the defect rate was too costly. Deming showed otherwise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edwards_Deming

You can be certain Surefire has a database of each warranty action taken. They obviously know their total manufacturing numbers on each model, so they know exactly what the defect rate is on each light. They don't need a petition to tell them that.

It does seem like some Surefire lights in general and the U2 in particular have a high initial defect rate. We don't know the total production numbers, so it's hard to be certain.

However if this was a forum for Rolex watches or Nikon cameras, and you had 150 people reporting problems with one particular model, that wouldn't be good.

We must also consider the total sales volume of Surefire lights, and esp expensive ones like the U2 is probably relatively small. With low volume production you can tolerate (from a corporate standpoint) a higher defect rate because the support costs remain manageable. But as you scale to higher production numbers, the support costs escalate out of control.

My initial U2 had problems but the replacement has been totally reliable and is one of my favorite lights.

I too have had an experience with a poor U2. Both the switch and the electronics had issues along with a poor tint and a drastically inferior beam. Surefire did fix the switch but passed off all of the rest of the problems (including strobing quite frequently) as

Surefire Representative said:

Well, I guess that's normal.

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I certainly hope that we as a community aren't condoning a faulty product merely because it helps to further the Surefire Doctrine by giving their company more press.

All good points! Bravo to those who have taken the time to gather information for SF defects.

As for the E series failures I have had a couple tailcaps fail recently. SF says they will ship replacements "soon" which by reading comments in this forum I realize means sometime within the next 12 months.

Perhaps CPF should have a forum dedicated only to Surfire. It would be an easy way for SF to get information on what users think.

Anyway, for the E series, just take the tailcap apart, mess around with it for a while and put it back together. For some odd reason, it seems to greatly improve the functioning of the switch.

I think they should get into the common battery line up, instead of just putting out lithium powered flashlights.

And their replace bulbs are damn expensive!

Surefire = rich man's flashlight

As people have said, the absolute number of people with failures doesn't tell you anything. You need the relative number (percentage). How many CPFers have U2s?

Second, CPFers are more likely to get the first production run. If this is just a problem of streamlining the production, we on CPF would see more failures than other customers.

Third, I do not know if CPF constitutes a large enough market segment to convince Surefire to change anything. Ken Good of Night-Ops tried to get the Gladius design (or some of its features) to be made by surefire, and started his own company to make and sell the light when SF did not, with some success, looks like. That indicates that there IS quite a customer base that SF is willing/able to ignore.

In short, I find this bitching and moaning what a company should do quite useless (and actually would like to suggest to restrict such discussions to the underground). Most companies are not there to satisfy our addiction, but to make money by selling flashlights. They are free to do that in any way they find sensible.

As a UK customer of Surefire I've always been impressed by their products and warranty. However, I'm saddened to see Tenmmike (Who incidentally has always impressed me with his posts) use the argument that we shouldn't upset Surefire for fear of loosing their support or as Mike puts it ''cut our own throat''. Whilst Surefire's hospitality to CPF members is well known (and appreciated by those fortunate to have enjoyed it) does this mean that criticism and customer opinion is to be curtailed by members of CPF for fear of upsetting Surefire? Is in Mike's opinion CPF 'in' Surefire's pocket? I would like to think not!

Any large company must be able to be objective and take criticism positively if it is to improve. Further it doesn't do any company any harm to show it's human face by being able to acknowledge problems or issues which arise with its products. iamerror was making a valid point about problems with the U2's switch which to those of us who have been members of CPF for a while, already know about. Where he was wrong is to suggest or think that a petition to Surefire regarding the U2 should be taken to be representative of CPF in its entirety which plainly it couldn't. Further if we deviate from being a forum to a protest group are we deserving of any participation from any light manufacturer? IMHO CPF must be a place to allow it's members to enjoy and discuss our hobby with the freedom to praise of condemn products or manufacturers who don't forfil our aspirations. If we at any point stifle criticism for fear of offending one product or manufacturer are we really a forum or are we an appreciation society?

Doug

I think they should get into the common battery line up, instead of just putting out lithium powered flashlights.

And their replace bulbs are damn expensive!

Surefire = rich man's flashlight

Click to expand...

Then what would differentiate their lights from the rest? Lithium batteries are part of the formula for making a bright light in a small package. Alkalines just don't perform well under the loads that Surefire puts their lights under besides you would need twice as many to make up the voltage of lithiums.

Surefire bulbs are expensive because they are robust and factory tuned to create an awesome beam. If you want cheap bulbs go with a Streamlight but you always run the risk of having a bulb fall out or having a different beam every time you change out a bulb. Once you have seen the light you truly understand the value of Surefire bulbs. The intense high quality beam that comes out of my Surefire 9N is a good example. Just a perfect white round beam with no spotches or artifacts whatsoever. Sure there are others that are just as bright for cheaper but Surefire is always about high quality beam characteristics. They tune the beam for a perfect beam and even frost many of their bulbs. The frosting creates a nice even beam that is very useful. How often are you really going to change bulbs anyway, especially in a Surefire?

Since you've compiled all this information on U2 tailcap failures, is there anything in the list of problems that could pin-point to what needs to be redesigned? Any trends you noticed? Solutions suggested by the users (like bending the switch tabs up, for example)?

It'd make much more sense, IMO, to say, "this or that part of the device needs to change to this or that because... yada-yada". Or, "we've obeserved lack of whatever here or there". Bringing problems to the attention of SF (or any manufacturer) shouldn't be an issue (no product is perfect, and good companied do listen to feedback), but telling them they have to "redesign the U2" is vague at best.

Also, do we know how many U2 have been sold total, and what is the proportion of units with problems? CPF is not a very good population to assess this, IMO, not only because we're (well, most of us) atypical flashlight users, but because our expectations of what a light from SF "should be" (vs. what they're designed for).

I'll go back under my rock now.

150 users on CPF experiencing problems with a $200-300 light seems a bit much. There are $20-30 lights, like the ProPoly Lux, with fewer than a dozen dissatisfied users on CPF.

The excuses of "that's bad science" (poor polling, incomplete data, small sample, nonrepresentative population, etc.), "this topic doesn't belong here or isn't useful," etc. are just that - excuses.

I predict that this thread, like most other negative SF threads, will be closed eventually.

Tiger, I'm not saying the complaints are not valid. What I'm trying to say is that when somebody finds a fault in something I do, I appreciate a more focused description of the problem, and if their technical expertise allows, constructive suggestions as to how to improve my work. The knowledge and know-how on CPF is vast, and specific suggestions are more likely to be taken seriously than a mere "redesign the U2" mantra.

When dealing with sampling, you must consider whether the sample is representative from a population or not. For starters, we don't even have info on what the population of U2's look like. ...and this is not me defending SF, it's me sharing simple concepts of how proper statistical sampling is done. Are 150 complaints out of 10000 units a significant number? How many U2's have left the factory, and how many of those have shown problems (and this assessment should not be limited to CPF if you really want to evaluate the rate of failure in a product). In any case, I maintain that CPF is not the best population of users to gauge the prevalence of problems in certain high-end lights (or cheapy lights, for that matter).

...and since I'm rambling: this thread, as any other on CPF, will remain open as long as we conduct ourselves within the rules.

My description probably was vague. I have not counted the individual problems to identify a trend, as of yet.

I could do this, or could I just copy the list into another post?

Many of the problems I counted were tint and donut issues. It could be argued that a donut hole is normal with a Luxeon V setup. Surefire has advertised their lights as having flawless beams, though: "Surefire lights are distinguished by their dazzling power, compact size, and flawless, white beams." Admittedly, CPFers are probably more picky about these two issues than others and I don't think this problem is as important as the other issues.

There were also many tailcap issues. This might be the most common issue that I saw, but I can't say for sure. Changing this issue alone would make the U2 much more reliable.

Other posts I saw included unintentional strobing, fingerprint/dust/lint issues, one or two that came with scratched/chipped HA, some that just completely died, or ones where not all the levels would work.

Maybe this is not the most scientific way of diagnosing a problem. I have no way of knowing the number of U2s sold or the number of CPFers that have owned one. Even if I knew this, not all of them are going to post their U2 problems.

Anyway, I have not intended this to be useless whining. If it looks that way, sorry.