Most Reliable Brands?

After three years at the CPF and judging from the posts regarding damaged lights it seems that SureFire, Inova and other expensive brands may not be much more reliable than other, cheaper, brands.

This observation is NOT scientific and may be skewed against SureFire, perhaps, because our members own so many more of them compared to the other brands. Still, I read about more failures of expensive lights (so it seems) than some of the newer, popular, Chinese lights. Nuwai, for me, is an exception as mine were not up to the quality of other imports.

Given the hard hits to concrete that my Arc LS, HDS, Fenixes, Inovas and E1L have endured I can say I'm pleased with my batch of these brands.

It may be difficult and time consuming to really quantify quality but it doesn't seem that the most expensive brands are, necessarily, more rugged.

Let battle commence...

I have found Streamlight to be very reliable at a reasonable price.

Surefire's main problem has been bad switches for the last few years.

Pelican gets my vote. I have several different models and have only ever had one fail but that was also because of a manufacturing defect (which was warrantied that day) I have dropped a Stealth light from 30 ft onto frozen ground and it still worked. Mag Lites have a tough body but I find the lenses always crack when its dropped when cold.

It is more noteworthy to have a $150+ flashlight malfunction, and people expect more from that class of light. That will heavily skew reported failures toward the expensive lights.

You never see threads about how a $1 pinch-light stopped working.

But anyway, to the question . . .

I think there are a lot of equally reliable brands, but each brand has some models that are unreliable for various reasons. Most reliability problems seem to come from switches, poor design, or poor worksmanship.

SureFire has suffered from failure in the small clickies, but even so I think SureFire is the most reliable brand overall.

Second place is taken up by a long list of brands of equally qualified contenders. I think the difference between them and SureFire is that SureFire tends to produce fewer models with "issues." But, if you take the most reliable light from each brand -- however you decide to define "reliability" -- you will find a bunch of lights of equal quality and reliability.

Scott

I would guess that Streamlight is among the most reliable just because I don't know if I have ever read about one failing on this site. Surefire is the exact opposite! There are more threads about a failing U2 than any other light on here BY FAR! I would say the two most failed lights are the U2 and the ARC AAAP, which ironically enough people are always claiming these two lights are super high quality and well made.


I personally have owned over 40 lights and the only one I have had malfunction is my AAAP. Take that for what it's worth.

jayflash said:

After three years at the CPF and judging from the posts regarding damaged lights it seems that SureFire, Inova and other expensive brands may not be much more reliable than other, cheaper, brands.

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A lot of this may be due to the bathtub curve and the outrage factor.

The bathtub curve describes how soon failures show up in new products. Many failures occur in the first hours or days of operation. Then, for most of the life of the product, failure rates are fairly low. Then, as the product nears the end of its natural lifespan, the failure rate gradually rises again.

If I spend 200 bucks on a light and it fails on me within days of purchase, I'm going be much more outraged than if a 20 buck Chinese light fails on me within a few days.

So, I start a thread with an outraged posting about how my nearly new Surefire or Inova or Streamlight has failed.

People take more notice of the thread because these are big name companies selling some expensive products.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.



.

Like what FlashKat stated regarding Streamlight for the price.

I had the Streamlight 4AA ProPolymer Luxeon that I dropped tested at work and posted here sometime ago and was still functioning before it "walked away" from me.

That, to me, proved that that particular model from Streamlight is reliable given the price to boot!

Enjoy!

adirondackdestroyer said:

I would guess that Streamlight is among the most reliable just because I don't know if I have ever read about one failing on this site. Surefire is the exact opposite! There are more threads about a failing U2 than any other light . . .

Click to expand...

What percentage of U2 failures amongst CPFers get reported here? Probably almost all. What percentage of CPFers' Streamlight failures get reported here? Probably a lot less.

CPF thread counts are a very unreliable way to form such impressions.

There have been threads about Streamlight products malfunctioning. Two that I have seen repeatedly are bulb problems in Scorpions and switch and/or battery contact problems in Survivor LEDs.

Streamlight is a very good brand, but it does have problems from time to time (like any other).

Scott

I'd have to also say Streamlight is very good.

I probably have more SLs than any other brand.

The only failure was with a 4AA/7LED that fried its 5mm LEDs.

SL promptly replaced the module without the necessity of my sending the bad module to them.

When you are paying $100 + for a flashlight, you expect it to be flawless. Not so for the cheapy ones.

You get what you pay for. If I pay more, I demand more.

All of my expensive lights have been reliable...Surefire, HDS, and McGizmo. I would trust any of them in a SHF condition.

I haven't heard much complaining about Inovas on CPF except for the new X1 (non-optic) model soon after it was introduced. I have the X5, T2 and T3 and have not had any problems with them. :rock:

i have never had any problems with any of the surefires i have owned. granted none have been clickies either.
to be honest i guess im not that hard on my lights or i must just take good care of them when they arent going through hell. i havent had to many issues other than i jacked up streamlight tl3 led that i have gotten all the kinks worked out on.

I really don't think that there is that much difference between the different brands, as long as were not talking about the absolute cheapest lights (and they can be very reliable as well sometimes, I have some cheap 2Ds that seen a lot of use and never failed). Any light can fail under the right circumstances. But I understand why people think that Surefires are more reliable and expect more since they are heavily advertised to be extremely rugged and bulletproof. When it comes to SHTF scenarios I would trust a Surefire, Streamlight, Fenix, Pentagonlight, Jetbeam etc etc equally. Just remember that ANY light can fail on you.

I have never had a failure with any Inova, and I have a number eqach of X1's, X5's,X0's,X03's over the past several years I have been using them. I have not had a failure with a Surefire or Maglight either though. Have had failures with others.

Hmm we need to get some kind of survey going... That would be a good way to fairly assess these lights. It also seems to me that comparing brands is of limited value... Sure we hear about U2 failures day and night, but other Surefire lights prove to be very reliable. When I buy a Surefire, I don't care that much if the U2 has problems if I'm buying a G3.

Kind of like how the new Chevy Tahoe is one of the most reliable new vehicles in the world, but the Chevy Cobalt one of the most UNreliable: http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/08/autos/cr_most_reliable/index.htm?postversion=2006111008

Someone saying Chevy is reliable or unreliable doesn't really make sense. It's not a very good generalization, and it doesn't help the Tahoe or Cobalt buyer decide.

luminari said:

Hmm we need to get some kind of survey going... That would be a good way to fairly assess these lights.

Click to expand...

There's a survey on X1 failures:
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/135749

That's the only failure I've had so far since I discovered LED lights. I replaced it and still love the design and build quality. I realize there's more to go wrong with the extra electronics compared to the simple battery -> switch -> bulb in the incans.

If someone starts a survey, I'd recommend we also total up how many haven't failed. So if I'm looking for a X1 and see 10 failures I might be turned off to it. Unless I also see 5000 others that haven't failed.

Just my two cents.....

Well, I have a beef with the US military spending top dollar for Surefire flashlights. Oh, I know, yeah, nothing but the best when a soldier's life depends on if the flashlight works or not. I am sure that there are other flashlights made that work just as well and are just as dependable for half the price.I am just curious what the CPF members choice would be if they had a military on a budget and wanted to supply their soldiers with a very reliable flashlight.