Well they charged you full retail for the beavertail. If you have an account at Brownells, it is only $61. Ed browns cost is probably half of that. Good customer service would have discounted the part and labor at least. The refinish service is where they made the most. 5 minutes in a blast cabinet for $100 is a lot of profit.

Whoa! They charged you labor to replace the grip safety? What??? This is the part that was broken originally, right? I get that they fixed it once before offering the "upgrade", but this is B.S. There is no way in hell that they should have charged you to replace this. Crazy!

Then they charged you to refinish the SS on a (basically) brand new gun?

Then a $99 Service package on a new gun that definitely does not need new springs, ultrasonic cleaning, etc. Call it shipping if that makes you feel better, but this is ridiculous.

This whole experience just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

As others have mentioned, I have had to return one of my Sigs (twice actually), and they paid for shipping both ways, cleaned the gun for free, and upgraded my main spring housing to the new version for free. I had it back in 5 days fully repaired and tested.

Ed Brown is off of my list as well.

Well Woody, all in all you have a very fine piece of American workmanship there, there are very few people on this earth that can say that, I hope your happy in the end even though you went through some cash to get it just right. I am surprised by all you went through to own a fine weapon. I appreciate your posting and keeping us up to date, some pics and your final synopsis would be cool. If I were you I would enjoy the hell out of it and covet it, treat it like a pretty woman, use the hell out of it and clean and caress and brag about it when the shooting is over.I think I will take the Cobra Carry off my short list of "guns to get" and I may send Ed Brown an email and tell them so, doubt they will care. Congrats on ending up with a fine weapon, sorry about your troubles getting it right.

Jim

WOW, Ijust don't even know what to say.

One more comment, in the interest of full disclosure.  I paid $2190 for the gun New (+$30 transfer fee from my gun store), I now have obviously put $518 dollars into it.  So now I have a Kobra Carry that I paid $2700 for, roughly.  I don't know that I would have paid that much originally, but that's how much I am into this gun for now.  I do think the gun is as impressive as other 1911s that cost a little, or a lot more.  
I really like the gun.  I've said that already.  
After reading the comments and considering experiences with other companies, I wouldn't buy another Ed Brown product unless they changed how they handled customer service issues.  
If you get a chance to hold one of these at a store, rack the slide.  They make a fantastic pistol, but they just don't back it up with the customer service it should have come with.  The new production guns have the new grip safety that I had to pay for, for example.
I cannot tell any difference between my old grip safety and my new one.  I am not a expert on the 1911 so maybe it would be more obvious to other people.  
My new blacked out U rear sight, with the Gold bead front sight is fantastic.  Obviously won't help you at night, but with minimal light you can pick it up fast.
Those are roughly my $0.02
                                              -Woody

That's awesome Woody, and I think you have a great attitude about the whole situation. As has been mentioned, you now have a great gun, go and love on her and shoot her to your heart's content!

I can see the OP paying for the sights, But everything about the Beavertail should have been picked up by Brown..
So now the big picture. $2400 to $2700 for the gun. then add another $500 to that and he could have bought a Wilson or Nighthawk.


In the handgun world , a person can quickly put money into what seems like a cheaper way out and end up spending what the top end expensive path would have been in the first place.

I know and have done it numerous times. Sit down with a calculator and paper and pencil before shelling out your hard earned cash.

Enjoy your gun.  Shoot the piss out of it.  Take the lessons you have learned from this experience and apply them the next time you are shopping for a high end gun.  End of story.  Move on with life.

As a further data point for you, I have a couple of Wilsons (albeit one is a BrigTac).  I've dealt with their customer service twice.  Neither was because I has having a function problem with either gun.   One was related to a 47d and the other was regarding a question about whether my gun had the D-spring for the BrigTac.   They express mailed me parts on their dime, no questions or fuss about, just to "be safe" and do what they could to make sure the gun and mag were running optimally.   I offered to pay since nothing was broken and the magazine "issue" was actually me trying to problem solve a 1911 from a different manufacturer.  Wilson CS wouldn't take my money.   Obviously neither of these was a big issue, but still made me feel like a valued customer.

So this.  Ed Brown is dead to me.

No experience with Ed Brown but I've delt with Nighthawk & Les Baer both took care of the problems.  But Nighthawk is just plain awesome they go above & beyond to make it right.


My Baers & Nighthawks, Baer is made in my home state of Iowa but I'm liking Nighthawk more I've got about 35,000 rounds through these fine weapons.

I just read this thread with my first coffee on Sunday morning...
I guess that's full blown retail customer service that I've learned about
at someone else s expense, shame on me if I ever purchase an Ed Brown.
Hopefully you got a kiss.

Woody, I'm glad you're happy but jeezz
even MY touch hole hurts after reading this.

While I guess everyone can have different experiences, I'm kinda glad I didn't FO on a NIB Special Forces for $1995.00 last week.

Yea no. No way in hell I would have paid that. That is crappy customer service. I thought Baer was one of the worst CS.
no way I would put thread lock on the damn grips screws. A little blue lock tight on the bushings I can see but not the damn screws. A rubber o ring would keep them from backing out.

paying for the sights I can see but the op got hosed overall. Guess I'm used to SA customer service.

So they charged you labor to install the machined part?  Under the warranty, would they have charged you labor to replace the broken/defective part with the old cast part?  I doubt it.  So you paid for the newer better part but they fucked you over on the labor. Lovely.

I think the real lesson learned here is that if Ed Brown's shop had said, "yeah, this is an older outdated part that we don't put into new pistols, so we're just gonna hook you up with the newer version for free and not charge you labor to install it," people would rave about a good CS story and be more inclined to buy Ed Brown products.  I hope the $69 they charged for the part and $75 they charged for the labor was worth the lost future sales.  Marketing 101 FAIL, big-time.

Woody, I bet your blood pressure is low!  Good for you.  Hope you enjoy your 1911 and thanks for your report about Ed Brown's No Customer Service.

Yeah, what were they thinking?

Ed Brown's position that although OP bought their product NIB it was "old stock" so they disowned it is incredibly absurd IMO.

And purchasing "customer service" isn't customer service.

Browns are beautiful 1911s, but whenever I consider buying one of their guns I remember a thread like this one.

might even be a violation of the Federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act...

I went to the Ed Brown FAQ page supposedly dealing with "written warranty" and got a 404 message.

Doing a search of "warranty" on their page,  the only result i could find was their "$99 service package."

Can't seem to find their written warranty, which on their site  they claim is "the best in the industry".

Maybe someone else will have better luck, but I can't find their warranty on their site.

I'd really like to see a copy of their written warranty.

Warranty

Unfortunately that isn't the actual warranty. It's just a webpage that says they offer a written warranty.

They have taken their written warranty page down since this thread started.
It was on their website when this thread started.

I knew what was going to happen when i read the original post.
Same story from everyone who has to use Ed Brown customer service.

They certainly don't go buy the merriam - webster definition of a warranty.

I said it earlier, but I will say it again, I will never patronize these Ed Brown based on this thread. No matter how awesome their guns are. There are lots of great guns out there, and lots of local gunsmiths that can fine tune them.

With the warranty page disappearing, it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Wow. I own quite a few Colt 1911s, I love the platform. When I decide which high end manufacturer from whom to purchase a pistol, Ed Brown won't be among my choices.