I visited the Swarovski stand at the UK's Global Bird Fair on Friday & politely but forcefully pointed out the degree of reputational damage this problem was causing (whilst also praising NL's ergonomics & optics). I didn't catch the name of the person I spoke to but she was called over by a colleague so I guess she was fairly senior and, as she had (I think) a slight German/Austrian accent, I assume she was from 'head office'. She explained that they were well aware of the issue, that the formula for the armour casing had been changed to be more 'environmentally friendly' and that two new formulae (which they hoped would solve the problem) were currently being tested. Whether assuming a new & superior formula is developed, this means the recall of all binoculars with the dodgy armour I don't know.
Even if I hadn't spoken to her I think the message would have gotten through as two others in the (short) queue were holding Swaro bins with shedding armour. Speaking later to a friend in the optics business, he told me of a client whose NLs were becoming denuded after only 10 months of use and that there was now such a long backlog of repairs that the turnaround was months rather than a couple of weeks.
As an aside, I'll add that my spare pair of bins, Kite Lynx 8x30s, needed new eye cup assemblage thanks to being about a decade old & subjected to fairly heavy use. I took the opportunity to pop over to the Kite stand where the very helpful staff said they'd send off a new set asap at no cost. The friend I mentioned above had sold me the Kites & he said in his experience that such service was typical of Kite adding as an afterthought that they also had excellent quality control.
My EL 10x42s, bought in June 2016, were re-armoured by Swarovski in late September 2019 after the armouring fell to bits. Since that date they've had very light usage, partly because of the numerous Covid lockdowns, causing fewer trips both abroad and at home, and partly because of a much reduced effort on my part. In other words, they've hardly been used.
In November 2022 I experienced a problem with the focus knob not engaging properly and on investigating with Swarovski, their estimate of several months repair time meant that I just muddled through with the focus performing erratically at times. During the spring of 2023 I noticed that there appeared to be a slight looseness of the armouring beginning, particularly around the cut-out for the logo. In June, the focus knob seized up altogether for no apparent reason, so I was left with no option but to send them off to Swarovski for repair. I sent them off to their UK office on 15th June, and they sent them in turn to Austria. On 6th July I got an email to say they'd been received. They must have gone by horse-cart.
On 10th July, Swarovski contacted me to say they were repairing the defect at no cost to me, and included an itemised (and costed) invoice of repairs to be carried out. In addition to the focus knob repair, they listed other actions; the replacement of the eye-cups (£24.94 - no cost to me) and the armouring of both left and right barrels. Interestingly, the price for each barrel re-armouring was put at £15.14 per barrel (but again at no cost to me). Copy of items is listed at the end of this post.
Now I don't know if replacing eyecups and armour is just a standard procedure when they get binoculars in for repair, or if they needed to take the old armour off to repair the focus knob (I don't know why they would need to), but at only £15.14 per side for armour, it's a pretty low-cost item to Swarovski, so them carrying on with the duff armour might in their eyes be costing them less for the time being than using something that actually works, reputational losses aside.
How long it takes the donkey cart to return my bins remains to be seen, but at least they are moving. Good job I was able to borrow the Opticrons I bought originally in 2000 as a stand-by after I passed them on to my son in 2016 when I bought the Swarovskis.
1 S1825 Repair of focusing mechansm............................1.00 h 111,75 GBP..............Labor Free of Charge *** 0,00 GBP
Disassembly of device and replacement of damaged or defective focusing parts
2 S1953 Quality inspection.................................................... 0.08 h 0,00 GBO.................Labor Free of Charge *** 0,00 GBP
3 694-0269A Eye Cup Set.......................................................2,00 pcs 24,94 GBP............Material Free of Charge *** 0,00 GBP
4 678-947CD Armoring EL 42 mrtree left.........................1,00 pcs 15,14 GBP............Material Free of Charge *** 0,00 GBP
5 678-946CD Armoring EL 42 mrtree right......................1,00 pcs 15,14 GBP............Material Free of Charge *** 0,00 GBP