When it comes to reliable products, they don’t come more hardy than Zippo lighters, a device so insanely well made that the company that makes them guarantee to repair it for free, forever.
Simply put, if you ever break a Zippo lighter (a considerable feat in of itself) Zippo will repair and/replace it free of charge, a guarantee that the company has had in place almost since the day the company was founded. And yes, before anyone asks, this guarantee still applies to lighters from 70 years ago. As noted on their own website:
“Whether a lighter is five years, 25 years, or 50 years old, it will serve as a dependable source of flame for years to come. We guarantee it.”
To date there has never been a known case of Zippo ever charging for a repair, hell, this guy sent Zippo his 53 year old lighter and they sent it back repaired with money for the stamps he’d used to post it. How many companies can you name who’d repair a product older than 70% of the population and then refuse to ask for payment for doing so? That’s not a sarcastic question by the way, we’re genuinely curious if there’s another company out there this awesome because we want to write about them and we’ll print of this article and rub it all over our dicks while pressing the delete button.
Zippo have also been known to send people a penny from the year their Zippo was made along with a nice little note saying “the cent never spent to repair a Zippo lighter“, because that is how you show people you care.
But it’s not just how eager Zippo are to repair their lighters that’s impressive, it’s how little they need to be repaired in the first place. For example, the wick, IE the part of the lighter that constantly catches on fire, is known to last decades if it’s properly cared for. When the part of your product that catches fire is known to last longer than most marriages, you win at being a company and possibly at life.
