Catastrophic failure of a Fox 599-XT. Customer service only made excuses. My opinion: stay away.

S

Seek_Equilibrium

Joined
May 26, 2020
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6
I got a brand new Fox Knives 599-XT karambit yesterday. Straight out of the box the action was unbelievably stiff. Like, impossible to open with one hand and impossible to flick open even when already half-opened level of stiff. The blade would often only deploy halfway when drawn from the pocket with Emerson wave. I loosened the pivot and the screw for the backspring a bit to no avail.

I then decided to just open and close it repeatedly in hopes that it would “break in.” After several dozen repetitions, I drew the knife from the pocket again. This time, when the Emerson wave caught and the blade deployed, the pivot area of the blade *snapped* and the blade came flying out of the handle into the air, nicking my hand as I tried to dodge it. This amounted to a bad papercut, but it obviously could have been far far worse.

I sent this whole experience to Fox Knives customer service, and their response was to say that it’s not feasible to find steel defects during quality control and that this is no reason to “denigrate [their] knives.” The most they offered was a “sorry this happened.”

Well, I will be taking the refund instead of a replacement, and I don’t think I’ll be touching another Fox knife again.
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Whats the steel on that knife? Never seen a knife snap at the pivot.Looks like there almost no steel around the pivot area looks like a real weak spot.
 
goldie said:
Whats the steel on that knife? Never seen a knife snap at the pivot.Looks like there almost no steel around the pivot area looks like a real weak spot.
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Steel is N690

I’ve never seen it before either, and it was certainly a shock to see the blade go whipping into the air above me!
 
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So they apologized and got you a refund? Seems good in my book.

QC fuckups happen. Sounds like the warranty backs it up anyway. Don't have any Fox knives, but it's nice to see a company stand behind their product like that. Some companies would assume user error and make you jump through hoops to get a refund or replacement.
 
kreole said:
So they apologized and got you a refund? Seems good in my book.

QC fuckups happen. Sounds like the warranty backs it up anyway. Don't have any Fox knives, but it's nice to see a company stand behind their product like that. Some companies would assume user error and make you jump through hoops to get a refund or replacement.
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The refund will come from the dealer who sold it to me, but yeah I am getting a refund. That’s not at issue. They essentially said the mistake was unavoidable when in fact the knife was f*cked six ways to Sunday and should never have left the factory.
 
this isn't a qc issue imho - it's directly a result of poor design... like goldie said, there is no steel around the pivot

good call - this model is a lemon imho, but some other fox models can be decent (mostly their fixed blades imho)
 
Not this again... I feel like it's fair for you to post a picture of what you said to customer service in your initial message so people have the full context here. Again, it's unfortunate this happened, they could have responded a little better, and you could have been less aggressive.
 
scary there. glad ya weren't hurt badly op. also glad you're getting a refund. hopefully you'll have a better experience with whatever ya get next.
 
Agree that it's an unacceptable event but . . .

Why did you bother calling Fox customer service when all you needed to do was contact the dealer for a refund or replacement in the 1st place?

Just to rant? 🤯

FWIW, I've got a Fox 479 and a Fox 599TICS -- both ends of the price spectrum for a Fox karambit -- and have had no problems with either one.
 
Seek_Equilibrium said:
I then decided to just open and close it repeatedly in hopes that it would “break in.” After several dozen repetitions, I drew the knife from the pocket again. This time, when the Emerson wave caught and the blade deployed, the pivot area of the blade *snapped* and the blade came flying out of the handle into the air
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😆 you sound like a friend of mine who does way too much adderall.
Glad you didn’t get badly hurt.
 
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Why is there so much steel removed from that area? I also just noticed that even more steel was removed to add the glass breaker. :rolleyes:

Glad that you weren't seriously injured.
 
RousingRabbles said:
Not this again... I feel like it's fair for you to post a picture of what you said to customer service in your initial message so people have the full context here. Again, it's unfortunate this happened, they could have responded a little better, and you could have been less aggressive.
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Thanks for expressing your opinion again. Regardless, I’ll be spreading this story so that others are aware of the dangerous design/manufacturing flaw that this company produced. You may think it’s not a serious issue and is merely “unfortunate” but I think it’s a pretty big deal. Someone else may end up with worse than the papercut I received from this BS.
 
sgt1372 said:
Agree that it's an unacceptable event but . . .

Why did you bother calling Fox customer service when all you needed to do was contact the dealer for a refund or replacement in the 1st place?

Just to rant? 🤯

FWIW, I've got a Fox 479 and a Fox 599TICS -- both ends of the price spectrum for a Fox karambit -- and have had no problems with either one.
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Sure, just to rant. The fact that a blade came flying out of a brand new knife and cut my hand is totally normal, and I was just ranting needlessly. Thanks for sharing your opinion.
 
sixplymaple said:
Well that’s just an Italian thing. Seriously…
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This made me laugh. I’ve had less than stellar luck with Italian knives also…although I’m currently in love with my Spyopera.

I won’t project my personal experiences across an entire country’s cutlery industry…but it still made me laugh.
 
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Seek_Equilibrium said:
Sure, just to rant. The fact that a blade came flying out of a brand new knife and cut my hand is totally normal, and I was just ranting needlessly. Thanks for sharing your opinion.
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You were entitled to be upset but what did you expect the people at Fox to say, especially if they hadn't seen or examined the knife yet?

And what did you expect would happen if you continued to force the knife to open/close even though its ability to pivot was obviously restricted?

If adjusting the pivot and the backspring didn't help, the other course -- having already gone that far -- would have been to fully disassemble it rather than to continue to force it to open/close, despite the restriction, to try to find out what was causing the problem.

I'm not saying that you are to "blame" for the blade coming apart at the pivot and cutting you BUT . . . if you hadn't done that, the blade would NOT have been damaged and you would NOT have gotten cut.

If you had just left it alone and retuned it to the dealer w/the obvious defect, the dealer could have pre-tested and sent you back one that worked properly and you would not now be a Fox "hater."

Oh well . . .
 
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