Somebody at CZ needs to do a little thinking about this issue.
I consider myself to be very lucky in the 527 that I got. It works, is extremely accurate and I love it to death. That fact will weigh heavily on my mind the next time I have money to spend on a rifle. How many people have just one rifle? I knew a guy, an avid varmint hunter, who had 13, mostly Rugers. If his first experience had been like this, do you think he would have bought any more? Not just NO, HECK NO! And do you think that he would have suffered in silence? Not told his shooting buddies, the guys at the range, at the gun shop?
Years ago, when I first went into management, I got ahold of a book by Tom Peters, called In Search of Excellence. In that book, Mr Peters, who at the time was getting $1500 per seat, per session, to teach CEOs how to run their businesses, said that for every customer who complains to you, there were fifty who walked away and said to themselves, "Well, I'll never do business with them again."
It's easy to see the savings in not fixing the rifle, parts plus labor = X. How do you count the cost of not selling 50 rifles? You won't even notice. The bean counters will be happy, you saved the money on fixing the rifle, and hey, as you gradually sell fewer and fewer rifles, there will be even more money saved on repairs.
Eventually, it will cost nothing to service customers after the sale, because there won't be any customers, or any sales.
