I’ve been scouting and I am thinking of going used

My question is...

Say I need a repair, who works on or repairs these?

Not warranty work obviously, just if something doesn’t work right down the road

No , not really applicable to thermal

I mean thinking about it - price and tech ....

I don’t know of a single “ transferrable” warranty that is written for thermal

Oh no, i wouldn’t go into this with thinking of a transferable warranty

Just service, I’d be willing to pay the rate

But my question is, if I go 3 years used is that available?

I’d say your best bet is to call the company and ask

A lot of turnover these days at all levels within the company’s so whatever you read may not be current and again most thermal products don’t have a service rate published for tech that isn’t even made anymore ...

I want to say 3+ years old is a risk

Ok thanks

From what I’m seeing if you get around that old they are about 50 percent off

I was mainly wondering should I run into an issue would anyone/or the company repair it

Not for free, just repair it for a reasonable price

There are three entry level scopes for around 1800 - 2500 that have 3-4 year warranties , space that out per year and it is like 800 bucks per year so unless the older scope is around 700 I wouldn’t do it

I have (2) Thermal Monoculars, (1) Night Vision Monocular and my Apex were all purchased used and have been in use for 3+ years by me with no problems. (I hope I don't jinx myself with this statement)

The issue I see is older Armasight Prometheus and ATN THoR's for example were all great scopes and still are today, but were pretty spendy when new and the folks selling them think they're offering a really good deal when selling them for $3k or so which is around 50% off. It's a pretty deep discount from new, but when compared to current models from price/function, not so much.

You are indeed taking a risk with used, but it's worked out for me so far. All that said... buy once, cry once.

Charlie

To answer your question....who will repair an out of warranty thermal scope for a price.....generally speaking, no one. Unlike an iPhone or a laptop where there are hundreds of 3rd party Chinese companies making spar parts and repair shops on the street corners, there is no place to get thermal scope repairs if the manufacturer can't/won't do it. The parts are proprietary and a single scope will never sell enough units nor have enough units that need repair for a 3rd party manufacturer to start making spare parts for them. Even if you could get spare parts for a 4 year old scope, the cost of the specialized labor to repair would probably end up being more than it was really worth to fix it.

I've spoken to most of the manufacturers about this issue and in their defense, I see their point. They just aren't setup to do a lot of out of warranty repairs, even for a fee. Some of them are considering expanding and getting into that as a revenue source down the road but they aren't there yet and I honestly don't know if they ever will be. Some of the higher end companies like Trijicon and N-Vision are much more likely to perform these out of warranty services for a fee but even then, there comes a point when they won't have the parts and/or it just won't be a reasonable service for them to offer.

While we all like to think about these expensive thermal scopes as optics, they really aren't in the optics category as much as they are in the consumer electronics category. They have a reasonable, useful life span and even if the scope continues to work for a decade, the technology has moved on and the value is gone long before that point. They are much more similar to a cell phone, iPad, laptop, tv, GPS, digital camera etc than they are a Leupold or Zeiss scope.

None of us like spending this kind of money and imaging the scope will be a paper weight several years down the road but honestly, that's what going to eventually happen to many of the scopes being sold today.

Just my 2 cents!

Jason

Agree with Jason. Get a warranty if you possibly can. They do get sent in and some more than others. Many companies won't even touch stuff out of warranty, ie it's now a paperweight.