I bought a Curado a few months back and it has been exceptional. Buttery smooth and effortless to reel in. I just bough another one in the exact same gear ratio and it feels like it has less winching strength the my other one. I have the same line on them both so I tied on the same squarebill to both of them. The newer one felt like it had more tension on it during the retrieve. I dialed in the spool tension on both of them to be as near identical as possible, I even swapped them to each others rods to make sure that wasn't the issue and still the newer one felt slightly more tight reeling in.

 

The thing is that I just returned another Curado for this reason and this one is having the same issue. It make me think maybe there wasn't anything wrong with the last one. What could cause this?

Gear alignment maybe? 

Grease on the gears, clean and relubricate.

Tom

 

2 minutes ago, WRB said:

Grease on the gears, clean and relubricate.

Tom

 

 

   Never ever assume that a line-production reel is lubed properly. Some people will religiously clean and lube a brand-new reel even before using it. I'm not that OCD, but at the first sign of anything amiss after I've started using them, I clean and re-lube my reels.       jj

9 minutes ago, WRB said:

Grease on the gears, clean and relubricate.

Tom

 

Ok right on I'll start ripping it apart and greasing everything. I'll update how it went. Thank you

There's a difference between reels made on the Taiwan line and more expensive models bench-assembled in Japan.  In Taiwan, they take parts out of the bin, assemble the reel and send the reel down the line.  

On the Japan benches, they parts-match to improve smoothness - sort and pair parts that work better together.  Part of what you pay for in higher grades.  

Not questioning the lube, but there's a randomness in manufacturing that could affect what you're feeling.  

I always use the example of my Vanquish and Stradics.  Without the Vanquish, would never notice the difference, but with both together, the extra smoothness of the Vanquish is striking.  

5 hours ago, Chaos10691 said:

Ok right on I'll start ripping it apart and greasing everything. I'll update how it went. Thank you

It might need some grease removed. Take it apart and deal with what you find.

If a reel has the drag backed completely off, it can cause the gear or drag stack to get misaligned. That could cause this. Could. No way to know for sure. Could also be a grease issue. Best bet is take it apart, clean it and properly grease/oil it. I find a very thin layer of Cals grease on everything except plastic gears and bushings works best. I don’t keep any plastic bushings in my reels anymore, but back when I did, they slowed everything down if they were greased.