I had a newer Dobyns XP 734 break on me while popping a bladed jig out of some thick grass on a long cast. Since it was within the first 60 days, I emailed customer service to start the process of them determining if it was manufacturer defect or not.

Initial email was sent on 4/19, requesting next steps. I got a prompt response on 4/20 with some copied and pasted instructions of what pictures to send. I replied the same day with 2 emails of picture attachments as requested.

On 4/24, since I hadn't heard back, I sent a follow up email asking if they received the picture. Radio silence.

That stock email response was sent 10 days ago now, and since then I have not received a response.

Since I'm not optimistic to ever hear back on that email thread, I went ahead and took the rod the miter saw and cut out the sections of the break, and then the section they request for warranty rod replacement. I filled out their paperwork and sent it all in. At least this way, I can get a new rod headed to me, although I'm very likely going to pay the fee.

The truth is, I've never personally seen a rod broken form a defect, and don't know what I'm looking for. I've seen nicked graphite rods break on a fish exactly where the nick was. I'm guessing there was a nick in the rod. Although I have been pretty careful with it, my money would be on the rod having one since it's the only scenario I've ever seen for a rod to snap during the course of normal operation. So I don't mind paying the fee for a warranty replacement, since the odds would say it was my fault. But since I don't really know what to look for in a break to determine if it was in fact a defect, I'm pretty bummed that I can't seem to get a response from the manufacturer to have THEM determine if the rod had a defect.

I really love fishing my Dobyns rods. I have quite a few, and each one I have is absolutely great at what I ask it to do. But the warranty is definitely a large part of why I buy them.

Anyone have recent Dobyns/GSM warranty experience? Is this normal? Shed some light on timeframe once they get my rod pieces in the mail?

Post gsm I've had to source rod tips from them and it was painless and took less than a week to receive new tip guides at no cost.

Buddy also did a post gsm warranty on a Kaden and swapped to a different model via the warranty upgrade. He also had no issues and received the new rod in about a week.

I warrantied a Fury Spinning rod a couple years ago with them it was fairly painless, but I just trusted in their generic instructions and cut up the rod and sent it in I can't speak to their responsiveness to email.

Well that's good to hear. If I'm end up $70 lighter, but with a decent turnaround time, I'll still view this as a win.