Warranty Claim

I filled out a MESS at the NAR site regarding the ejection charge failure in Hellboy the other day.

Since the NAR certifies all motors allowed in competition, they apparently use these MESS forms to gather data on motors that might not be worthy. I can't see Estes letting their quality control slip to where a motor gets decertified, but it's comforting to know there's a watchdog to make sure. The failure I had was the first I ever had, and I've burned hundreds of Estes motors.


I also called Estes. I'd heard they stood behind their product up to a point. A free pack of motors, and a free kit if one of their kits was the rocket destroyed by the failure. Hellboy was scratch-built, but I think the friend who told me about the warranty policy had put an 'and' where there should have been an 'or.' They offered me motors OR a kit worth what a three-pack of E motors retails for.

And according to Estes, E motors are too expensive to ship because of the HazMat fees, so the motor option was two packs of D's.



Of course six D's is far more propellant than three E's, but there's no reasoning with the Post Office just because you have facts on your side.

But right before the Hellboy fiasco, I lost Curtis the Caveman to the corn fields. And Curtis was an Estes Kit of almost exactly the same value as a three-pack of E's. So there you go.



The other thing Estes wanted was a photo of the motor showing the lot number. Which I provided, along with shots of the end cap (in tact) and the nozzle end (showing the motor had been fired). And the aftermath of Hellboy's launch.