What to expect after owning a WinWing product for 1 year

[Terminator357]

I got the throttle back a few days ago so I thought I'd update anyone who's followed this thread.

Start to finish, the process of getting it fixed took two months. Shipping and Chinese Customs consumed a good chunk of that time. Once repairs commenced the work was completed and the throttle was on it's way back to me within a two weeks. Wingwing didn't mention what they fixed but I suspect it was either the main board or the hall sensors for the throttle levers.

I've taken it through a half dozen test flights and I'm pleased to say that it's working perfectly. I can't overemphasize how much I missed flying with this thing. The sticktion on the TM TWCS that was filling in for it was unbearable, it's a terrible piece of kit when you're used to something like the Orion...I'm super-thankful to have the buttery smooth throttle and all of these buttons available again. 

There are a couple of minor things that could've gone better with the repair...The Chinese Customs delay was annoyingly long, but Winwing has little control over that. When I got it back the nylon cover on the throttle lever bearing was broken and the screws connecting the throttle handle to its base plate were left loose, but both of these were easily corrected in the course of reassembling the thing, so no big deal.

All in all, Winwing did right by me here and because of that they've gained a loyal customer. All of my future flight sim kit will be purchased through them. If you're on the fence about buying their products, my experience says that you should go ahead and pull the trigger (pun intended).  

Couple things...

* Other owners of the F16EX: The broken nylon roller bearing. Not sure how common the issue is, but.....Winwing included a spare in the hardware when it shipped new, except I couldn't find it so I had to improvise. You can substitute a common 19mm nylon roller bearing (the kind used on shower doors) Amazon sells them 4 for $5.99. Inexpensive and perfect fit/form/function.

* Winwing: Please invest in a North American logistics hub   I'm on the pacific coast so I'm as close to China as someone in the continental US can get, but shipping and customs are always a nightmare so exchanging consumer goods back n forth between our countries is an unnecessarily long process. I suspect the large majority of your buyers are in the Americas so a US facility that maintains a stock of your best selling controllers and some common parts for them would be a good idea. I'm not suggesting moving the company or anything like that although I do think keeping a basic inventory of your products warehoused in-country (or at least on-continent) would remove a big obstacle to overseas customers buying your stuff. I'm sure that's easier said than done, but you've already got the best products at reasonable prices so it seems like the next logical step would be to make sure those products are in the same places your customers are...That said, I really appreciate your cooperation and efforts to help me with this. Thank you, and good job, people! 

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by Terminator357

[Colonel Akir Nakesh]

Thanks for your anecdote Terminator, glad to hear they made it right. How does one get ahold of Max?

[Terminator357]

On 7/12/2023 at 11:40 AM, Colonel Akir Nakesh said:

Thanks for your anecdote Terminator, glad to hear they made it right. How does one get ahold of Max?

Max got in touch with me through WinWing's account on the forum. I don't think I'm at liberty to share other people's contact info but I suspect if you were to send a DM directly to WinWing or ask to be contacted through the customer service chat at their website you could get Max or someone in a similar role to follow up with you. 

[Waxer]

I am pleased to see that this was resolved for you. 

[dankmaster]

On 7/11/2023 at 1:46 PM, Terminator357 said:

All in all, Winwing did right by me here and because of that they've gained a loyal customer. All of my future flight sim kit will be purchased through them. If you're on the fence about buying their products, my experience says that you should go ahead and pull the trigger (pun intended).

What I'd like to know (if you would like to elaborate of course) is if they would have done the same if you didn't voice your concerns publicly on this forum.  In any case, happy to hear they're standing behind their product and have fixed the problem.

[Terminator357]

17 hours ago, dankmaster said:

What I'd like to know (if you would like to elaborate of course) is if they would have done the same if you didn't voice your concerns publicly on this forum.  In any case, happy to hear they're standing behind their product and have fixed the problem.

Well, that's what it took in this case, so I guess the answer would be 'no'. I already described my initial interaction with them so I won't go into it again, but it's true that I wouldn't have made this thread if we had reached an agreement in that first exchange or two. I'm willing to chalk that up to being a part of Winwing's learning curve. Doing biz here can't be anything like it is in China. US consumers are willing to spend a ton of $$$ but that means they also tend to demand a ton of service in exchange. Any small overseas company trying to get a foothold in this market is going to take some lumps as they figure out how to make that work for them. The same would be true for small American companies trying to get a foothold in China. I predict that sometime soon WW will have enough US/EU market share to no longer be considered a noob (they're still noob-ish IMHO). At that point I wouldn't be willing to call a similar mistake growing pains anymore, but for now I am.

[dankmaster]

Thanks, I'll be looking to upgrade my HOTAS later this year.  This was helpful to know. 

[t_hedlund]

I also purchased a Winwing HOTAS and Stick over a year ago, and up until recently, it has performed flawlessly up until it started to unplug and reconnect randomly, during that all the buttons, switch on the HOTAS handle quit working.

So I'm in the process of working with their support, and they were considerably more helpful than your initial interaction, it is just painful going back and forth with support (due to a different time zone). I think that they are becoming a big enough fish in this market that they should start thinking about a repair hub/warehouse in the States. 

 

[Colonel Akir Nakesh]

On 7/18/2023 at 6:15 PM, t_hedlund said:

I also purchased a Winwing HOTAS and Stick over a year ago, and up until recently, it has performed flawlessly up until it started to unplug and reconnect randomly, during that all the buttons, switch on the HOTAS handle quit working.

 

Do you have the Orion base and F16EX grip per chance?

[t_hedlund]

8 hours ago, Colonel Akir Nakesh said:

Do you have the Orion base and F16EX grip per chance?

No, it is the Orion with the F/A-18 grip and handle. It turns out it was the cable between base and handle. It was like a $14 dollar fix plus shipping and roughly 2 weeks that I couldn't use the handle. It would have been less, but the wrong cable was shipped out the 1st time. I didn't like the down time, but it is now working normally. 

[aleader]

Older thread, but thanks to the OP (and a few other horror stories on here) as he has convinced me not to buy anything from Winwing.  I have a TWCS throttle and VKB Gladiator NXT that have both been great for years now.  I had a Saitek X45 HOTAS gathering dust that I sold last year for $60 that still worked perfectly after 22(!) years. 

There is zero excuse for this expensive stuff to break after one year.  For what we are paying it should last 10 years at least without ANY issues.  Cracking it open myself and trying to fix it after I paid that much cash....  Not likely.  I'd like to ask OP how much he's now into this thing after having to ship it back and forth across the ocean?  Redkite recently updated his review video to say that a few buttons had broken on his Orion 2 after one year.  That's UNACCEPTABLE.

I tried finding a way to ask a few questions on Winwing's site and could not find a way to do it, and it's the most unintuitive, unintelligible 'customer service' UI I have ever seen.  I can't be bothered having to work this much just to play games. I may have to just stick with the TWCS for a while longer as nothing else out there turns my crank.  I was really hoping that the Winwing throttle was going to be reliable as the price is very good...$349 CAD shipped (they do have a 'warehouse' in Canada now).

Edited October 27, 2023 by aleader

[MustangSally]

1 hour ago, aleader said:

Older thread, but thanks to the OP (and a few other horror stories on here) as he has convinced me not to buy anything from Winwing.  I have a TWCS throttle and VKB Gladiator NXT that have both been great for years now.  I had a Saitek X45 HOTAS gathering dust that I sold last year for $60 that still worked perfectly after 22(!) years. 

There is zero excuse for this expensive stuff to break after one year.  For what we are paying it should last 10 years at least without ANY issues.  Cracking it open myself and trying to fix it after I paid that much cash....  Not likely.  I'd like to ask OP how much he's now into this thing after having to ship it back and forth across the ocean?  Redkite recently updated his review video to say that a few buttons had broken on his Orion 2 after one year.  That's UNACCEPTABLE.

I tried finding a way to ask a few questions on Winwing's site and could not find a way to do it, and it's the most unintuitive, unintelligible 'customer service' UI I have ever seen.  I can't be bothered having to work this much just to play games. I may have to just stick with the TWCS for a while longer as nothing else out there turns my crank.  I was really hoping that the Winwing throttle was going to be reliable as the price is very good...$349 CAD shipped (they do have a 'warehouse' in Canada now).

 

See my signature - pretty much owned everything WW produced.

Have had Winwing gear since it came on the market. In fact not a problem at all. You're basing you decision off of a "few  horror stories"?? What about the thousands of us who have only had a great experience?? Do you want to hear my horror stories regarding Virpil and TM?????

[aleader]

9 hours ago, MustangSally said:

See my signature - pretty much owned everything WW produced.

Have had Winwing gear since it came on the market. In fact not a problem at all. You're basing you decision off of a "few  horror stories"?? What about the thousands of us who have only had a great experience?? Do you want to hear my horror stories regarding Virpil and TM?????

Thousands?  Do you have some solid market data to back up your comment?  Do you have the data on how many have been returned or where people just gave up?  I doubt it.  Just about every Winwing story I hear and almost every video (where they actually paid for it) comes with the caveat that they had to fix or repair something to make it work, usually within the first year.  There is also a general assertion that their service is terrible.  The same can't be said for VKB, not sure about Virpil as they are out to lunch with their prices, and everything is always on backorder, so I never buy anything from them.  Have you owned your Winwing stuff for 5 - 10+ years yet?  No?  Then you cannot comment on reliability because you have no idea.

Winwing's response that 'you need to buy a new throttle'...you're okay with that kind of service?!  You have very low standards if that's the case.  Yes, they PARTIALLY recovered by paying for half to ship it all the way back to China, at great inconvenience and hassle to their customer.  I paid $88 CAD for a brand new TWCS 5 years ago.  After a little silicone spray to fix the stiction issue, it's worked perfectly in all that time.  Do a little math, I could have bought 4 TWCS throttles for the cost of one Orion 2.  I expect much better when I'm paying that much more. Again, low standards if you think it's ok that it breaks after a whole year.

VKB, Virpil, and TM all need to step it up too when they are charging so much for this stuff...to play GAMES remember.  The warranties should be at least 5 years if they really do 'back their products', that's not too much to ask.  If there is a problem, they need to deal with it and not try to weasle out of it.  I've dealt lots with returns from third party sellers on Amazon, Etsy, Synergee fitness recently, even Aliexpress, and in every case I've received a new item (usually without having to ship the old one back) or they just give me a refund.  That's good customer service that allows you to keep your companies reputation intact.

I want to buy a throttle from Winwing, I really do.  I like the design, and I don't like either of the throttles from VKB or Virpil, and I will never buy an overpriced, under-designed Warthog throttle.  I know though that the rage I will experience if I have the issues that many (more than a few) others seem to be having won't be worth it and I will regret not just sticking with my TWCS.  Cracking it open and fixing it yourself and letting them off the hook is utter stupidity.  If Winwing had shown rock solid customer service, I would be willing to take the risk.  But they haven't shown that at all...yet.  Maybe in a few more years?

[MustangSally]

Tldr!

[Vector1]

Wow very passionate! don't know what flight gear he has, but it must have taken him a long time to let go of the money for it

[Keith Briscoe]

I'm interested to hear more success stories about WW.  I have my eyes firmly directed at the f16/orion stick + f15ex/Orion throttle.  

Talk me into it.

[Biggus]

I've had my Orion since April 2021.  Never had an issue.  Use it a minimum of two hours a day, five days a week.

[MustangSally]

I've had a Taurus throttle for over 2 years, works flawlessly.

I've got 2 x Orion II's, one for helos the other for jets. Again flawless operation. F-16EX grip on one and the F/A-18 grip on the other.

I also use the Ka50 collective. 

Last but not least is the Orion II throttle with F-16 grip.

All my gear works extremely well with not one issue.

I'm looking fwd to the WW rudder pedals to complete the setup.

[Phantom711]

Am 27.10.2023 um 15:57 schrieb aleader:

Thousands?  Do you have some solid market data to back up your comment?  Do you have the data on how many have been returned or where people just gave up?  I doubt it.  Just about every Winwing story I hear and almost every video (where they actually paid for it) comes with the caveat that they had to fix or repair something to make it work, usually within the first year.

Do YOU have marked data to support YOUR claim?

You are just extrapolating from stories and youtube videos. Problem with that is, that it gives a distorted view because people who are content with their received product usually don‘t start a post or create a video about. Simply because that would make a pretty boring post/video. The usual bunch of reviews comes out shortly after release of the product. What else should one say 1 or 2 years after that, if everything just works as advertised. Maybe consider this the silent majority.

You might be right about their customer service, but that might also have changed since they opened stores in areas outside China. Now technically those seem to be just warehouses, but they should still fall under the respective jurisdiction (i.e. EU law) with regard to warranty etc…

 

EDIT: Owning 2 Orion 2 throttles (F-18 and F-16 grip), PTO, PTO2, MIP (VR version). No problems observed.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Phantom711

[aleader]

On 10/28/2023 at 8:51 AM, Phantom711 said:

Do YOU have marked data to support YOUR claim?

You are just extrapolating from stories and youtube videos. Problem with that is, that it gives a distorted view because people who are content with their received product usually don‘t start a post or create a video about. Simply because that would make a pretty boring post/video. The usual bunch of reviews comes out shortly after release of the product. What else should one say 1 or 2 years after that, if everything just works as advertised. Maybe consider this the silent majority.

You might be right about their customer service, but that might also have changed since they opened stores in areas outside China. Now technically those seem to be just warehouses, but they should still fall under the respective jurisdiction (i.e. EU law) with regard to warranty etc…

 

EDIT: Owning 2 Orion 2 throttles (F-18 and F-16 grip), PTO, PTO2, MIP (VR version). No problems observed.

 

No, I don't...and this is the problem, especially when they have such incredibly poor customer support.  I can count, what, 5 people on this site that haven't had issues.  Remember this thread was started by someone who had a pretty big issue after only one year of use...throttle doesn't work at all:  "I have checked that your order has been over one year, in other words, your order is not covered by the warranty, so you need to pay the round-trip freight and maintenance costs. It's not very cheap. Maybe you can buy a new throttle base. It's up to you."

 I have been trying the last 2 weeks now to ask questions on their site, and get back (when I can actually FIND the 'support ticket' that I started...apparently, no way to find it in your account) a garbled message that needs translation.  I'm only able to get to it by clicking on the link in the email I get from them saying a message has been added. 

My assertion still stands though that these companies start backing their high prices with actual warranties that reflect the supposed quality.  I'm sure they understand that their customers are not Sally-soccer-mom buying a throttle for their 12 year old to play War Thunder.  We are mature adults whom I'm sure 99.9% of which take great care of the things we buy and aren't abusing them. 

So, after one paltry year of use, they should be replacing that throttle no questions asked at their expense.  If, as you assert, this is a tiny minority of buyers, the cost to them will be minimal, yet the boost to their reputation as a company will be great.  When companies start refusing claims it's usually because they are getting so many defect requests from customers that they are in danger of losing a bunch of money (think GM, Dodge, and Ford to name a few...).

What I want atm in any event isn't in stock (the Orion 2/collective grip 'combo'), so it's a moot point.  I might just start with the F18 grip combo and add the collective later, as I mostly fly helicopters. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by aleader

[Vector1]

Hi so after all that complaining you are still going to buy WinWing products? oh man!

[Phantom_Mark]

Had my Super Taurus and Combat and Takeoff since pre release, never had a single problem apart from a broken USB socket on the Super Taurus on arrival, I had to strip it and fix replace the socket myself after getting zero joy from WW - even under warranty !

I also have the F16EX handle...........if they could sort out their ordering and returns and warrant issues I would be completely happy, right now I feel like I am just taking a punt on things working out ok.

[aleader]

On 10/29/2023 at 5:52 PM, Vector1 said:

Hi so after all that complaining you are still going to buy WinWing products? oh man!

Haven't bought anything yet.  Sadly, their price for the F15E/Orion2 throttle is HALF what a Virpil CM3 would cost me, such is the overpriced nature of this stuff.  Doesn't give people a lot of options who actually care about value.  I stand by all my 'complaining' about sh!t warranties on this stuff.  Your standards are way too low if you think what these guys are offering is 'good enough'.

[Vector1]

two days left to get really good deal on WinWing store

[-Sledgehammer-]

i‘m really disappointed about the quality and the support they have. i bought the top gun mip recently and after 4 days a lcd display died. i did everything they wanted from me (trying different cables etc..) for 2 weeks and i asked them all the time to send me a replacement, but they didn‘t. it was obvious that they wanted me to confuse and wear me down.

every day they wanted me to try everything else or wanted pictures from the usb port in different qualities or angles, stupid <profanity> for a 100 dollar display. so i ordered a new one myself and asked them to refund me the screen, which they said they would but did not happen until this day.

(i can proof this with screenshots i made from the conversation with sherry).

another problem is timezone difference which limits the timeframe for support to about 3 hours a day (china-switzerland)

now after 3 months of use, the gemini base (loose cables inside, glued connectors with hotglue?) with the ka50 grip did die, i suspect a problem with the cable, i don‘t even try to get some help from them. i ordered a virpil collective now.

i ordered my whole setup from them, i like the orion2 sticks and the orion 2 throttle. i spent 2500.- dollars with them and they treat me like an asshole. 

they do no warranty whatsoever.

very dissapointed. very.