Buyer beware of WinWing

[Kazoo]

I have purchased just under $2000 of WinWing products in the last two years. For the most part they make good products but the true test of a product is their customer service and I have to say it is horrendous. I purchased an F-16 ICP in January and only used it a few times since. The last time I used it i manipulated the dobber switch and it became loose and unusable. Obviously it had broken off on the inside(Video attached). Below is Winwings response. Do what you will with this information.

 

 

Hello, the RTN/SEQ button has broken on my ICP, It was never dropped or mishandled. I was using it while flying the F-16 in DCS and after a push to the right it became very loose and quit working.

JessieChen [2024-07-24 02:09:51]
Dear customer, The five-way switch on the ICP, being made of plastic material, should not be forcefully impacted, rotated, or pulled, as it may result in switch damage. This situation is not covered by warranty, we can provide you with the switch, but you need to pay for it

Thomas Kozubek [2024-07-24 09:06:02]
There was no force or impact, I was simply manipulating it like any other button. I have spent $2000 on your products. If you are telling me you are not going to warranty a poorly made 50 cent part then I will no longer buy your product and will switch to Virpil.

TommyLiu [2024-07-24 09:08:15]
Dear customer,I will apply for you,please wait for my reply

JessieChen [2024-07-24 22:00:45]
Dear customer, we have applied for you, we would like to exempt the material cost, but you will need to pay for the shipping fees. Thanks for your support

JessieChen [2024-07-24 22:00:48]
Dear customer, we have applied for you, we would like to exempt the material cost, but you will need to pay for the shipping fees. Thanks for your support

Thomas Kozubek [2024-07-24 22:35:10]
Ok

Thomas Kozubek [2024-07-24 22:36:19]
How much is shipping?

JessieChen [2024-07-24 22:48:27]
Dear customer, plz confirm your address, so I can figure out the shipping fees:

 

Thomas Kozubek [2024-07-25 11:34:27]
That is correct. So you are aware, when I had an issue with a Thrustmaster flight stick they sent me a brand new one from France. You are making me pay for a defective plastic piece.

spacehamster [2024-07-25 11:38:26]
Dear customer, we are sorry for your inconvenience. But our ICP switch is under test before putting out in the market. This situation is not covered in our warranty. I will calculate the cost for you

spacehamster [2024-07-25 11:39:22]
Dear customer, this address has out-of-range fee. Because some remote or less accessible areas may have a higher surcharge than others.   The Out-of-Delivery-Area Surcharge and Out-of-Pickup-Area Surcharge rates are determined based on the corresponding tier of the ZIP code, postal code, or city of the shipment’s origin and/or destination location for International Express Freight and Parcel services.

There are two suggestions:

1. use another address with different postcode

2. Or when you buy our product in global channel next time, we will try to pack it with the product, which will save you the freight

 

Edited July 25, 2024 by Kazoo

[scommander2]

14 minutes ago, Kazoo said:

a Thrustmaster flight stick they sent me a brand new one from France

It sounds TM has the better customer service and policy of the replacement than WinWing.

Wow... that whole was totally off inside the box.

[Kazoo]

I was warned about their support, guess I should have listened.

[Tzigy]

Just my two cents and I know that people would say they are better sticks out there but I have been a TM customer ever since their Cougar hit the market and their service has been exemplary; under warranty they would replace everything free including shipping a whole throttle quadrant at one point to Alaska. Out of warranty cost replacement parts and shipping very reasonable within EU, extra shipping cost to USA as expected...

[mikko.1842]

I heard so many sad stories about Winwing's customer service, since their beginnings to nowadays.

As good as their product might be, with awesome prices, these stories were a "no go" for me. I don't want to have to fight against a company for my rights. I should not have to, and I don't want to spend my time in endless mails/threatenings/etc...

Thank you for sharing your experience, and I wish you the best for the resolution of your problem.

[Kazoo]

56 minutes ago, Schlingel mit Kringel said:

Not sure where you live, but within the EU you got quite a good customer protection. Local authorities will assist you in such cases and might hand out hefty fees.

I am in the US, authorities won't bother with something like this. Nor would I expect them to. They will loose more from me not buying anything else and others not buying from seeing posts like this.

55 minutes ago, Tzigy said:

Just my two cents and I know that people would say they are better sticks out there but I have been a TM customer ever since their Cougar hit the market and their service has been exemplary; under warranty they would replace everything free including shipping a whole throttle quadrant at one point to Alaska. Out of warranty cost replacement parts and shipping very reasonable within EU, extra shipping cost to USA as expected...

Yeah, I had TM before WW and like you said had good CS. Should have stayed with them.

[MAXsenna]

Just my two cents and I know that people would say they are better sticks out there but I have been a TM customer ever since their Cougar hit the market and their service has been exemplary; under warranty they would replace everything free including shipping a whole throttle quadrant at one point to Alaska. Out of warranty cost replacement parts and shipping very reasonable within EU, extra shipping cost to USA as expected...

I've been a TM customer since 1992/3. They sent me new springs free of charge for my FCS Mark II. A complete new F-22 stick, and I could keep the old one, after I complained about spiking pots in an email.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Tzigy]

1 hour ago, Schlingel mit Kringel said:

F in chat, that is sad.

To make you feel a bit better maybe: i was thinking about maybe getting their F-16 throttle with Taurus if available and some other stuff. Four digits of good quality Euro money. I had a thread opened in February i think with some questions and suggestions to WW and their F-16 products. Never received an answer and deleted it just yesterday. Was hesitant but reading those negative experiences just put the cream on top.

Will instead likely get another TM Warthog HOTAS to replace my aging one (bought it nearly 10 years ago, some switches on the throttle start to wear out but apart from that still going strong) and maybe some Virpil redfor equipment.

Check out tge TM Ava base I'm quite impressed with it after some initial getting used to it... the precision is really excellent and I now i totally love it  I got the small TM extension with it that allows you to offset the stick 15-30 degrees, I think almost perfect setup...

[bigdaddybones30]

Was gonna load up on WW, but after plus all the other post of bad CS i will go with someone else. Thank you.

 

[Dangerzone]

Thanks for posting your experience. Feedback (both good and bad) is essential for others to review products (as most youtube reviews aren't much more than a repeat of the specs of the product. What I really want to know are the real life experience of customers after purchasing their product). 

I'd question the remote postage cost. I've been hit with this before with one shipment (unrelated) "your postcode is remote, huge fee increase". Yet, I seem to be able to buy products from Aliexpress for a couple of dollars, including shipment - for parts that are far larger than I would imagine the size of the replacement part you're looking for. 

It doesn't surprise me that even good quality units will have the odd defective switch, so these things happen from time to time. The question is how will it be handled. To ignore your original information, and passively accuse you of what you already said wasn't the case I think sums it up. Then making you battle for a free part and still want you to pay for freight.

This smells of someone trying to save cents ignoring the dollars (or thousands) that they're going to lose. 

When I purchased my last set of gear, I went with a VKB/Virpil combination. I briefly considered WinWing but reviews like yours quickly had me discarding them. I had hoped that maybe over time they would mature into a more professional and reliable company because the more manufacturing gear we can get in this market the better, but it appears as though maybe this level of service isn't a growing-issue for a newer company, but actual company policy. 

Sorry you had to go through this, but take some comfort in that you may have saved a number of us from going through a similar experience. Thank you.

[Wostg]

For all the good it will do you, I put in a ticket saying I'm less likely to buy any more of their stuff because of this. Received a polite but noncomittal response, but yeah less likely to risk another large payment to them

[Dragon1-1]

IMO, for parts that break not as the customer's fault, they should be eating that shipping cost. I get that they likely don't have a large volume contract like Aliexpress does, but in such case, they should simply pay for shipping themselves, out of pocket. Would be great for incentivizing getting it right the first time, too. I didn't feel like paying for replacement springs when they failed, either, fortunately it was something I managed to fix myself.

[RadioJoe007]

Folks, I have to give the WinWing Service Team 5-Stars!
I've purchased nearly every WinWing device that's currently available for the F/A-18 Hornet, and I LOVE them ALL!  MY only regret is that I Wish I had pulled the trigger on the Super Taurus throttle/HOTAS while it was still available on sale.

 

I just experienced what I thought was a catastrophic failure of the PTO-2 Panel.  It just suddenly showed up, yesterday as an unrecognized USB Device.  This after over 4 months of perfect - flawless performance.

 

I tried (what I thought was) every "Logical" triage step suggested in all the online Forums - from WinWing themselves to DCS, to HOTAS on both Discord & Facebook & Eagle Dynamics to Reddit.  I took it off my (very expensive 65W 10-Port) USB 3.0 Hub, and plugged it into one of my PC's only remaining USB 3.2 slot.  NOTHING - it remained as an "Unrecognized USB device..."

However...

The 2nd thing "SpaceHamster" (the WinWing Tech) asked was to see a picture of the Status LED in the back of the PTO 2 Panel.  So, I had to actually take it off the HOTAS extension Mount in order to get to the actual USB plug, behind the unit.  And voila!...  It came up perfectly, when I plugged in a different (much more expensive) braided USB 2.0 Type-A-to-C Cable.

And of course, one of the 1st things the online Service Q&A forum  suggested was to replace the cable - D'OH!!!.... 

And here I assumed that couldn't have possibly been the issue.  However, I'm guessing that after the USB lights were left on, overnight, 2 nights ago, it must have fried one of the tiny little cables in the WinWing original USB cable that was shipped with the PTO 2 Device.  I assumed it couldn't possibly have simply been a bad cable - I was wrong!

 

So - Lesson-Learned - Replace the WinWing Cable with an expensive (high-power USB 3.0) Type A to C Cable as the 1st step in Trouble-Shooting a bad or dead (seemingly Bricked) PTO-2 or any device for that matter.  And in the meantime, here's a picture of my Full-Motion, SimRig, along with an extensive list of the parts:
- WinWing TopGun Full MIP (Left & Right DDI or MFD)
- UFC & HUD
- AMPCD (Center/Lower MFD)
- Orion-2 HOTAS with F15EX (and Finger-Lift) Throttle
- Orion-2 F16EX Joystick
- PTO-2 Take-Off Panel
- Hornet Sim Shop (HSS) Full Dashboard Pre-Printed & HUD Box
- TekCreations IFEI (Intelligent Fuel/Engine Information Panel)
- TekCreations Left Console Panel V3 (Lite)
- TekCreations Right Console Panel V3 (Lite)
- Logitech G Pro Rudder Pedals
   (With replacement 3D-Printed Cessna Pedals - I highly Suggest these pedal replacements for any and ALL Logi G-Pro owners.   It fixes/corrects the braking angle required to effectively apply brakes or engage the Rudders without Braking.
- DOF Reality P3 Full Motion Platform
- Samsung 43" Odyssey Neo G7 4K UHD Gaming Monitor
- Witmotion WT901C Motion Compensation sensor 
- Elgato StreamDeck Plus
- Aida64 Sensor Panel (Customized and running on a 15" Touchscreen)
- Sim Racing Studio (SRS) running on a 12" Touchscreen
- Next Level Racing (Air Force/Boeing designed) Gaming Rig Seat & 4-Point Harness (And YES - you really do need a harness to keep you in the seat when banking, or hanging on at the 20 degree angle while pulling back on the stick for a tight, High-G turn!
- Several 4040, 4080 and 3030 Aluminum Extrusion sections to create a floorboard for climbing-in, as well as some "Oh-<profanity>" Handles for hanging on in those high-G banks and Carrier Take-Offs.
- Gaming PC Specs: Powered by AMD 7800X3D / NVIDIA 4070 Super, 64GB DDR6 6400Hz RAM, dual 2TB PCIe 5.0 NVMe, 1TB Seagate SSD, (12) Lian-Li fans and L-Connect3 & SignalRGB, Corsair RM850X powering it and a BeQuiet DarkRock 5 (with additional Fan for complete Push-Pull efficient cooling of the Radiator).

Folks, if I'd have known how much fun this would be, I wouldn't have waited until retirement to make this invenstome of my time and $$.  This really makes DCS Rock! 
(And just in time, too, since MS has so thoroughly messed up MSFS2020 and the new FS2024 Flight Sim experience for all of us.)

Thank You, WINWING for Great Customer Support and your Service Tech - "SpaceHamster" you and he deserve a 5.5-Star Rating for your patience and quick response times, online in your Service Chat Support Tab! 
Great Job - Please keep it up (and please bring BACK the Super Taurus Throttle-HOTAS - maybe a Gen-2 Version with Force Feedback???).  I'm waiting to test it out and review it for you!

[Mr_sukebe]

1st post is a massive hype for WW.

Sounds legit

[DD_Crash]

Got some toys there