Great product with BETTER customer service!
Injectors, even cheap ones, are pretty easy to get right. Cheap ones have idiosyncrasies,stuff you put up with because they're cheap. This one isn't cheap, comparatively, but it isn't expensive either, by any means. It seemed to be of high quality in the description, the reviews were good and it had three needles of varying lengths and hole layouts to be capable of approaching about any injection job I'd find myself using it for. I bought it.When it arrived, I was very happy with the quality of the entire package: the injector (most importantly) was made of solid materials, with a good feel, tight fit on the plunger (not sloppy, either at the o-ring on the piston OR where the stem protrudes through the screw-on cap for the barrel), so the unit felt solid in your hand. The plunger and the needles all have high-end o-rings, PLUS an extra set for each piece that uses them! A very nice touch that I've not seen before! The packaging also impressed me with it's form-cut slots for all the pieces so they rest nicely inside a snug fitting foam piece inside a thick box that completes a package you feel reflects an overall wish to provide a good product in every way.I do a LOT of BBQ and smoking of meats, I research my products well before buying and, as a result, have been able to get very high quality products for affordable prices because I shop around and try to shop smart. I want my products to be as good as my food.When I injected my first piece of meat (two BIG tri tips), I used both the big liquids needle (with side holes) and the solids needle (with a thicker shaft and bigger end opening for things like finely ground garlic, herbs and spices) and was pleased with ease of use and the lack of leaks from the top of the barrel, denoting no leaking past the plunger seal. (Injecting a nice hunk of meat in front of your friends, readying for a great evening of company and food, and having liquid shooting from your injector is disheartening, to say the least.) No leaks, no mess, no problem...Well, one little problem; both needles were a bit askew in their threads in the barrel. I noticed a bit of looseness as I'd threaded them in, like the machining wasn't quite the best, but then I remembered that stainless steel, if tightly fitted on threaded components, can be a bit of a struggle to thread due to the friction created by the temperamental metal, so I figured that perhaps they intentionally cut the threads a bit loose because they knew they could count on their high quality o-rings to keep things as they should be. Which IS what ended up happening: though the needles were a bit off-angled when seated, and the threads weren't of the closest tolerances when threading to seat them, there was NO leakage and the unit worked fine. My only real issue was that the needles weren't quite parallel with the barrel when injecting, so I had to pay closer attention to the angle of the needle than the usual. The barrel and the needle were at slightly different angles...I was OK with this because of the price of this unit compared to others in its category. Especially since many in its category seemed to have less features (fewer needles, didn't seem to claim the quality this one did, poor reviews, higher price, et al...) than this did. I was willing to live with the small inconvenience of the needle and the barrel being a tad different because, otherwise, it was a solid unit.Then I started getting emails from the seller asking about my experience. "How's our product working for you?"... "Did you find our 'little extra' useful?"... (they sent a nice little e-book and a follow-up tips email) and, frankly, I found it annoying. I thought it was just another vendor trying to get a good Amazon review by doing legwork on the ass-end of a deal by sending me emails until I get tired of seeing them and do a review.It happens...So, after getting the third email asking about my experience, I decided to mention my slight issue with the unit. I responded as I readied for work one morning (at 3:30 or so PST, USA) and spoke of the alignment situation. I said it's not a deal-breaker with me, but I did find it somewhat conspicuous since the unit seemed of such high quality. Then I finished readying for work and took off. BEFORE I got to work, I received a reply from Greg, at the company, who said he was "sorry to hear about the issue, bla-bla-bla..." Then he did something the usual suspects in the "we're sending you this annoying email to bait a nice review from you on our product" crowd doesn't usually do: he sent input on how to see if it was the same issue they'd dealt with on a few other units. Very simple stuff I should have checked in the first place... 'roll the needles on the edge of a table to see if the threads were straight on the needle' (because I'd mentioned I thought the barrel machining was bad as well, so those threads weren't straight either, creating a bigger problem). Being the cynic I am, I thought it was nice to admit to previous problems of a lesser nature, but I was pretty sure my unit had bigger issues (which, again, I was okay with accepting... but they asked.) I rolled the needles and found that they were all a bit off. Then I rolled the barrel and found it, too, was off. Then I screwed in my needles, one at a time, into the barrel and took photos of the fairly significant difference in angles between the needles and the barrel of the injector. I sent them off.I got an email back post haste that said, basically, "Wow! I've never seen that before. That's not good." I responded that, 'yeah, it could be better, etc., and I like this type of thing to be right. How do we deal with this at this point?'He emailed back that my new unit was in the mail and would be delivered on Monday! (This all happened on Saturday, as I said, in the wee hours of the morning!)I go into such detail here because I have learned a few things buying online over the years I have been doing so (I am fond of sharing that I've been online longer than Yahoo! It's true...). Not all companies you deal with online are legit. We know that. Even the better companies have issues when it comes to customer service. In all the time I've purchased products online I've never had such a response from a company that was obviously not an Amazon, Shutterfly, Zazzle, etc. Big companies KNOW they have to make you happy or they'll suffer. Big companies send you CustServ emails that, when you reply, the name says it's the same person, but you're pretty sure it's a form letter. Even when they solve your issue, you feel they were just making sure they won't get a bad review. In this exchange, I dealt with Greg, every time, and Greg spoke to me of my personal problem with his product, in DETAIL, and went to the next step until he knew I was satisfied! That level of service most likely denuded every cent of profit my sale had afforded him, but he didn't care about that: he cared that I deserved the product they'd promised, and he made it happen.The replacement is perfect. Through it all I was treated as a valued customer. Any time I see this company is selling something I want, I will know that:1) They are selling it at a fair price, and...2) If I have an issue with it, they will make it good.You can't ask for more than that!In the future, I will look at those 'annoying' solicitous emails a bit more carefully and consider whether, possibly, the vendor is being proactive and sincere. I will consider the possibility that they are looking to make sure I am happy with my purchase, as it should be. I OWE Greg and this company this review, because they did all they could to make my buying experience positive.And, again, you can't ask for more than that!