shimano baitcasting reels quality

[Bluebasser86]

Just now, *Hootie said:

Of course you do. You can't see with your E's. Sorry, Bluebasser, I just couldn't restrain myself...lol.

By the way, those E's you're talking about. Chronarchs, or Curado's? And what kind of shape are they in?

Hootie

All Curado's. I fish a lot, probably more scuffs than most guys like, but I keep them cleaned up so they keep doing what I need them to do. 

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

why would you think a company's QC standards would change by geography ? In today's global economy (of which I'm no fan) off shore facilities are SOP for most companies. Pay it no mind. 

[J Francho]

4 minutes ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

why would you think a company's QC standards would change by geography ?

Because we see it every time we offshore, er, I mean "best shore" services and manufacturing.  It's an easy leap. Their standards may not change, but the reality of the quality may.  Doesn't mean stuff is crap.

[0119]

2 minutes ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

why would you think a company's QC standards would change by geography ? In today's global economy (of which I'm no fan) off shore facilities are SOP for most companies. Pay it no mind. 

Perhaps its not the ability of the asian worker that has made this widespread opinion but the tier of product the mega conglomerates choose to produce in those countries.  The new "Ambassadeur" SX family of reels compared to the Swedish made C4 and Record comes to mind.  For me it was  a combination of manufacturers and products that set my opinion of asia in stone.  Every Revo I've bought has been a disappointment in quality.  Seeing as a lew's is made in the same building, it tells me to never buy one.  Shimano's replacement of the D series Curado with its plastic levelwind guide, black enameled sideplate screws, plastic levelwind eye housing, plastic drag star thus set my opinion of shimano and its cost cutting efforts.

[Dye99]

I bought two Curado 201's last year. One still functions ok, and the other sounds like hell. Had them maintained of course. Nothing compared to my Abu Garcia stuff...So far, my Revo's have been reliable and tough.

[Bluebasser86]

3 minutes ago, Dye99 said:

I bought two Curado 201's last year. One still functions ok, and the other sounds like hell. Had them maintained of course. Nothing compared to my Abu Garcia stuff...So far, my Revo's have been reliable and tough.

Use a Q tip to run a little oil inside the sideplate of the reel where your brakes contact and it'll fix that noise if it's the one everyone talks about. I do it with mine about once a month and it keeps them from making any noise. 

[fisherrw]

9 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

I like my I's better than my E's. 

I have 4 E's I'll trade for I's if you like them better. 3 200E7's and 1 E5. 

The new 70 is the nicest reel I've owned and I'm planning on owning a few more. 

are they left hand? very interested if they are...

[J Francho]

1 hour ago, 0119 said:

 Shimano's replacement of the D series Curado with its plastic levelwind guide, black enameled sideplate screws, plastic levelwind eye housing, plastic drag star thus set my opinion of shimano and its cost cutting efforts.

basically, everything the B was....

everybody's gripe about the D was weight. wonder how they do this? lighter materials?

[Raul]

16 minutes ago, J Francho said:

basically, everything the B was....

everybody's gripe about the D was weight. wonder how they do this? lighter materials?

Exactly, the D series Curado and Citica was a gigantic leap in quality over the B series, the B series was much more cheaply made ( lots of composite materials ), actually, in order to obtain what the D series offered vs the B series you had to jump to the Chronarch, a much more expensive reel.

[Bluebasser86]

25 minutes ago, fisherrw said:

are they left hand? very interested if they are...

No, all righties. 

[fisherrw]

13 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

No, all righties. 

too bad...

[.ghoti.]

I'm with John on this. If you spend $200 and up, you're gonna get a good piece of gear, that with regular maintenance, will give you years of fine sevice; no matter who made it, or where.

In terms of gear quality, these are the good old days. Our rods, reels, lines, baits, electronics, etc, are all so much better than what we were all using 20 years ago. I'd like to see what's in store 20 yeras  from now.  Or  50 years.

One of these days soembody will make a baitcaster that will cast a 1/32oz bait, never backlash, hold 300 yards of whatever line you want, have 82 pounds of drag, weigh less than 3 ounces and cost 50 bucks.

And you know what will happen? Somebody will complain about it.

[buzzed bait]

1 hour ago, .ghoti. said:

One of these days soembody will make a baitcaster that will cast a 1/32oz bait, never backlash, hold 300 yards of whatever line you want, have 82 pounds of drag, weigh less than 3 ounces and cost 50 bucks.

And you know what will happen? Somebody will complain about it.

well of course... because it will likely be outsourced to Mars, and we all know how those lazy Martians have no Quality Control....

 

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

Shimano makes lots of reel models. I don't understand the desire to judge the whole line on the Curado. The Curado B was a workhorse reel never intended to be the standard bearer of refinement.   The E to G was an attempt to get back to that. People came unhinged after being spoiled in a sense by the E so out comes the redesigned I. To get maintain the workhorse price point and deliver some level of refinement something has to give. Labor savings looks like one and certain materials.  On the material side, there have been lots if refinements over the years in plastics, graphite and others. Metal parts and heavy hardware give an air of quality but are overkill in some ways.  As a tech, dealing with light and soft hardware is a pain though. 

[J Francho]

1 minute ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

I don't understand the desire to judge the whole line on the Curado.

The ones whining and spewing vitriole the most about Shimano quality haven't touched one in over a decade.  Any point points made, are irrelevant, and are hopefully dismissed by most readers.  You have weed through forum posts.  I'm not a Shimano guy, but most of the complaints or arguments against don't make much sense.  Why?  Because they don't even use them.  It's actually funny to read the stuff.

[lmbfisherman]

I own or owned curados from b, e, g and I.  I really don't see a quality issue.  I also own Citica Gs too.  I also agree a lot of Internet whiners never held one and just stated that it sucks based on others feedback.  I own other Shimano reels Chronarch 50 mg and Metaniums.  Love them all.

[J Francho]

I actually took an original Citica back, probably around '91/92? Liked the Daiwa PS-5 (I think that's what it was, 5 bearing reel) better.  Go figure.  I like my E series reels.  Might be putting some up for FM soon.  Time to update!

[Dye99]

7 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Use a Q tip to run a little oil inside the sideplate of the reel where your brakes contact and it'll fix that noise if it's the one everyone talks about. I do it with mine about once a month and it keeps them from making any noise. 

Ill try that tonight, thanks!

 

[fishballer06]

2 hours ago, J Francho said:

The ones whining and spewing vitriole the most about Shimano quality haven't touched one in over a decade.  I'm not a Shimano guy, but most of the complaints or arguments against don't make much sense.  Why?  Because they don't even use them.  It's actually funny to read the stuff.

I don't get this about people. I consider myself a Shimano guy. I own probably 2 dozen Shimano reels (casting and spinning). I have no issues with any of my reels. Do I like my E series more than the I series Curado/Chronarch? Yes, but the I series is still an excellent reel. 

 

At the same time, I own/have owned "high end" reels from competitor's. Zillions, Tatula's, Revo MGX, etc. All of which were fine reels. My old Zillions are probably the best work horse cranking reels I've ever seen. The Tatula is a great reel for the price, but I prefer the Curado and Chronarch over it. The MGX is probably the smoothest reel I've ever owned, however I have since sold it and replaced it with another Shimano. I've used an STX, and while it's a decent reel, I feel that anything Shimano in that price range is superior. 

I have never owned any Lews reels. But I know they're made in the same place as Abu Revos, and I know that I've never liked the feel of any of their reels whenever I have held one. Because of that, I stay away from them. 

At the end of the day, any high end reel is going treat you right with the proper maintenance. Use what you like/can afford. Eventually, from trial and error, you'll likely find a brand that you prefer. Me personally, I prefer Shimano because I have never been let down by any of their products, from the Curado to the Aldebaran. However, if someone prefers another product, more power to them. At the end of the day, I know that my 15+ year old Curado B still works weekend after weekend, so I will stand with Shimano. 

Will my Metanium's still work in 15 years? Who knows??? But if they last 10 years, I'd say I got my money's worth. 

[tomustang]

On 5/3/2016 at 3:08 PM, fisherrw said:

does anyone agree with me that shimano baitcasting reels have gone down in quality? I wont be buying anything but the E series from now on. I just really dislike the new I series and the g series. does anyone agree with me or do you think otherwise? thanks for the feedback I'm eager to see what yall think.

In order for someone to agree they must have the same opinion as you, though you haven't expressed your thought on why you dislike the models after the E series

[fisherrw]

1 hour ago, tomustang said:

In order for someone to agree they must have the same opinion as you, though you haven't expressed your thought on why you dislike the models after the E series

They feel cheaper made. 

[Cgrinder]

I will feel warm and toasty tonight wrapped up in these blanket statements.

[Nick S]

6 hours ago, J Francho said:

The ones whining and spewing vitriole the most about Shimano quality haven't touched one in over a decade.  Any point points made, are irrelevant, and are hopefully dismissed by most readers.  You have weed through forum posts.  I'm not a Shimano guy, but most of the complaints or arguments against don't make much sense.  Why?  Because they don't even use them.  It's actually funny to read the stuff.

 

4 hours ago, fishballer06 said:

I don't get this about people.

 

 

4 hours ago, fishballer06 said:

I have never owned any Lews reels. But I know they're made in the same place as Abu Revos, and I know that I've never liked the feel of any of their reels whenever I have held one. Because of that, I stay away from them. 

[Nick S]

2 hours ago, fisherrw said:

They feel cheaper made. 

I agree with that.

I've had many shimano casting and spinning reels over they years and still use quite a few. The D series curados and chronarchs are my favorite and I'll continue to use them until parts are impossible to find. Didn't care for the e series reels, they lost their smoothness quickly. Never owned any g series reels. I have an I series curado and citica which are ok so far. (But I wouldn't pay any more for the curado, the citica is the same reel.)

The only shimano spinning reels I've ever liked are the stradic fj and ci4+ (4000 size ci4+). The rest have all been a huge disappointment with durability and binding issues. Just sold my new stradic fk, like you said it felt cheaply made. Definitely didn't feel as solid as my fj's and didn't feel like it had that effortless cranking power the fj's and ci4+ have. 

A good example of shimano cheapening thier reels are the symetre and saros. They both used to have aluminum frames and now they're graphite.  

 

These are all just my experiences with these reels, if others have had good luck with every shimano reel that's great. To say that anyone complaining about shimano reels has never used one is just nonsense. 

[BassThumb]

The Shimano G's were a dud, but the D, E, and I are all excellent reels as far as I'm concerned. Obviously, the newer I-series hasn't really been around long enough to truly 'stand the test of time', but the others have.

Speaking to Shimano's longevity, in 2009 I completely retooled my rod/reel selection from the mix-and-match selection that I previously had which consisted of Shimano, Daiwa, Abu, and Pfleuger in the $75-100 range mainly.

I picked up 5 Curado E's, 2 Citica E's, and 3 Abu Revo STX's in summer 2009. At present, 2 of the 3 STX are inoperable and need repair, while the E's series Shimanos still run like new after each annual breakdown and cleaning.

To add insult to injury, one of the now-broken STX was replaced by a 10-year old Curado DHSV (D-series), which I tried to replace with the lighter, smaller, smoother STX back in 2009. Clearly that didn't work out -- I came full circle -- and the big 'ol clunk of a DHSV again works perfectly on my frogging stick, despite it's size.