Why is this DAIWA reel $109.99 cost more than the Pflueger $69.95. Compare pics and tell me the Daiwa Isnt junk.

[throttleplate]

Tell me why is the daiwa $40.00 more for what looks like complete garbage than the Pflueger? I own 5 pfluegers and i am pretty sure they beat out many higher priced reels in quality.

I Was at fleetfarm and took the pflueger and equivalent daiwa reel apart and compared the structures of the spools inner workings. The daiwa looks to be a low budget save money parts wise reel compared to the pflueger which looks more durable with bigger bearing and higher quality parts holding it together along with the fit and finish the pflueger wins.

 

 It really surprises me how so many people i know talk highly of daiwas but lately are bashing pfluegers saying their quality has gone down.  This is a shame on daiwa for putting out such a piece of junk and charging $109.00 for a $35.00 reel. Prove me wrong.

 

q

[msgf91]

If you watch some Eliasfishing videos he shows how much of a beating the Fuego can take. Then there's a video where tackle advisors does a teardown of the reel. I don't know much about Pflugers or bash them. I would like to try one of the cheaper Pflugers that people like. 

[torm]

I'm not a reel expert but my 2 cents would be the internals are probably where you are gonna see the quality difference. Its kinda like how bearings became the ultimate scam. Many reels would offer you double digits bearings but a good budget shimano or daiwa reel would still feel smoother. You gotta remember that new reels no matter what brand all feel nice but its the longevity test that matters to some. Many things plays in what makes a great reel for a person. Longevity smoothness not initial, drag smoothness, years of use, and the list goes on the pickier you get. If your a simple fisherman then yeah any brand is good. I myself had both reels and they perform great for your standard bass fishing and walleye. However when salmon came into play pfluegers straight out failed. My fuego is 5 years straight of fishing for salmon with other species with no maintenance and I can confidently go next season with it.

 

I've worked a couple years at a bait shop as well. The number 1 selling reel we had were those pfluegers because they were cheap and good when they were 50.00. They were number 1 in the category for returns and issues also though. The plastic part that connects the bail to the reel is SUPER fragile. Cannot tell you how many reel demos broke due to poor handling because I lost count. They also did not maintain their smoothness for long and became geary+loud especially if you were brutal on them which a majority of people are due to lack of knowledge.

[uno]

I'll try. The Daiwa has a much nicer and lighter rotor. The handle and knob on the Daiwa are much better as well. Daiwa has nicer gears. More bearings = more things to rust. Sometimes bushings are better. Pflueger has a prettier paint job. Buy what you like and enjoy it, but give 10 people both reels for a year and I guarantee at least 9 prefer the Daiwa at the end.

[Mbirdsley]

That president reel is straight garbage.  Within 6 months the plastic piece on the bail spring will break.  there are no replacement parts in this country for that particular part. I literally know of about 20 president reels including my own reel waiting for that part to come off of the back order list.  
 

if you can find one 6-10 yrs old they were a better reel back than. 
 

phluegar is a name only on a piece of paper.  

[GetFishorDieTryin]

Fuego isnt pretty, im sick of that OG Stradic CI4 color theme, but functionally they have done more then proven themselves.  Ive beat the tar out 2500 in SW and FW since 2018 , dropped it on the jetty couple times and other then a little bail misalignment its runs great.  

The threaded handle along with magseal more then makes up for the difference in price.  The size of the gears in the LTs are also considerably larger then most reels of the same size.  The main in the 2500 is almost the size of 4k main.  That helps the reel not feel over powered on larger fish.

 

 

[Darth-Baiter]

My brother was napping so I grabbed his UL setup to look for crappie.  The President reel he has was wobbly.  It literally felt like it was wobbling on the retrieve.  He just bought a Vanford and he still doesn’t notice the wobble.  My brother is blessed with, “indifference “ about gear.  Lucky. 
 

‘’I put his reel down and shivered.  Nope. Just back away. 

[Columbia Craw]

I’ve personally never heard a single bash   regarding Pflueger reels.  To the contrary, I’ve heard numerous comments about the value.  I own multiple Daiwa after owning numerous Pflueger reels and don’t bash. Now you have an exception.

[Kirtley Howe]

45 minutes ago, Darth-Baiter said:

My brother was napping so I grabbed his UL setup to look for crappie.  The President reel he has was wobbly.  It literally felt like it was wobbling on the retrieve.  He just bought a Vanford and he still doesn’t notice the wobble.  My brother is blessed with, “indifference “ about gear.  Lucky. 
 

‘’I put his reel down and shivered.  Nope. Just back away. 

I have had a President reel for 4 years. It is my go-to spinning reel. Other than the line roller getting worn and needing to be replaced, it has been great. No wobbles...still as smooth as it was when brand new. It is scared from use in adverse conditions, and from banging around in my truck, and it just keeps on ticking. I take it apart and clean and lube it once a year. Other than that, I just use it.

[throttleplate]

40 minutes ago, Kirtley Howe said:

I have had a President reel for 4 years. It is my go-to spinning reel. Other than the line roller getting worn and needing to be replaced, it has been great. No wobbles...still as smooth as it was when brand new. It is scared from use in adverse conditions, and from banging around in my truck, and it just keeps on ticking. I take it apart and clean and lube it once a year. Other than that, I just use it.

 

This is my wifes reel, after 3 years of hard use the only thing that has ever broke was the bail spring. I replaced that and nothing else. I did take it apart to the bare bones to give it a clean up and regrease.

1 hour ago, GetFishorDieTryin said:

The threaded handle along with magseal

what is magseal?

[throttleplate]

2 hours ago, GetFishorDieTryin said:

Fuego isnt pretty, im sick of that OG Stradic CI4 color theme, but functionally they have done more then proven themselves.  Ive beat the tar out 2500 in SW and FW since 2018 , dropped it on the jetty couple times and other then a little bail misalignment its runs great.  

The threaded handle along with magseal more then makes up for the difference in price.  The size of the gears in the LTs are also considerably larger then most reels of the same size.  The main in the 2500 is almost the size of 4k main.  That helps the reel not feel over powered on larger fish.

 

 

 

I did some recent research and now know what magseal is all about, also read about the gear size in a review from a saltwater fisherman mentioning them. The body is made of a type of carbon composite. I do like the knob on the handle over the pflueger.

I just cant get over how cheap the spool components look. You mention using yours in 2018, maybe since then they cheapened up the components to save money and claim as they do now its about making it lighter.

The LT does stand for light and tough they say. I may be wrong about the daiwa, the only way for me to be convinced its a better performing reel for its higher price is to buy one and give it to my wife to use for 3 years and see if she can break it.

[ska4fun]

9 hours ago, throttleplate said:

Tell me why is the daiwa $40.00 more for what looks like complete garbage than the Pflueger? I own 5 pfluegers and i am pretty sure they beat out many higher priced reels in quality.

I Was at fleetfarm and took the pflueger and equivalent daiwa reel apart and compared the structures of the spools inner workings. The daiwa looks to be a low budget save money parts wise reel compared to the pflueger which looks more durable with bigger bearing and higher quality parts holding it together along with the fit and finish the pflueger wins.

 

 It really surprises me how so many people i know talk highly of daiwas but lately are bashing pfluegers saying their quality has gone down.  This is a shame on daiwa for putting out such a piece of junk and charging $109.00 for a $35.00 reel. Prove me wrong.

 

q

Although I'm a staunch ''don't buy the brand', buy quality'' guy, your pictures can't tell **** about both reels quality. We see just aesthetics, drag clicker and spool support. For your conclusions, you must had see main gear, pinion gear, oscilation system, drag washers, sealing.

 

If you are from Krypton, surely you saw all these with your x-ray vision. If not, you have a lot of conclusions without factual suppport.

[Jar11591]

I don’t know what some of y’all are doing to your Presidents, but I’ve had 3 of them going on 10 years, have done minimal servicing aside from basic cleaning and lubing and fished them A LOT in that time and they’ve never faltered even a little bit. I’ve never used Daiwa spinning reels, but my Pfleugers are head and shoulders above my Shimano spinning reels…which I gave away and replaced with Pfluegers. 

[Hulkster]

I think a lot of the value is in the long term smoothness and trouble free use

 

I fish with Stradics a lot and yes they are expensive but 10 years in my stradics are  still super smooth and have never had a part fail. I just lube them up about twice per season and thats it. 

 

Im not sure the cheaper reels will give you that kind of service. 

[PhishLI]

9 hours ago, throttleplate said:

I may be wrong about the daiwa, the only way for me to be convinced its a better performing reel for its higher price is to buy one

The vibe I picked up on several years ago was that it was persnickety Pflueger loyalists who noticed a drop in quality compared to the older model, not Daiwa people.

 

My son in law lost his 10 year old President overboard a few years ago but didn't replace it with a new one due to the spate of complaints he'd read about them. They were all he'd owned since forever, but he still wouldn't risk it. This worked out great for me because he saw himself only as a light-line finesse fisherman before the loss, but my relentless pressure for him to get a bait caster in order to fish heavy cover finally met opportunity. He no longer motors past the juice without a thought, and I don't think about strangling him anymore. He's primarily a jig fisherman these days which got him his 7 1/2lb NY PB last year, and I now get to fish the pads when we're out on his boat. So, I'm thrilled Flooger is seen to be less than it was, even if it's not really all that bad.

[thunderblack]

I would pay the extra $40 to avoid a Pure fishing product. Their reels are not my favorite but the rods are decent. 

[FishTank]

If the Pflueger brand was a movie it would be called "The Dead Presidents".

 

If you search this forum and others, you'll find a common down hill slide on Pflueger reels. They were great 15+ years ago.

[PABASS]

Was a Shimano die hard all my life until I spent over 100$ on the green model and it failed my while fishing in the rain due to a rubber ring they use.  Stradics rock but they should for the price!   The presidents are heavier but again the price!

Switch to the president own 10 of them, had them in the water multiple times, saltwater a few times never failed and after each season I tear them down, clean and grease and they work amazing!

 

[WIGuide]

Not here to knock Pflueger as I've got an older president that's still going. It was a solid performer, but it's an older model. I bought a Daiwa RG-AB (now the Regal) at the same time. Both reels were the same price point but the Daiwa was smoother out of the box and now that they both have years of use on them the Daiwa is nearly as smooth as new and the President isn't even close. Talking to someone in the know, Daiwa spent as much on the gear set they put in those reels as Pflueger did to produce their whole reel. Don't let cosmetic fool you, it's the internals that matter. 

[Mobasser]

I think the older Pluegers may have been better. I bought a new President two years ago at Christmas. It felt grindy out of the package, so I exchanged it for another President. It too felt rough. I took it back and ended up with a Lew's Speed Spin- similar price range, that's worked good.                                  I also have an older( wooden handle knob) Triton that still works well. I won't bash anything by Phlueger. I think they still have good products. If you have good luck with them - so be it. But I probably won't buy another one.

[MN Fisher]

3 minutes ago, Mobasser said:

I think the older Pluegers may have been better. I bought a new President two years ago at Christmas. It felt grindy out of the package, so I exchanged it for another President. It too felt rough. I took it back and ended up with a Lew's Speed Spin- similar price range, that's worked good.                                  I also have an older( wooden handle knob) Triton that still works well. I won't bash anything by Phlueger. I think they still have good products. If you have good luck with them - so be it. But I probably won't buy another one.

Older Pfluegers are definitely better. I've got a Supreme, President and Trion that are 4+ years old and are excellent.

 

I stopped buying Pfluegers when they ravaged the baitcaster line...now all they have is the President XT....I WANT PATRIARCHS.

 

Moving to Shimano for spinners and Daiwa for baitcasters for any new purchases...though I'm keeping my two Patriarchs and my Supreme XT for casting reels.

[throttleplate]

7 hours ago, ska4fun said:

Although I'm a staunch ''don't buy the brand', buy quality'' guy, your pictures can't tell **** about both reels quality. We see just aesthetics, drag clicker and spool support. For your conclusions, you must had see main gear, pinion gear, oscilation system, drag washers, sealing.

 

If you are from Krypton, surely you saw all these with your x-ray vision. If not, you have a lot of conclusions without factual suppport.

 

Here is my wifes president which i tore down a couple months ago for a clean and relube. Do you have any pics of the daiwa you can post?

 

[Bird]

We as fisherman are going to form an opinion based on experience, at least that's the way I do it.

I've only owned 1 reel that failed miserably right out of the box and never considered that brand moving forward.......it starts with a Q ?.

 

My wife Crappie fishes with a President about twice a year, it's held up great. Lol

[FrnkNsteen]

I've still got a few of the older Presidents with the wooden handle knob and they are still pretty smooth. I won't trash the new ones as they are still a pretty nice reel for the price, but I'll admit I did return the last two I bought due to being rough out of the box.

 

Most of the Pflueger issues I have read about were regarding the President XT, Supreme, and Supreme XT. Read some reviews and see all the comments on broken bails and handles.

 

I've got 3 newer Fuego LT reels, plus some Regal and Revros models and they have held up well and fish smooth. One of the Fuegos had a little rubbing sound when new but smoothed out quickly. I think it was just a little flash on the inside of the rotor.

 

I have always liked Pflueger reels, but have to say from personal experience that they aren't what they were, but still better than most. I would buy the Fuego over the President right now though, and have with my last 3 purchases!

[MAN]

I'm not going to try to prove you right or wrong, but nothing in the pictures speak to the true components that make a good/better spinning reel. Thats where you really would need to do the comparison at.  It does however help to show that exterior cosmetics mean a lot to the consumer.