Warranty & Authenticity – JDM Parallel Imports

Warranty & authenticity

What you are buying

We sell genuine Japanese-domestic-market (JDM) fishing tackle, lawfully imported into Australia. We are an independent retailer. We are not an authorised dealer for, and are not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by, the manufacturers whose products we sell. Brand names are used only to identify genuine goods.

What that means in practice

Authentic products from the brands named, sourced through parallel import rather than the brand’s Australian distributor.
Packaging, labelling, warranty cards and instruction manuals are usually in Japanese.
These items are not covered by an Australian manufacturer’s warranty. The manufacturer’s Australian distributor is generally under no obligation to service, repair or honour a warranty on them.
Some models are Japan-only and may differ in specification, rating convention or fittings from the Australian version.
Model years, colour names and sizes follow Japanese naming (for example egi sizes in 号 / go, and line ratings in 号 or lb).

Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law

Our goods come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. You are entitled to a replacement or refund for a major failure and compensation for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. You are also entitled to have the goods repaired or replaced if the goods fail to be of acceptable quality and the failure does not amount to a major failure.

These rights apply to every item we sell, including sale and clearance items. They are not limited to twelve months and they are not limited by anything on this page. Nothing below — including the store warranty and its exclusions — reduces them. Where the two overlap, you are entitled to rely on whichever gives you the better outcome.

Our 12-month store warranty against manufacturing defects

Because these are parallel imports, the manufacturer’s Australian warranty generally does not apply. In its place, LURE X FISHING warrants the goods we sell against manufacturing and material defects for 12 months from the date of purchase.

Who gives this warranty: Lurexfishing Pty Ltd (ABN 66 682 135 093), trading as LURE X FISHING, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Email info@lurexfishing.com.au.
What we will do: where we accept that an item has failed because of a manufacturing or material defect, we will repair it, replace it, supply the affected component, or refund it. We choose the remedy in good faith and in consultation with you.
What you must do to claim: email us within the 12 months with your order number, a description of what happened, and clear photographs of the whole item and of the failure. Please do not send anything back before you hear from us. We reply within 2 business days.
Who bears the expense: the cost of making the claim — contacting us and supplying photographs or information — is yours. If we accept the claim as a defect, we pay return freight and the remedy. If we assess the failure as damage rather than a defect, return freight and any repair or replacement part are yours to cover, and we will quote you before anything is charged.

What the store warranty does not cover

This is a defect warranty. It is not a breakage or accident warranty, and it is not insurance. It does not cover:

Impact of any kind — knocks, drops, car doors, boat hatches, roof racks, being trodden on, or transport outside a rod tube or hard case.
High-sticking — lifting a fish, a snagged lure or any weight with the rod raised past roughly horizontal. This is the most common cause of rod breakage by a wide margin, and it is a use fault, not a defect.
Loading beyond the printed ratings — line class, PE rating, lure or jig weight, or drag set heavier than the blank is rated for.
Hook, jig, sinker or egi contact with the blank, including contact you did not notice at the time.
Delayed failure following earlier damage. A blank that has been knocked will very often break later, under an ordinary load, at the damaged point. That remains impact damage.
Normal wear and consumables — guide inserts, cork and EVA grips, reel seat threads, ferrule wear, paint and decals, hooks, split rings, egi cloth and sinkers, line, drag washers and bearings.
Corrosion or salt damage where the item was not rinsed in fresh water and dried after use.
Reel wear traceable to servicing — sand or salt ingress and gear wear on a reel that has not been serviced at reasonable intervals.
Modification or third-party repair — refinishing, re-wrapping, cut or shortened blanks, non-standard components, or repair attempted by anyone other than us.
Loss, theft, or damage in transport you arranged yourself.

These exclusions apply to our voluntary store warranty only. They do not apply to, and cannot limit, your Australian Consumer Law rights set out above.

Rods: please read this before you buy

Modern high-modulus Japanese blanks are built light on purpose. They are extraordinarily strong in the direction they are designed to bend, and fragile in every other direction. In practice, almost every broken rod we see — ours and everyone else’s — is impact or high-sticking rather than a fault in the blank. A genuine blank defect usually appears within the first few sessions and looks distinct: delamination, a resin void, or a guide frame or reel seat failing under an ordinary load.

We would rather say that plainly than sell you a “12-month rod warranty” that quietly excludes the only thing that actually happens to rods. If your rod breaks, our first job is to tell you honestly which of the two it was. If it is a defect, it is covered. If it is damage — which it usually is — here is what we can do instead.

Spare section and parts service (paid)

This is the real answer to a broken rod, and it is a reason to buy a Japanese rod from someone who imports from Japan.

Japanese manufacturers sell individual blank sections and reel components through their domestic parts service. We can order them on your behalf:

Rods — tip, mid or butt sections ordered individually against the Japanese model code, so you receive the correct section for your exact model and model year rather than a generic replacement.
Reels — spare spools, handles, drag washers, bearings and body components.

How it works. Email us the model, the model year and photographs of the break with the sections laid out. We identify the section, confirm whether it is still available, and quote you the part cost plus freight from Japan. We order nothing until you say yes, and nothing is charged before you approve the quote.

What to expect. As a guide, a replacement section typically runs around 30% of the rod’s original price, varying with which section it is and with the model — you are replacing one section, not the rod. Freight from Japan is additional and is included in the quote. Sections are drawn from factory stock or made to order in Japan, so this is not a next-day service; we confirm the expected lead time when we quote. Sections for current models are generally obtainable, while sections for models several years out of production are often discontinued, and we cannot supply what the factory no longer makes. We confirm both price and availability before you commit to anything.

How we assess a claim

Photographs first, always — the break face on a carbon blank tells us a great deal. We will ask what you were doing at the time and we will take your account at face value. We are not looking for a reason to say no; we are looking for the correct answer. If, after honest assessment, we genuinely cannot tell whether a failure was a defect or damage, we will resolve it in your favour.

If something is faulty

Email info@lurexfishing.com.au with your order number, a description of the issue, and clear photographs. We cover the cost of returning a faulty item. Change-of-mind and returns process: Refund Policy.