Ranting Part Deux

I'll let my email to the company speak for itself:

Dear Sirs,
On July 7th, I purchased a pair of Chaco sandals at in , MI. Since then, I have worn them maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Today, as I left a meeting and got ready to walk the 15 minutes back to my office, I notice that my right sandal was fitting odd. I looked down and discovered that the plastic buckle on that sandal had broken. So, I walked back to my office and am now emailing you to find out what you can do for me and my barely two month old sandals. I've attached photos that I took with my picture phone. If you need better pictures, I'll be more than happy to take some with my digital camera and send them to you, along with proof of purchase.

As a side note, up until this point, I have always purchased Nike sandals and they have lasted my a good 3 or 4 years before I had to replace them because I wore them out. On the recommendation of several friends, I decided to give Chaco sandals a try. I hope I don't have to go back to Nike, because I've been very happy with my Chaco product up until now.

Thank you,

Edit: The response from the fine Chaco folks (note sarcasm)

We warranty all manufacturing defects. We warranty any component that has worn out more quickly than the rest of the sandals due to a flaw in the material. We would be more then happy to warranty evaluate the buckles. Your photo's show the broken buckle, but we do need to physically see them, since we haven't had a problem with defective buckles lately.

Please use our web site at www.chacousa.com <> and fill out the repair form, which has all the information you need. This entitles you to a $5.00 discount for using our web site, if there is a cost to you.

In any case, we will contact you with your options.

Ok, so basically they have a warranty, but I have to ship my sandal to them to prove that it is broken and if they deem that it is some freakish busted buckle episode, they'll fix it for free. Otherwise, I'll get to pony-up for shipping and a repair. (minus the $5 discount) Oh and I'm supposed to clean them in the wash machine before I ship them, because if they end up in Colorado dirty, they aren't touching them. But what if they break in the wash machine?? Hmmm???

Excuse me for expecting more from my 2 month old $75 sandals.