Do you hate ARES?

[Grimreaper 295]

Originally Posted by Swattiger

I wrote to their head office to request a replacement and will pay the cost + postage. Works well for me, even for a TM Thompson whole hop-up set.

Yeah but that's TM...I did the same and cost is not an issue. No response. I presently have two guns down with proprietary parts from Ares and although ZShot is VERY communicative, they cannot get parts or any kind of reasonable response from Ares over seas, or so I am lead to believe. Their (Ares that is) shite customer service will prevent me and anyone who asks my opinion from ever...and I mean EVER, buying Ares again. Unfortunately ZShot has chosen to represent Ares in North America and even with good comms. from ZShot they get painted with the same brush as Ares HK; sad to say but true. Guilty by association.

Sad!

[THe_Silencer]

I honestly don’t see problem with having proprietary parts. Each factory creates their own parts for their own products.

True but you fail to mention that 90% of the other brand's parts can be interchanged with one another, not so with ARES

Its really funny to see this kind of complain only appear in the airsoft industry! So in other words, you guys would expect a H&K part to fit into a COLT, or you expect to find BMW parts in a Honda dealer?

This complaint happens in many industries, ESPECIALLY the auto industry. I don't expect HK parts to fit in a Colt but I do expect the parts in a Colt to not be being out of shit materials that break down very easily and can't be easily replaced.

Come on man, standard parts don’t even make sense. If you guys are wining about standard parts, who should be the Standard then? Marui? Because that’s the only brand that famous and most people would at least have one in the past? And exist longer than other?

Standard parts do make sense. When my gun's parts need replacing, I'd rather be able to easily find replacement parts from the airsoft store of my choice. I don't want to contact some American company and hope that they'll be able to get the parts overseas in for me.

So in that case, why don’t everyone start buying ARES, and eventually ARES will become the STANDARD parts then!

That's a retarded argument. It's like saying that if everyone switched to anal sex then it'll become the new standard. Smart people will continue to not buy ARES so long as the quality of their internals continues to be crap.

Further more, ARES stay true to a lot of the detail compare to the real steel, like the clockwise threat is probably one, and they have stock tube that can be dissemble from the body, unlike those marui crap that attached!

Most other AR15 style stock tube can be disassembled from the receiver

As for reliability issue, I see ARES as Hyundai, they are getting better and better for both internal and external.

As an auto enthusiast, I personally think Hyundais are still shit,despite their improvement over the years. No point in buying a car rband that's "getting better" when you can just get a car that's already GOOD (Toyota, Honda just to name two).

Give them some times and I’m sure their proprietary parts will be easily assessable in the future.

I hope you're right.

Lastly, as we all know, airsoft is an expensive sport in Canada when compare to other countries, if you guys don’t like the special parts, don’t even touch airsoft from any manufacture then, build your own…lol !

You're correct, many people who are dissatisfied with prebuilt airsoft guns already do this. Nothing new here. I myself am building an AEG to my exact specifications. As a hardcore tinkerer, this is the only way I can be fully satisfied with an AEG.

*P.S. Its really funny that you guys purchased an item that wasn’t suppose to be sold in here and then complaining you can’t find parts or get the warranty for it. Like the Mk.43 that mentioned above is not officially in CANADA yet, because I’m waiting for one as well!

A lot of Ares items are in Canada yet it's still hard to get parts for them. That seems like the main issue that most ppl are having with ARES. There's nothing funny about a company that doesn't make their parts more widely available.

[wildcard]

Originally Posted by bujitjit

*P.S. Its really funny that you guys purchased an item that wasn’t suppose to be sold in here and then complaining you can’t find parts or get the warranty for it. Like the Mk.43 that mentioned above is not officially in CANADA yet, because I’m waiting for one as well!

Hey Bub,
Just an FYI The M60 MK43/E3/E4 been out for a while while the Stoner MK63 is enroute and if you can call a product that function for 15 minutes out of the box and then suffered a catastrophic failure to the internals and outer body.....great?? well i got news for ya... I want to be on the record here Zshot as a distributor are great in helping me with dealing with ARES in regards to getting spare parts and warranty issue on the body but as for recommending ot liking ARES products to newbies I'll reserve that till I see a better product in terms of TOTAL reliability similar to King Arms or G&P

I've been around the block for a while I'm part of the group of players that see the evolution from JAC to Marui to the current plethora of manufacturer that is available to us now, each and every manufacturer that i have dealt with always put a steady supply of OEM parts when launching a product ie. G&P Stoner, I purchased a spare mag box and it arrived three days before my Stoner is at my door. while ARES made some interesting stuff the lack of propriety spare parts and quality of internals are just mind boggling, especially if you have internals that is not using a standard parts. Like I said in my previous post nothing piss off a player/collector more than having to spend a butt load of money fixing the AEG after spending another buttload of money getting the stuff here, so it will work as it should out of the box.

I hope this is part of ARES's growing pain, as every manufacturer had their bad growing pain experience and I hope they will take the suggestions here and improve on them they are a good company, they make some interesting stuff but if their bread and butter items are inferior to the competiton then they will not last long in this business

[ehobbyasia]

Sorry, I can't hate any airsoft manufacturer.

not to say they aren't without problems.
I don't currently own any ares models.
but for example I'll to try to simplify there compatibility problem from a CS point of view.

first there was AEG, with AEG metal bodies.
then there was GBBR's with different metal bodies.
which wasn't a problem as its one or the other and many compatible brands available for both AEG or GBBR.
then the Ares and Star M4 AEG's appeared... with this new metal body.
Kinda half AEG and half GBBR metal body and 100% WTF.
and is not comparable with any other make and model.
now even there parts brand Super Shooter has release a new metal body specifically for AEG's compatible with TM.
But surprise surprise.. it wont fit TM, King arms, Dboys etc etc, without some skilled and heavy modification.

so now they are making parts... that don't fit any gun.
one has to ask... WTF is wrong with there designer and or QC.

I'm sure it must have seemed like someones good idea to go proprietary.
but sad they couldn't see that compatibility is a major pull in this industry.


edit, ok the same can be said about GBBR WE metal bodies.
WE GBBR is proprietary but is a whole other system and seems more assessable with replacement parts.
compared to taking a AEG and changing the body so only they can make them, seems a little narrow minded.

[HKGhost]

I personally don't hate Ares and I'm not too concern about their proprietary parts. What I do hate is the quality of their parts and how scarce parts are. Ares has some really nice innovations that I really like and wished others would have it, but due to lack of parts available and quality is no better than a cheap clone, I would never consider buying any of their guns. I been offered a really great deal on their guns but it's just not worth it. I have a customer that has a $900 paper weight because Ares doesn't have spare parts for his hop up to work. And there is no way to mod it to accept common parts. It sucks when you have a great innovation but can't fix it when it breaks. I hope you read this thread Ares, as you're just making your customers turn away when they hear your name.

[Crunchmeister]

I've not owned any ARES guns myself, but based on reviews and general reports from owners, the story is pretty consistent. They have incredible externals (which are a big selling point), but their internals are sub-par. The biggest issues really are the lack of replacement parts for those proprietary parts.

I have no issues with any company being innovative and producing proprietary parts. The issue I have is companies making proprietary parts and not making replacements available on the market afterwards. It's poor planning on the part of the manufacturer, and shows a lack of respect for customers who will often be stuck with brand new, broken products that they have no recourse for in terms of repair.

While I agree a lot of the bitching and hating you see on the Internet is pointless and retarded at best, one must remember that where there's smoke, there's usually fire, or a fire about to ignite. You can ignore most internet troll posts. In this case, there's a real issue with ARES on 2 fronts. The problem has been clearly identified by many users in a coherent fashion.

The first is their sub-par quality of internal parts. This is no secret or mystery. Their internals break easily compared to most other brands. Usually, this isn't much of an issue for other industry-standard brands. It requires a small investment in good after-market parts and the gun is back up and running better than ever. That's not a possibility with the problem parts with ARES, that are all proprietary. And the fact that ARES don't make those parts available on the market and are unresponsive to both their end users and their distributors about the availability of replacement parts compounds the problem.

If I were in the shoes of a national-level supplier / distributor like ZShot and was dealing with such an unresponsive company, I'd be dropping their product line completely for self-preservation. I don't care how innovative a product is. If support form the manufacturer is non-existent and the product line is known to have shoddy parts, that leaves the distributor / retailer in a hard spot taking the flak and losing business as a result. It's not a good situation to be in, and I wouldn't do that to my own business.

So in the end, speak with your wallet. Stop buying / selling ARES until they address their issue of shoddy parts and availability of replacements. It's really that simple. When they see sales taking a nose-dive, perhaps they'll revisit their practices and policies and perhaps improve their parts and make replacements available.

[Wrath144]

I owned an ARES M60E4. As far as I know, its never been healthy long enough to see a single game. The #1 WTF problem I had was the fact that the gun comes with shitty plastic parts installed (cylinder head particularly), but then ARES offers a solid aluminum double o-ring upgrade cylinder head. If you make the upgrade, WHY even bother with the shitty one in the first place? Oh, and the part is proprietary of course. ARES guns look great, some are even well built such as the G36, but unless some major changes come about I will never consider buying ARES again.

[ZShot]

Okay Guys,

Thanks again one last time for all your awesome feedback. We're taking it all to heart and taking it all to Hong Kong. Our goal was to try to get some thoughts from the public both for our own sake and for ARES themselves, and you all certainly pulled through for us. We've gotten tons of awesome feedback from this board and others, a lot which confirmed some of our existing suspicions, and a become aware of a few issues we were never aware of.

Most importantly, We've learned a few things that you've all addressed that need to be done by us and a few things that need to be done at the factory to make a more satisfied customer.

We're exploring the possibilities of an online web-store where you can purchase all the individual proprietary parts for the ARES guns that you can't get in normal stores, helping to try to eliminate the fear of non-existent parts support, and we're going to encourage ARES to hire a few more individuals on their support staff to help cover those of you who never receieved a response email from them just to name a few.

If at any time, you guys have any questions for us, or any comments concerns etc. Don't be afraid to drop us a line via Email, or to get in touch with us Via Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/zshot.inc)

Thanks again everyone!

Cheers,
Phil

[Strelok]

This is actually quite exciting.

I'm hoping to get an ARES PPSH41 at some point, and after the stories of ripped hopup rubbers and such... It wasn't originally all that appealing.

Now, I'm curious. Its not exactly an issue but if you could nod a suggestion their way for midcap PPSH stick mags, that would be amazing~

[Grimreaper 295]

YUP. I DO!! Hate them that is.

No parts available, no response from Ares directly Z-Shot not able to get a response either. What's not to hate in that? One of the world's most expensive paper weights if you can't fix it no? Someone tell me I'm wrong here, as I'm not one prone to bash unnecessarily, but this has been the source of considerable airsoft grief for me!

I'd further add that unless there is a significant change in the mentality and product availability at Ares HK, then no change down the line will amount to anything other than wasted energy and to further exemplify the lack of understanding, at ANY level, of customer service from Ares themselves. You may just have aligned yourselves with THE worst example of customer service I have seen in years. I'm not even sure how you begin to fix that as they appear to be completely and utterly non-responsive! For our sakes, and yours, I hope I am incorrect and wish you luck.

[Scouser]

Originally Posted by ZShot

We're exploring the possibilities of an online web-store where you can purchase all the individual proprietary parts for the ARES guns that you can't get in normal stores, helping to try to eliminate the fear of non-existent parts support, and we're going to encourage ARES to hire a few more individuals on their support staff to help cover those of you who never receieved a response email from them just to name a few.

brilliant, that in and of itself is a huge start if you guys get that running, maybe have a different website for each country that has finicky import laws so nothing gets stopped?

[slink182]

Originally Posted by ZShot

We're exploring the possibilities of an online web-store where you can purchase all the individual proprietary parts for the ARES guns that you can't get in normal stores, helping to try to eliminate the fear of non-existent parts support, and we're going to encourage ARES to hire a few more individuals on their support staff to help cover those of you who never receieved a response email from them just to name a few.

I know I've been turned off on the idea of purchasing an Ares a few times, simply because of the lack of aftermarket or factory parts. An online store is a good first (baby) step.

However, the online store obviously needs to be stocked - having a store that constantly shows parts not being in stock or backordered is no better than a physical store without the same parts. It is obvious that it's the back-end supply issue that is the problem and needs addressing, not the front-end sales/service side. Fix the former, and the latter will fall into place (hopefully, a happy place). While you're at it, also consider providing TUKs and/or higher quality replacement parts for priority parts (e.g., machined steel aftermarket vs cast pot metal stock parts).

Good luck.

[Danke]

Originally Posted by Scouser

brilliant, that in and of itself is a huge start if you guys get that running, maybe have a different website for each country that has finicky import laws so nothing gets stopped?

Something like that would up to the national source.

In Canada that's the folks at Continental Ultimate Inc. (whoever they are).

[ThunderCactus]

G&G and KJW made production airsoft guns with clear receivers JUST for Canada. G&G also make their internals TM spec so you can fix them and upgrade them with anything.
It's legal, it's versatile, it can be customized, and in the last 2 years they've started been very reliable out of the box.
One extremely crucial fact is that no manufacturer makes perfect internals. Even the systema PTW has aftermarket upgrade parts. If you can't put performance parts in your AEG, and you're limited to only average quality manufacturer parts, then you are always going to have an average gun. But you can take a G&G, upgrade it with prometheus and ARS parts, now you have a legendary killing machine.
So here G&G has a product that's easily available, affordable, and attractive to both veteran and new players.

More airsoft companies need to be as versatile to the market as KJW and G&G.
I'd say the first thing you have to do back at ARES HQ is conform to tokyo marui standards.

[ZShot]

Originally Posted by Grimreaper 295

YUP. I DO!! Hate them that is.

No parts available, no response from Ares directly Z-Shot not able to get a response either. What's not to hate in that? One of the world's most expensive paper weights if you can't fix it no? Someone tell me I'm wrong here, as I'm not one prone to bash unnecessarily, but this has been the source of considerable airsoft grief for me!

I'd further add that unless there is a significant change in the mentality and product availability at Ares HK, then no change down the line will amount to anything other than wasted energy and to further exemplify the lack of understanding, at ANY level, of customer service from Ares themselves. You may just have aligned yourselves with THE worst example of customer service I have seen in years. I'm not even sure how you begin to fix that as they appear to be completely and utterly non-responsive! For our sakes, and yours, I hope I am incorrect and wish you luck.

Grimreaper,

Can you please give me the date and email address you sent in from?

We had to remove a few people who were non-responsive in the last year, so hopefully this won't be a problem henceforth. But i'll look to see who your email was routed to, and see if I can't do something to help you out.

Cheers,
Phil