Gotcha. I could see real end-user value in the lease program if the people who were leasing had a pathway to expedited or on-site panel changes, or would basically have a new saddle made for them while they still had the old saddle (so they always had something to ride in.) If I were looking at this program because I had a young horse whom I expected to go through three saddles in three years, that would be a real advantage to me.
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That was my exact scenario, but only works if you have other saddles to tide you over while one is being modified, and in fact the rep steered me away from leasing totally.
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Wow. People fall for this?
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It’s like the poor tax.
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Kind of reminds me of the Peloton financing. Except that it’s a finance, not a rental.
However, plenty of people financed at 0% and then got only the year warranty… not the extended. Inevitably something broke after their first year, or they didn’t read the T&C and found out that they couldn’t move their bike to another house without voiding warranty. So there was a ton of outrage and people trying to cancel their contracts or return bikes that were partially paid for.
As for the “not holding up”, I’ve got a 2016 CWD that looks brand new. I’ve ridden in quite a few that are 5-7 years old that look fantastic. You can get those for less than $3000.
The upside to leasing/renting a custom saddle that needs shims and special padding is that it could be tough to sell once it’s customized, so you don’t have to worry about that headache.
Well a 2Gs has only one tree option and is now $8k+ so I could see how this could potentially work if you could get it repaneled more than once over the 3 year period and if the end buyout price was reasonable. They used to repanel once in the first year for free on a purchased saddle, but I’m not sure if that’s still the case. I had my 2Gs repaneled twice for my last horse. It was also only a $5k+ saddle new in 2015.
The rising star program where the rider can get an entirely new size saddle makes more sense from a value perspective for growing teens.
I have a feeling some of the saddles not purchased at the end of this lease period will wind up for sale on the website used for $6500-7k.
I’d love a backup from the 2015-2017 vintage (my saddle is 2015 and I’ve had it repaneled 3 times, twice for my previous young horse and once to fit current horse). The new prices are insane, especially for current quality and shape and material they use now in the panels. But it’s also kind of like those who get their phones on perpetual payment plans or lease cars. It can work for some people who need to trade up frequently.
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Meanwhile, even with multiple tries CWD often has trouble getting a saddle that fits the customer’s horse when you BUY a saddle from them. So the idea that there’s some added value to being able to trade in and get a new saddle from them is puzzling to me. They don’t seem to be able to get this right consistently when you do it once, you’re going to pay a premium hoping they can get it right multiple times… all the while you pay a monthly fee and have no saddle while they futz around and try to manage to make you what you order?
Their little video is nuts too. Absolutely NO information. Just videos of people happily flouncing about. You have to do some serious deep clicking to find any terms and conditions and even then it’s very limited.
All you need is love… and about $7000.
The website has almost no info. The video has almost no info. You end up paying more to borrow their product than to buy it if you do the upgraded package. All to get saddles refit by the people who can’t seem to fit them in the first place and leave. WHAT A DEAL /s
The basic package appears (from the website, which again has limited information and it’s buried)
Down payment of $545
Admin fee of $150
Security deposit (presumably you eventually get this back, though it doesn’t SAY so expressly) of $381.50
Required 36 month lease term at $106/month for their most basic model in a 17” (presumably the price goes up if you want fancier models or a size larger than a 17”)= $3816
You never get to trade it in for adjustments at all. You get one saddle they make for you (or that they claim they made for you) and you’d better like it because you’re paying for it for the next 3 years before returning it. You just get to use it for 3 years. And then you give it back. At the end of 3 years, they have your money. They have the saddle. You don’t even have a CWD baseball cap (gotta do the premium package for that!) They get everything. You get nothing.
So about $3810 to rent a saddle for 3 years (assuming you get your deposit back). That saddle retails for $5580 new right now, though I suspect few people pay sticker and/or that you can get a girth and other stuff thrown in if you negotiate. On CWD’s own site they have a used of that model for $3000. You can find them MUCH cheaper elsewhere, the market has plenty of used CWDs of every shape and description.
So your choices are, rent and 3 years from now CWD has your $3810 and an asset that by their own accounting is worth about $3000. You have nothing. They have charged you MORE than the depreciation over the time you had the saddle.
Buy the used CWD. Spent $810 LESS, give no deposit, and actually own an asset worth at least a couple thousand when you’re done. Yes you didn’t get a new CWD, but you actually BOUGHT something and you own it at the end. And it’s got some value.
Buy a new CWD, spend $5580 but in three years have an asset worth $3000.
Only one of these options results in you spending thousands and having nothing to show for it.
If you can’t see why option 1 is the worst deal for you, maybe that explains why you find yourself in a position without enough money to actually buy a saddle.
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I know CWD has to make money. And I don’t begrudge them that. But that’s a different question than whether this is a reasonable idea/a decent deal for the consumer.
And as for horses whose backs change and need some adjustment to the saddle as a result. Amazingly there is a solution for this… it’s called WOOL FLOCKING AND SHIM PADS. Now, wool flocking and shim pads doesn’t have a slick promo video where two attractive people jump into an infinity pool… but there are solutions to horses whose back change beyond letting yourself get taken to the cleaners by CWD 
It’s a false dichotomy to suggest the options are constantly buying and selling saddles or doing CWD’s leasing program. There are plenty of other things you can do.
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That’s why I thought there had to be some kind of advantage to the consumer somewhere in the terms of the program (which, like you, I couldn’t find in detail.) If you got to skip the line for adjustments, or if adjustments were provided on-site? That is a service level that they do not offer in their standard product, and could be a selling point for the leasing program for that particular use case. There has to be a reason that this is advantageous for the consumer for it to be a viable business model. The Rising Star program has, or at least it had, a shorter lease term, refitting, and an option to lease to buy at the end of the term- to me this makes it a more attractive option for the other common constant refitting use case, which is the pony kid in the middle of sprouting. If my mom could have leased me tall boots instead of having me grow out of them every 6 months I’m sure she would have done that…
I tried to apply some of the use cases for leasing a car- short-term residency in an area, want a late model vehicle, want it to be covered by warranty for the entire period of usage- and for this particular product, I just don’t see the math add up. I have had some real weird panel configurations, including the one I mentioned upthread where Devoucoux flew a saddler from France to my barn and had him reshape the panels on site. When that was no longer the right answer for the horse, I traded it in against the purchase price of a new one because they gave me the same value in trade-in that I thought I could get on the market; if not, I’d have had the panels replaced with a pro panel and still cleared about $2000 for it. Assuming I still planned to be in the same general area at the end of the lease term and I wasn’t trying to figure out how to stop a lease on a horse and sell a saddle the week before I took a plane out of the country with only a carry-on bag… I can’t find a scenario that makes the math work.
The OP seems pretty committed to this course of action, so it’s evident that she’s operating under circumstances that make it feel appropriate for her, but I’d be super curious how much interest the company gets in this product model over time.
After reading the breakdown above, I also looked at the terms available. The basic package does have all of these problems. The premium level has advantages including one free adjustment, discounted future adjustments, and a free loaner while your saddle is out. Years ago, you could get a repanel done for just a day or two in shop plus however long shipping would take for your location. So a couple weeks or so tops. And the reps would often give a customer a demo to use during that time. Now it can take months, with no loaner. So the program does provide a good benefit there.
However, if to keep this, you are leasing forever, then and at some point it would make more $ sense for you to buy a saddle + your own backup saddle.
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I’d really like to see the actual contract. There’s salient details missing from the description on the website. I know, I know, that’s an almost certain indication of less than favorable terms for the consumer. However, the key to personal finance being the personal part…it could make sense for some depending on APR & other factors such as buy out options, early payoff, early termination, etc.
I agree with the argument that the rental = possibly even less incentive to get it right for a company with a poor track record of delivering as promised on purchased saddles. However, I simply don’t feel it germane. This is CWD/Devoucoux. The odds are, what – 50/50 – that the saddle delivered won’t fit as promised. We know this. The real question is which option gives you, the consumer, better leverage? 1) I paid you $8k for this saddle & you need to make it right, or 2) I am not paying you another dime over my $1k deposit until you make this right?
how would one insure such a rented saddle? We have had saddles we owned get stolen which were covered under our policies which provided for replacements.
Then like an apartment there would be wear and tear that is acceptable and expected… what condition must this rented saddle be return in before one is hit with damages and who determines what is payable claim?
When renting a car you go over it to make notes of any damages that you can see, add those to the contract (then return the thing back at the busiest return lot the rental agency (airport) has as then it less likely if ever looked at for damages
It looks like there is one-time theft coverage with a deductible for the lease program. Sporting equipment is usually covered by renter’s/home owner’s policies also.
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Somewhat covered… depending on your coverage, you could be responsible for a pretty high deductible, which negates the cost if it’s a few years old. Also, you often need documented proof of value. It gets sticky… after living through Hurricane Sandy and having items stored in a storage unit that took on 3 feet of water, I can tell you that you’ll find yourself in some serious fights to get full value back unless all your paperwork is perfect.
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I had a racing bicycle totaled by someone hitting me with their car. Due to some less than amazing police work and the jurisdiction I was in being a contributory liability jurisdiction, if I was any % at fault, the driver’s insurance didn’t have to pay out. And the police report did not conclude that the driver was totally at fault (they were–but that’s beside the point here). My renter’s insurance paid the replacement value of the bike, which was significantly more than I had paid for it due to some special deals from a sponsor and putting things together in pieces. A bike shop had to basically inventory my bike and components for everything that wasn’t completely reusable (wasn’t much), and that was submitted to and accepted by my insurance.
It’s very easy to quantify what a replacement saddle would cost.
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Amen. I spent $6800 on a custom cwd 4 years ago & my horse is having back issues because it has been bridging & a independent saddle fitter told me it has never fit her. wrong shape for her back.
I admit that wool flocking won’t allow all the adjustments needed to keep fitting a young, maturing horse, but it helps, and the cost for adjustments is far less than getting your French saddle re-paneled. Personally, for a young horse I’ve always bought a decent used saddle that I knew I could resell when the horse outgrew it. My own preference is for wool flocked.
I’d rather own the asset than lease. I especially wouldn’t lease from CWD given all the nightmare stories my friends have have experienced with getting their CWD to actually fit their horses.
Right… An adult horse’s back does not change that much that a custom saddle that fit them when they were 8 would suddenly not fit them at 10… To me, that means the shape of the tree never genuinely fit them at all. I get having to go through different saddles at 3 and 4 and even 5, but at 5, that horse has taken the shape he will be his whole adult life and shoulders and barrels do not change that much after.
You can really tell a lot about who knows their stuff versus who doesn’t, when you ask them how long the saddle has fit that horse. A horse should not need a different saddle every two or three years… If you get to that point, that really means you were taken advantage of along the way.
P.S I made the mistake of participating in a FB discussion on a Stubben group and got roasted for that perspective… That group is FULL of people who shelled out $$ for a custom saddle and have to sell it a year or two down the road because it doesn’t fit their horse any longer.
Same, especially with the number of used CWDs on the market for very reasonable prices. I personally love my CWD but I didn’t buy new—I knew what configuration worked for me, roughly what panels would work for the majority of horses I ride, and sought that out. I ended up paying $2,400 for an almost new CWD, sold by a lady whose kid had quit riding. I’ve enjoyed the saddle very much, but I don’t think I’d go through a rep if were to buy another one.
