I have always had good luck with buying used harnesses, but have really made a mistake in a pair harness I bought recently off the CD-L. The seller sees nothing wrong and refuses to take it back so I am stuck. One of the repairs I will have to make is to stiffen the blinker stays. There is no wiring and the the blinkers flop over the ponies eyes. Does anyone have a solution beside just buying a whole new assembly. It is a flat piece of Biothane so you can’t thread wire through the strap. Thanks.
I can’t think of any way to stiffen a flat piece for your blinkers that would look nice. Is there a harness maker nearby? They might be able to just change the stays for you, using new wired ones. We stiffened up the stays on our bridles, but the stays were round already.
Guess buying is always a case of “buyer beware”. I always do plenty of photos, various angles, in selling things. When buying, I have a LOT of detailed questions we ask, measurements needed, before getting to the purchase part. I don’t think the buyer is “bad” for not taking it back, if you never asked a question about the winker stays being stiff. We have gotten some REALLY NICE buys from the CD-L, including two sets of Pair harnesses, reins, various other items. Sellers were very specific about faults or worn things, missing parts, things NOT included in a package, getting measurements we needed to see if the items would fit our horses. I learned to ask these MANY questions, because I also made poor buys by NOT asking for details when shopping! I blame me, not the seller’s job to tell me if I don’t ask the right questions.
I wouldn’t think to ask about stiffness of winker stays! Many of the better harness products do not have stiff winker stays, like older, Moses Smucker’s carriage harness. We have owned and sold a dozen sets we got new from him, stays were all soft. We had some older, used Freedman carriage harnesses, very fancy stuff, with soft stays on the bridles, never had been wired. Buyer didn’t care about the soft stays when we sold it to them.
So maybe finding other bridles, or getting these ones modified, will be the best way to deal with the problem. Is this a daily work harness or going to be used showing too? You can often get just bridles to mix and match with your harness, if the bridles that came included don’t suit you. I have spare bridles we picked up that we use and like better on our horses, instead of what came included. One kind I am not enthused about were the Zilco pair bridles, never used, that came with one set of pair harness. Yet Zilco had another style bridle with molded plastic blinkers, came with a single harness we got, that I love on the young mare! A maker can’t make everyone happy!!
I asked plenty of questions, but the harness was misrepresented. It does have the correct measurements because that is something that I didn’t have to rely on the seller’s subjective opinion. If I buy new bridles, then I am almost to the price of something much nicer or almost new. We have no one that can work on harness in our area and that makes repair next to impossible.
can you ship them to lancaster pa to see if someone there can fix them?
sorry, thats all I got.
Did you pay via paypal or with a credit card? If the harness was misrepresented, paypal or your credit card company might be able to help. It would be worth asking if you did.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this, really stinks to purchase something that was misrepresented and sad the seller isn’t offering any recourse.
If everything else is liveable except the winker stays, I might see if it were possible to line the stays and sandwich a piece of wire inside.
[QUOTE=JustFive;6654106]
I asked plenty of questions, but the harness was misrepresented. It does have the correct measurements because that is something that I didn’t have to rely on the seller’s subjective opinion. If I buy new bridles, then I am almost to the price of something much nicer or almost new. We have no one that can work on harness in our area and that makes repair next to impossible.[/QUOTE]Not impossible at all and actually very easy. Many of us do not have a local harness maker and we tend to do fine with shipping things off to get repaired or modified. I am wondering if you say it was misrepresented if you recieved detailed photo’s which I would request in buying something used over the internet.
[QUOTE=JustFive;6654106]
I asked plenty of questions, but the harness was misrepresented. It does have the correct measurements because that is something that I didn’t have to rely on the seller’s subjective opinion. If I buy new bridles, then I am almost to the price of something much nicer or almost new. We have no one that can work on harness in our area and that makes repair next to impossible.[/QUOTE] Sounds like you know the maker why not contact them for a solution?
I don’t the know the actual maker and I bought it from someone who is a dealer and known driver so I put some trust in the transacton I should not have. The sadder, but wiser girl am I. I should have ponied up (pun intended) more money and bought new or from someone with lightly used harness. I am going to have too much money sunk in this to turn around and get something I like better. I’m just bellyachin’ now.
