Most companies don’t even seem to care about you 8 weeks after you buy something from them, so Gabe and his mom were pleasantly surprised when Columbia agreed to replace a pair of cracked snow boots that were 8 years old.

“My girlfriend moved up to Massachusetts to live with me last year so her mother gave her some Columbia snow boots that the mom received as part of working the Salt Lake City Olympics back in 2002,” writes Gabe. “Well two weeks ago they cracked and I told her that I thought Columbia had some type of life time warranty or something.”

He followed the instructions in their FAQ, sent in the required pictures, and got back an email saying the warranty team had approved the replacement.

Success! That’s a nice warranty from Columbia. It also goes to show that you shouldn’t always just immediately toss out things that are broken, some times there is a better option for getting them repaired or replaced if you just take a little time to think about it and do some research.

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