Club Obi Wan

Hey all,

Just wanted to chime in with some information. First off, I'd like to begin by saying that I never thought I would be writing this posting. Never in my dreams did I think the Aldens would be a problem as I continue to have such a good experience with my 2001 pair. However, this 2008 pair is pure garbage.

I have only owned them for a few months (since just before the release of Indy IV) and I only wear them on Fridays to the office. They have never seen a beating of any kind. Now, I find that the leather all over these boots are horrendously inferior to my previous pair. Despite applications of Pecards to assist, the leather on these boots continues to fall apart before my eyes. For example, I tie these the same way as my 2001 Aldens, but...well, just see for yourself!



Note the fact that the leather is rubbed all the way down to the "bone." Also look at the tongue in the picture!

This is not just limited to the areas with the laces. I submit this photo of the outside panel of the boot (which is most often covered and protected by my pants cuff) -



Look in the center and you can see the whole surface is flaking away...

Now, for kicks let me show you a pic from my old Aldens the same day I received my new ones. What's amazing here is that these older shoes still look this good with no horrible rub marks or laces rubbing.



Sure, there's some wear around the speed laces, but these are 8 year old shoes and the wear is nothing compared to the rapid deterioration of the new ones, which is beyond unsettling.

Aldens has really let me down...

Man, that really bites. I have a pair of Aldens on the way, and I hope I don't encounter this. Did you try and contact Alden about this?
I would, and show them the pictures you showed us. They may take care of you. However, you basically blasted them out of the water here, so who knows.
Good luck.
Mike

I didn't buy these directly from Aldens, so I doubt they will help me. I say this only to clarify, and in no way intend to point fingers at the dealer, that these were bought through Schmidty.

Let me say again, this is only mentioned to clarify who I purchased them from. I do not blame Schmidty for Aldens' quality control mistakes.

I just bought a pair from Schmidty and will be paranoid about the wear. These are a bit steep in price to have wear that fast.

Sorry that's happened to your pair but thanks for warning the rest of us.

Peace.

Whoa.
this from the 2008 run I assume?
That really stinks. I'm glad I diden't get rid of my 3 year old pair. I've beat them up quite a bit, but they look nothing like that in the lace area.

Not one other pair of shoes in my....(crazy obsessive...i know...) alden shoe gallery has this issue. Just take a look.
http://s32.photobucket.com/albums/d7/AldenShoes/
At first I was thinking...nah french that can't be right.....then I looked at mine which are 3-4 years old....and were treated poorly for the first year of their lives...and they look nothing like that. Though anyone who wears them with any frequency will have a problem with the ankle rub....just happens....but it shouldn't be flaking...that's the mark of bad leather. You'd expect it to go to the light brown, but the white core...no way!

IndyFrench wrote:I didn't buy these directly from Aldens, so I doubt they will help me.

I diden't get mine from the factory either, and I've always gotten outstanding customer service. Give them a call, hopefully they can sort it out. Worst case scenario its another bad sourcing of leather :evil:

Is anyone else having this problem?

Wow.. hmm

You haven't been posting much lately have you French?

I've been buried in a big marketing plan project at work throughout late-July/August - so, no, I haven't been posting much lately, much to my dismay, but this warranted a quick mention.

Thanks for the post, I'll be buying Alden's in the near future so this does and doesn't help.

Randy

Hopefully, this is a temporary oversight by Alden, and not a long-term problem. I was
going to pick up a pair sometime next year, but now.....? Sorry to see that your new
boots were made with sub-par leather, IndyFrench :evil: - hope you're able to resolve
this situation soon. Let us know how it turns out? :junior:

My pair from last year looks as good as my 2002 pair so I think this may have just been a bad batch of hides....hopefully that is.

I live a few towns away from the Alden offices, want me to go over with a baseball bat for you?

Those pics are a cause for concern, IndyFrench. Looking at how the leather has deteriorated, I'd hope that Alden would produce a replacement pair post-haste. As I'm considering pulling the trigger on a pair in the near future, I'd be very interested to see how things turn out.

"Built like a tank" uh? I think a lot of people need to wake up here!

IndyFrench wrote:I didn't buy these directly from Aldens, so I doubt they will help me. I say this only to clarify, and in no way intend to point fingers at the dealer, that these were bought through Schmidty.

Let me say again, this is only mentioned to clarify who I purchased them from. I do not blame Schmidty for Aldens' quality control mistakes.

Did you mention it to Schmidty? I wouldn't think you would have only have to buy from Alden to have any recourse. If Schmidty is an authorized Alden dealer, perhaps he can arrange something on your behalf.

IndyFrench, that is definately how the leather is, I see in your picture some marks as well on the tongue of the shoe and I have one of those marks on my shoe as well. I don't have the lacing problem though, I applied Pecards after deciding that they fit and they have done well. I bought mine directly from the Alden shop in San Fran last Nov/Dec. Sorry to hear your new Aldens are not turning out as good as you hoped for.

IndianaChris

Unreal!

The pair I've been wearing since last October look as good as the day I got them.
I haven't put the new ones I just received from schmidty to the test yet, but they appear to be the same manufacture and leather type, so that just blows me away!

Regard! Michaelson

I'm wearing mine right now and had a quickm look at them...

I see a few marks that I would consider "normal wear" but nothing horrible... I have not had them that long- a few weeks now- maybe a month?

I will keep an eye on them, as they are just getting broken in!

For general information I applied two 'coats' of Pitch Blend once I decided they fit. Nothing else (yet).

my aldens i bought in febuary have had various stitching coming undone, both tongues have fallen out within a month of having them, & unnatural wear like yours, french.

on a side note, the tongues havent fallen out since i sewed them back in...

WOW bruce!

That sounds extreme...

No joy with Alden regarding the failures?

Quite new to have such big problems... If that happened to mine, I'd be sending them back to Schmidty to send into Alden for repair/replacement for sure!

bruce wayne wrote:my aldens i bought in febuary have had various stitching coming undone, both tongues have fallen out within a month of having them, & unnatural wear like yours, french.

on a side note, the tongues havent fallen out since i sewed them back in...

whoa?!
what are you doing to them?

French,

Per my PM to you this morning, I'm looking into it. Check your box...

Schmidty

Maybe the leather is from China. Yeah, that's it, they had a batch made in China.

Hey All!!

I've spoken to Alden and am trying to work this out with them. If anyone else has this issue, the laces eating into the leather in a VERY short amount of time, let me know. I want to get this resolved!!

Thanks,

Schmidty

Good looking out Schmidty!

Do keep us posted on progress... I suspect the Indy community is their big market for this boot, and they should fix it, or stop making them.

Hmm... I bought a pair of 405s from the Alden shop here in DC about the same time (KOTCS release) and I've pretty much worn them daily with intent to weather them naturally and aside from being well broken in, they show very little damage. Your shoes may have come from a bad batch of leather.

Mola Ram wrote:

bruce wayne wrote:my aldens i bought in febuary have had various stitching coming undone, both tongues have fallen out within a month of having them, & unnatural wear like yours, french.

on a side note, the tongues havent fallen out since i sewed them back in...

whoa?!
what are you doing to them?

wearing them five days a week.
something i forgot to add to the above list is that the eyelets are pulling away from the leather, exposing undyed leather underneath. i was thinking of ordering a pair of magnoli boots, but then i found out that they are made by motor cowboy, and i have had some very bad luck with a pair of batman begins boots they made for me to the point that they could not be saved & i threw them away. part of the problem was that they used pvc on the bb boots, as well as sub par leather...

bigrex wrote:Maybe the leather is from China. Yeah, that's it, they had a batch made in China.

then that defeats the purpose of buying american made boots, as far as i am concerned...

I've had that to a lesser degree on my boots as well, including the eyelets pulling away, but the part that bothers me is that the toes have worn through and no ammount of pecards seems to help. I have taken them off the pavement, and that's when the problem first emerged, but they're pretty much out of the realm of dress shoes now. Anyhow, its not a huge deal and I didn't even know it was a problem until French pointed out that the older ones hold up better, but I figured I'd mention it as long as you asked.

bruce wayne wrote: i was thinking of ordering a pair of magnoli boots, but then i found out that they are made by motor cowboy...

Not sure where you heard this, but this isn't true at all...

Kind regards,
Magnoli

Just for another perspective, I have been wearing a pair of Aldens that I purchased from Schmidty a few weeks ago for 5 days a week, 12-15 hours a day, and have been on nightly walks off road, as well as a 10 mile hike in the Florida woods, partly breaking new trail. My boots show zero wear. They are quite thoroughly broken in and really look wonderful, but aside from some understandable scuff marks there is no wear to the uppers. And I could probably tell you exactly how each of those scuff marks was caused.

Something that surprises me about the OP's boots is where he says that there are several applications of Pecards dressing on those? They look very dry to me in the pics. My boots are very supple and well broken in looking. I have treated them 3-4 times with Pecards and they have darkened up and shed water very well, nearly waterproof in fact.

Also I should say that these boots are the MOST comfortable boots that I have ever worn. I have no regrets about this purchase whatsoever. I'm a major Aldens fan now.

Wow that really *****! The only problem I have had with my Aldens are that the tongue on the right boot always goes sideways...

Nibs

I had the tongue problem too, but I took them to a shoe repair shop and they stiched one side of the tongue to the boot and that cured it in a heartbeat! W>

I got a pair this summer that look much worse than that. I did wear them to help roof a friends house soon after I got them though.

Other than they're very scuffed appearance they're holding up well. The shoe laces broke after a week or two so I replaced them with some thick yellow kevlar laces that are holding up nicely. Come on, they're work boots.

[quote="knibs7"]Wow that really *****! The only problem I have had with my Aldens are that the tongue on the right boot always goes sideways...

It's been a while since I checked in with this forum, and I was going to pose the question, but I see that I am not the only one with the dreaded "right tongue goes sideways" condition. It drives me nuts! Anyone know why this happens? Schmidty? The left one is just fine, and I love these boots otherwise.

Flighter

I would try tacking the tongue to the inside shaft with an inconspicuous stitch on the opposite side of where it likes to travel.

IndyFrench,

I see your problem, but must say that others pray and wish to have this effect on their leathers.
Especially the WWII jackets enthusiasts.

If I am right this effect shows the leather is veg tanned semi aniline.

I see that I am not the only one with the dreaded "right tongue goes sideways" condition.

I think a good majority of Aldens do this. Mine do. I had one pair that had the tongue stitched up as mentioned above and it worked rather well.

99% of all shoes do that. Try NIKE.

It's interesting to learn that this problem is quite widespread. From my perspective I don't see this as acceptable; after all, the left boot is just fine, which suggests to me that there is a manufacturing issue at play with the right. I wonder whether Alden is aware of this, and what their take on it is.

PLATON wrote:99% of all shoes do that. Try NIKE.

That's why most sport shoes have a sort of hook (don't know what it's call) on the tongue, to held it in place... (and it doesn't always work)
Well I suppose I'm lucky since, for now, I don't have this problem on my Aldens.