with Sage's warranty, you'll always get the same rod back. They are made in-house, so they will just manufacture the blank needed; if you break your Z, you'll get another Z back, even if it is 15 years from now (or so I'm told by the company, anyway). That's a benefit to North American made rods vs Asian made ones. While I have nothing against an Asian rod (I actually use Hardy and Greys rods all the time, and an Echo 3, too), if the series gets discontinued, you'll get the replacement model closest to the one you purchased, which could be either better or worse. With NA name, you'll have you're rod forever.
The fact that the replacements must be made (to the exact correct size of the rod you have --not every rod piece fits the others in exactly the same way) before they can replace a broken section can explain the 3 month wait, and I think a 1.5-3 month wait is pretty common with most companies, other than some like TFO, which replace rods so often they have a huge backlog of them sitting in storage. Just food for though. I'd happily fish a decent backup for a couple months, and be sure my replacement rod is exactly what I'd wanted when I bought my rod in the first place.
Nick
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