[Maverick0]

I don't know about you guys, but when I have to send in a defective product still on warranty, I still have to pay shipping to get it back to the manufacturer / distributor.

I agree, it sucks to receive a broken item, but you can't hold the vendor responsible for shipping costs, specially if they're offering to replace the item.

It's not necessarily the vendor's fault that the item was broken, but they are backing the product they sell by replacing it, no?

Shipping stuff has a cost. Deal with it.

The warranty covers the product I purchased. The shipping is technically a service purchased from a different company than the vendor, so the warranty in no way applies to this additional service. That's how it's always been for me anyways when I've dealt with warranties, unless there were some seriously messed up complication.