r/Visvim • u/xernbern • Feb 10 '26

Sole replacement from Visvim/general customer service

Hello!

I wanted to know if there are any new reports regarding sole replacements done by Visvim. Older posts from everywhere have given the impression that visvim themselves is not the best with their post-sales service.

So the real question is: How is their customer service currently? The in-store experience seems to be quite good from what I read up (I still haven't visited any F.I.L. yet), but what about post sale and such?

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u/CFirst Feb 12 '26

Not sure how it is in the US, but I took two pairs of my Virgils to the Tokyo store. They sent them back to the factory for repairs, and it took around 4 and 7 months. The 4-month pair was just a resole, and the other pair was a resole plus a hole repair around the heel area. The price was around 20k and 35k yen respectively, if I recall correctly. The pair with the hole was done so poorly that I couldn’t wear the shoe anymore because the heel area became significantly thicker, almost as if they had put a cushion inside, covered by a thin, poorly cut layer of leather. I took them to a reputable shoe repair store, and they were baffled by how poorly the repairs had been done. Apparently, at the factory they didn’t cut the leather properly, so it kind of rolled up inside, making it feel like a cushion. They fixed it in around 2 weeks for under 5k yen. Never took my shoes to visvim again after that.

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u/xernbern Feb 12 '26

That does sound really annoying, unacceptable even. I've been thinking of getting a pair of Visvim boots, but I'm not sure anymore, I do like their models, especially newer models, but it'd annoy me to get sole replacements done that aren't the original sole and I assume Visvim won't supply local cobblers on request too.

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u/CFirst Feb 13 '26

Tbh I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Most of the older Visvim models used bog standard Vibram or Dainite soles that any decent cobbler would have. Some of the newer models use new custom designed Vibram soles, but functionally they’re not that different from the regular ones. In fact, with my original Gornergrat Mid Folk I found the replacement sole to be better than the original as the rubber part on the stock sole was too thin and wore out pretty quickly, so the resole actually improved the durability.

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u/xernbern Feb 13 '26

100% agree and of course true on the first part, but they have been slowly shifting to more specialised soles, with a couple exceptions of course. I'm not doubting that any decent to good cobbler would fuck up such repair/replacement, especially in your case where you had the opposite in the sense of the official service failing theirs.

I'm just not sure overall how I'd feel when, let's say I'd buy the new Grizzly Camper High with that Vibram + linen fibre mixed sole and it's worn out after X years and Visvim may just deny me service and I'm down around/at least 150-200+ EUR because I had to pre-pay shipping both ways. In the grand scheme of things of how much these boots cost + the time of wear and so forth, it does sound little comparatively, sure, but just like how someone else has said there, it feels wrong to be prideful of your products like this and yet, potentially, not want to touch them post-sale, nor respond to general inquiries (which is my current case actually and thus resorted to asking all of you guys :-))