No Love from the Coleman Company!

I've recently inherited a cooler from my dad that has been in the family for over 35 years and has come to be known as "Big Blue" among those of us to whom it is familiar.  This cooler has been a part of our family for long than I have been breathing air, so I thought it would be cool if I restored it to its original condition so that, perhaps someday, I could hand it down to my own (yet-to-be-conceived) sons as a family heirloom (someday).  Unfortunately, the Coleman Company did not particularly share my sentiments about keeping this thing around by restoring the cooler to its previous glory!!  

I spoke with two different representatives in their live online customer assistance section of their website and each of them told me in no uncertain terms that the Coleman Company has no interest in the restoration of old coolers, regardless of the reason for restoring the unit.  Furthermore, when I had asked the first representative about getting replacement parts for this old cooler, I was told that they didn't have them!  This blew my mind because it was quite obvious that this representative had no idea that there was an entire section of the Coleman website dedicated to replacement parts for their products!  Once the ineptitude of this representative was made quite clear, I kindly bid her adieu and then initiated another chat assistance session with a different technician in hopes that I would get someone who was more cooperative and knowledgeable.  Unfortunately, I struck out again. 

I'm thoroughly disappointed.  I'm disappointed in the customer service that I had received, the way in which the "No Restoration Assistance" policy was conveyed to me without regard for how I felt about the situation, and the Coleman Company's unwillingness to stand behind their products.  As I mentioned before, we've been a "Coleman Family" since before I was born.  However, having had such a wonderful experience with Coleman and its customer service representatives recently might have just convinced me that the time to start looking at Igloo Coolers is long overdue.  Well played, Coleman Co.  I wonder what William Coffin Coleman would think of all this nonsense... 

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Not too hard to believe this cooler is older than I am!  I would LOVE to see it restored!