Lamy 2000 Mechanical Pencil

[austollie]

My Lamy 2000 fountain pen is one of my favourite pens in my collection.  Naturally, I wanted the matching mechanical pencil, so I bought one.  Like the fountain pen, the pencil appears well made with the two macrolon sections so well matched, that it's hard to see where the join is.  As far as the externals are concerned, much like for the fountain pen, there is no room for improvement.

 

However, the mechanism has been a real bother for me.  The first one failed after about six months and was replaced, without fuss, by Lamy.  I received a call from the very polite customer service representative, who explained to me that there had been a bad batch of mechanisms.  That can happen to any manufacturer, I thought.  Now, after about six or so years (I no longer have the receipt, so I can't be sure), the mechanism has failed once again.  The standard warranty period in Australia is four years, so I looked on Lamy Australia's website and I could purchase a replacement mechanism for about A$50, which I did.  

 

This is one of those situations where I am not sure how I should feel.  Is six years an acceptable life for a premium mechanical pencil (only used to do crosswords, Sudoko etc. on Saturday mornings)?  I am not so sure.  On the other hand, most other manufacturers don't offer spare parts.  Should I be pleased that a replacement mechanism could be obtained so easily?  Then again, the cost of the mechanism was greater than the cost of a Safari mechanical pencil and those would be expected to last 6 years.

 

Has anyone else had similar experiences with the Lamy 2000 mechanical pencil?  

[AmandaW]

ThePenCompany has the pencil mechanism for about $34, plus postage. Their other spares and parts are very reasonable too so if there were other things you wanted it may be worth getting from the UK.

https://www.thepencompany.com/product/lamy-2000-pencil-mechanism/11619/

 

I have the Makrolon 2000 pen and pencil too, but have hardly used either of them because I was underwhelmed by the pencil and very disappointed that  the pen nib is nothing like an EF. A costly mistake.

[Dillo]

I'm also on my second mechanism for my Lamy 2000 pencil. It's a really poorly built mechanism and has a lot of slop in the tolerances. If you want a good pencil, I would advise you to get a Pilot or perhaps a Mitsubishi Uni pencil. Pilot's Legno, Cocoon, Custom 74, and Custom Heritage pencils are very nice pencils on their upper end. On my end, I get the Pilot S3 as my preferred Pilot pencil.

 

The mechanism has enough slop in it that even with 0.7mm leads in the pencil, strong Pentel ones, it's still much more prone to breaking leads internally than any other pencil I have. The mechanism is also very rough and none of the mechanisms I have extend a consistent amount of lead when you click them, even when they are brand new. If or when Mitsubishi Uni makes a mechanism for the 2000 pencil, I will buy that, and if it's a whole new pencil, I would buy that instead.