O.K., so I see the problem with this reel. For me. I fish fluke with the reel in free-spool, with my thumb holding pressure against the spool. This way if I need to drop back to a tentative fluke, or one I just cleanly missed on his last bite, I can do that instantly.
The downside is that when I do hook up, the procedure is to swing hard, while simultaneously using my free hand to put the reel in gear. 99.9% of the time this works flawlessly for me. Heck, I've been doing it this way since I was a kid.
But once in a while I miss-time the execution of the above method and am either late putting the reel into gear, or don't apply enough down-pressure on the spool, causing it to spin backwards while I'm engaging the gears. The result is a loud buzz, as the pinion gear screams, trying to engage with the drive pin on the spool. The resulting shock is transmitted thru the gears - to the weakest link in the drive train, which in an aluminum main gear-equipped reel is teeth of that main gear.
This would normally result in not much damage at all - if the reel is equipped with brass gears - the teeth are soft enough to absorb the shock load. But with hard, brittle aluminum gears this mis-timing can result in disaster. This damage usually manifests itself in a sheared tooth or two. And that's that, the damaged reel is shot for the rest of the trip. Only solution is to replace the stripped main gear. Or better, replace the paired pinion with it as well.
This is what such damage looks like - in this case my Revo Winch Gen3:
Not good. Abu was going for the lightest possible reel with the Revo Gen3 series. And they did a great job at that. But that aluminum main gear? No Bueno. Not for me, anyways.
I keep two spares at the house - for the eventual repeat of this damage. Expensive too, relative to brass gears. I haven't looked into replacing the gear set with a brass drive pair, as it appears that the Doyo-built Abu reels have differing center-to-center distances between the gear sets, generation to generation.
The Gen4 Revos went back to brass main gears, which adds a bit of weight. But for me, the way I fish? Much, much better. This new Zillion TW SV features an aluminum main gear, so it wouldn't be my first choice, or last either, for that matter, should I look to upgrade any of my first-gen Zillions. I still think those are the best baitcasters ever offered - for "our" light SW use. Just gotta lube 'em with an eye towards SW use.
