Lyra Kleos Repair

Oh boy!  at that price I might just take a chance on a rebuild by Andy or Peter.  The cantilever may be able to be repaired BTW.  I had a Blackbird with a decidedly off kilter cantilever and Peter at Soundsmith repaired it for the $16.00 in shipping cost!  If you don't like the sound, just snap the cantilever off and send it to Lyra.
I just bought a Ortolan Jubilee and checked the price of a rebuild through Ortofon and it was a bit more than $1,000.  Whew, glad I went with them over the Lyra I was eyeing.  
Lyra is too full of themselves these days it seems.  Not an ounce of customer loyalty.  I have a friend with a Lyra built but not Lyra named cart and I think they offered him no support what so ever.

Rob and I disagree on this.  While I agree that sending it to Lyra is optimum, people have cars repaired by other than the dealer all the time.  I for instance rebuilt quite a few Masaratti engines for the machine shop I worked at.  As a matter of fact we rebuilt many BMW engines for the dealers themselves.  Not that that has any bearing on the issue at hand really.  If the OP can't or doesn't want to spend that kind of money a REASONABLE but not option is available.   I don't think the OP is asking for work gratis but reasonable customer service to insure loyalty would not be out of line.  I for one will not consider a Lyra after this.  How much business will Lyra lose from a few postings like this on on other forums?
BTW, I have a Blackbird with original stylus and one retired by Andy.  Anyone is welcome to come by and see if they can hear a difference. 
As it stands now, that Lyra is next to worthless.

Hum,  not my experience at all nor a close friend.  

On another note.  I believe SoundSmith will retip or rebuild any of his cartridges for no more than 30% of the purchase price.  You might sell your Kleos for a few hundred bucks and combine that with what you'd spend on repairs and buy something better supported by the manufacturer.  Just my 2 cents.

Retired = retipped

I can, however, compare two identical carts.  Not $3,000 ones but 1,000-1,200 dollar ones and to my poor ears it is impossible to hear a difference.  Maybe the retipped one sounds slightly smoother when compared to the one that has over 2000 hours on it but I would expect that wouldn't you?  Otherwise why retip/rebuild?
Based on the way Lyra is treating this customer, I will choose to vote with my dollars and spend them elsewhere.  If I remember,  you were a little disappointed when they wouldn't give you a credit on a trade in.  
 You and many others have far better ears than I.   I respect that so will defer to your expertice.  
Good luck as well to the OP.

^ Soundsmith states clearly that they will rebuild/refurbish any of their carts for 20% of the new cost.  Seems that there is at least one high end manufacturer that doesn't follow along.  
Ortofon rebuilds theirs for less than 50% of the new cost for the Cadenza line.  So there is another that is not totally bending the customer over a barrel.
  
Lyra is technically doing nothing wrong (the credit default swap fiasco was also a case of not doing something "wrong") but I don't like those business practices and choose to disagree with them and will probably vote with my dollars when it comes time to spend my money.  

When my Subaru WRX engine ate a bunch of valves at 120,00 miles, they could have said tough but instead they bent over backwards to offer either to buy back the car at a reasonable price, or give me top dollar on a trade in and give me a very sweet deal on a replacement while loaning me a car free of charge for over 2 months.  I remain a customer of Subaru.  

I have heard some fantastic SoundSmith carts and will probably lean that way with any new purchase.  Especially with the repair he did for me free of charge!

^^ Odd that you'd consider a touch of "smoothness" from a retip as compared to a stylus with thousands of hours on it as,  "It could be a reduced sense of detail and micro-dynamics, and really be a lose of acoustic space or it could just be a refocusing/rebalancing and could be most pleasing"  Perhaps it sounds new?  You are welcome over and listen for yourself.

mdp, I think the reason for the "one" price is that Lyra, Ortofon, Benz and many others are really not repairing your cartridge's single obvious problem.  They are going to provide you with all new parts installed in your chassis (so to speak).  It is really the only way they can be sure to  provide the original Lyra sound.  Basically, you are buying a new cart.  Now we are back to our differences with those that say it is the only "correct" option.  if you want that 100% guarantee of perfect original sound then you should probably spend the money Lyra charges.  If you are willing to risk a much smaller sum, then having someone repair the cart will give you a shot at returning the cart to similar but maybe not exactly the original sound.  How much that matters to you is something only you can decide!  I personally would have Peter at SoundSmith repair the thing with a similar material cantilever and a stylus with as similar shape as the original and try it.  If unhappy, (no one seems to be by all the glowing reports).  Send it back to Lyra or resell it as is and purchase something a little less dear.  

Looks like SS is the only game in town for retips or rebuilds.  Except of course the manufacturer.  Too bad Andy's work seems to be not up to snuff at this point!