I'm a fan of the Guyot Design stainless steel water bottles, and own several of their Hiker model.

I was visiting my folks for the holidays, so I grabbed my ditch kit and put it in the tote that I had my clothes in. (My packing is pretty primative if I'm traveling by car.) Got there, and found water in the pouch that holds one of my water bottles. Grumble, figured the lid wasn't on tight. Take my kit out with me in the woods, come back, found water in the pouch again. THink a bad lid. Swap it out for a spare Nalgene lid I have at my folks in storage.

Few months go by, don't think about it. Then discover water in the pouch again when I'm swapping out food and batteries. Scowl some more, try out another lid. Shake the bottle, and I get water drops flying about. Swap the lid several more times. Conclude the following:

1, all the lids are good.
2, I kid you not, the bottle leaks.

Turn it upside down and a big bead starts to form just below the threads. What the heck? Email Guyot. Next day I have email from Cara Guyot, not just someone in sales, saying they will ship me a replacement, and a return label because they want to see this dripping, leaking freak of nature. This was Monday. It is in the mail Tuesday. Friday it gets to me. Tommorrow the defective bottle goes home to be studied. Any faster and they would have had to hand courier to me.

So, I guess the point of this tale is this:
1, check your gear. Even a solid piece of metal can be bad.
2, deal with good companies.

Guyot's design impressed me. Their customer service is every bit as good in my book. *thumbs up*

Glad to hear of a company responding in a quick and positive manner.

Not to hijack your thread, but is their bottle, or some other steel / aluminum bottle designed so that it could have water boiled in it?
Just thinking of a situation where you ran out of water and no H2O tabs but could boil water in it to purify for drinking. (Have thought about this a few times, but never did an internet search to see if there was such a bottle.)
I know some of the aluminum bottles I've seen state not for hot liquids, so boiling would be out of the question.

Thanks for the heads up on both the Guyot bottle and their customer service. So far it's the first time I've heard of the actual bottle and not the lid seal leaking.

And it's good advice regarding checking equipment.

It feels like where it failed is a molding line. If anything is going to fail, it is going to so at the seam.

I wouldn't boil in aluminum, personal preference though not for health or short term structural reasons. It just can't take heat like steel can, and most of them are lined. Linings bad, they melt.

Guyot's bottles are a single walled, unlined bottle. They tell you not to boil water in it, but that is because the sucker is going to be HOT and there is no handle. I might have poured tea in my first one, and promptly took a thumbprint off for a few days. But you can do it, and they stand up to it. (This one hadn't been used over a fire yet, nor frozen.)

Guyot makes some very inventive products. I am a fan of their FireFly. The lid/light that fits Nalgene bottles.

not a fan of their what-seems-to-be proprietary tightening screw (maddening small and uncommon fitting screw)

Glad to see their customer service is as stand up as their products.