Free air for life?

[blurryshmo]

a LDS is offering free air for life, when you buy a steel tank from them. the tanks are 80's for $275 or 100's for $355. the way i got that figured, at $7 a fill (AL80 last years price) that is 37 and 50 fills repectively, to pay for themselves. too good to be true?
what else should i look for in the deal? they are the closest to my house with one of their stores, and on the way to nearby dive sites with the other 2 stores. i don't see them going out of business, but......

any input is valued. thanks

also, i don't know all there is to know about tanks. if some one could direct me to a thread that explains hp lp pros cons etc.

 

[almitywife]

check the small print

how many fills are you allowed over the year? or how many fills in total? a local shop for us allows one fill per tank per week only

btw, any rumors they are going out of business?

 

[TheScubaBOB]

For HP steel tanks you will need to convert your regulator(s) to DIN.

 

[RAWalker]

I don't find that so surprising. My LDS has free fills for non-pro divers. They limit it to 2 fills per day and suggest tipping the help but that is the extent of the fine print. The only other thing is this LDS can only fill to 3000psi but for free it's great for my AL80s.
The reason is they have policies like that is to generate traffic in the shop. It gives them the chance to sell you something else. That same steel tank will need VIS each year and Hydro every 5 years. If you break something, it wears out or gets lost you will already be going to them for a fill so chances are they can profit off of the policy in the future.

 

[vladimir]

We all get free air for life, it's just compressing it that costs money. And when the air runs out, so does the life, so ask him to put a date on it. I would like free air until 2063, for example, whether I need it or not.

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

Free air for your life time*




(*or one dive - whichever lasts longer, given the quality of our fills....)

 

[dkktsunami]

The life of the LDS is likely to be a lot shorter than yours.............

 

[tgsmith]

"High-pressure" 3442psi rated cylinders do not require DIN regulators. They are usually sold with convertible valves so that you can use either DIN or yoke fittings. A yoke regulator will function just fine.

One of those myths, kinda like you can't put air in a nitrox cylinder, or that once your switch to synthetic oil in your car you can't use organic oil afterwards. Nonsense.

 

[jagfish]

Sounds like a great deal...and they are the closest to your home...

 

[blurryshmo]

woah! i just woke up, and found all these replies. thankyou, thankyou everybody, i will look into the fine print, but givin the geographics of the dive sites near my home, my home, and the LDS, one fill per day would be fine. i can't see myself diving a tank, going to get it filled, (waiting) and then dive, (or go home and just be ready for next time, i suppose). the routine would be more like, dive the tank, drop it off, and pick it up at the next convenience, my girlfriend (scubalaux) drives past there everyday.

this seems like a good op to switch to steel from AL80's anyway. if what they say is true about the 20 year thing, they are almost door-stops anyway.