Need for alternate regs due to long service delays in Canada

[Brookieman10]

My wife and I are looking at long 2-3 month delay in our annual servicing. ( May -July). Our alternative LDS is also quoting a 6 week delay. There is a 25 % surcharged to have them back in 7 days or its first come first served with rush order taking precedence.
To avoid missing 1/2 our dive season we're considering :
1) buying another Aqualung Titan setup and alternating one in for service and one diving
2) pulling the regs out of LDS and just diving them as they only get 20 dives a year
3)buying a different brand of regs that have a 2 yr service or 100 dive maintenance schedule
4) shipping them to the USA and using ScubaToy's 5-7 day service but shipping would cost as much as the surcharges and lose the free parts for life.

I've tried the PADI equipment specialist course but wouldn't have the foggiest idea how to service my regs and there is no one in Ottawa Ontario offering a reg service class that I'm aware of.

Ideas ?

[Herb-alaska]

I went through the same pain. I bought a HOG set for about 500 for the 3 stages simply because I wanted to keep diving. I found I really like them and when my main regs came back yesterday I did not find myself rushing to mount up the hoses so that I could place them back into service. If I only did 20 dives a year I might have a different outlook and just pull them from service if they were operating trouble free and then send them in at the end of your season. My regs get about 160 dives per year so with splitting between the 2 sets they will still get 80 or so.

[NAUIWOWI]

Contact Mark Jurgen at Professional Scuba Repair. I got my regs back in a week, paid $113 for three first stages to be serviced, and because I was a new customer, return shipping was free. I believe another scuba board member, Thalassimia (hope I spelled that right) has been using PSR for many years, and recommends them highly. When Mark shipped my regs back, he called me and talked to me about the service he did on them for 15 minutes. One of the Mk10s was in rough shape, and came back looking and working like new. Hope this helps.

[elan]

Did you try Kevin @ indepthscuba? I had good turnaround from him.

You have to be authorized tech trained by aqualung to service your own regs and keep the free parts program active. It is not available to the public AFAIK

An alternative would be to dump the free parts for life and have them serviced at the interval you are comfortable with. Or buy a second set

[herbdb]

ScubaToys will service regs. They were pretty quick for me earlier in the year.

[gcarter]

I had my Apeks serviced in January. Beats the rush, and I'm nit diving then anyway. Doesn't help now, but you could do it early next year and reset the 12 month schedule.

I am assuming the same shop. They weren't quick.

[supergaijin]

2-3 months for servicing a couple of regs?!! Are they going out by dog-sled?

Can't you post them somewhere which does it in a day or two?

[Brookieman10]

It seems that in a city of 1 million people we don't have many service techs. I kind of hate sending them to the USA with the possible hang ups in customs and the chance of loss etc but I guess the best option is pay the 25 % surcharges and next year come up with a better plan.

[Aqua-Andy]

2-3 Months to service regs? That is absolutely crazy, I can't believe the shop finds this acceptable. Why cant you make an appointment to bring them back in 3 months and have them done in a week. It would drive me crazy knowing they are sitting in a box in a dive shop for 3 months collecting dust while they find time to get around to repairing them. This is one of the reasons why I have gone the self service route and with a reg manufacturer that supports it.

[markmantei]

3 months to service regs???? A week seems like a long time, and I wouldn't be paying extra for it. Turn around time is typically a few days here in cowtown. I can see having relatively few reg techs, but come on. It seems like a scam to jack up the cost of the service while trying to make it look like their doing you a favor getting it done in a week. Maybe you could look fedexing them to a shop in Toronto or elsewhere in Ontario where you don't need to deal with customs, but you could get faster service at a more reasonable cost. At least you wouldn't be held ransom by your LDS for weeks or months.

[dpaustex]

I use an Atomic T2x. Two year service interval. Of course, it'll set you back $1600 for it and the titanium alternate. Worth every penny.

6 week service interval is a joke. Service them in the off-season. Parts should be free, for the life of the unit (as with all Aqualung stuff), and you should only be paying for labor.

[GrumpyOldGuy]

I would consider option 2) pulling them from the LDS and go dive.

Any regulator can be set up on a 2 year / 100 dive interval. True, you will lose the parts-for-life warranty but the savings in labor will offset the kit and you can set the service schedule to not interrupt your dives.

All you need to do is properly maintain (clean and don't abuse) the gear and then spend $20-30 on a IP gauge to check them periodically.

[ams511]

I agree with Grumpy. More and more manufacturers are going with a 2-year rebuild cycle but still want the regs checks checked during the off year. So do it yourself. Another option is to explain the situation to Aqualung that you want to get them serviced but the shop is quoting you 3 months and ask them for a recommendation.

[Brookieman10]

Agreed - speaking to Aqualung might be helpful. I'm not sure that $29 for free parts off sets the 3 month delay. Do we really need to keep sending in our regs for service yearly ? Are we just changing parts on a pile of barely used regs ? It seems to be a bit of a pyramid scheme -the LDS shops selling more regs every year and we've now reached a point where there are too many in an area to be taken care of. I'm ok with paying my LDS $75 a year to keep diving but yikes here in Ottawa this scheme has overloaded the techs and now we can't go diving while we wait for a "service".

[skankpile]

Don't get uptight about the servicing.. if it holds a steady IP, is tuned properly, and breathes smooth.. dive it and service it when you get back from your trip. I would not want to service a working reg right before a trip anyways because if something will fail it is usually right after it is serviced.

$29 parts for life... thats funny..

[elan]

Agreed - speaking to Aqualung might be helpful. I'm not sure that $29 for free parts off sets the 3 month delay. Do we really need to keep sending in our regs for service yearly ? Are we just changing parts on a pile of barely used regs ? It seems to be a bit of a pyramid scheme -the LDS shops selling more regs every year and we've now reached a point where there are too many in an area to be taken care of. I'm ok with paying my LDS $75 a year to keep diving but yikes here in Ottawa this scheme has overloaded the techs and now we can't go diving while we wait for a "service".


It's good idea to do it off season, - January or February, I was getting a turnaround of 1 week in Ottawa at the end of January.

AFAIK Aqualung has a window when you can service the reg, so if you bought them in summer you are forced to do it in summer. but may be they will allow to shift the window to the off season.

[Scared Silly]

If you are only putting 20 dives a year on your regs I would suggest a much longer service interval like 3 or even 4 years. Modern regs just do need to be serviced that often if they are well maintained before, during, and after use. We put a couple of hundred dives on our regs and after 4 years they were ready to be serviced as I could tell as the IP seating had a bit more drift than acceptable.

IMHO the free parts with service every year is for the most part a scam. And as said the service cost is more than the parts so going even every other year would be cheaper.

[Ozwald]

try giving George at the "Saskatoon Dive Shop" a call. He serviced my Halcyon in no time. I'm not sure if he does the Aqualing stuff but it's worth a shot.

[markmantei]

Don't get uptight about the servicing.. if it holds a steady IP, is tuned properly, and breathes smooth.. dive it and service it when you get back from your trip. I would not want to service a working reg right before a trip anyways because if something will fail it is usually right after it is serviced.

$29 parts for life... thats funny..

Yea, I think the jist of what I've learned here on scubaboard is that as far as failure modes unserviced regs fail slowly, while recently serviced regs, when they fail, fail catastrophically. I wouldn't take a newly serviced reg on a dive trip without putting a few dives on it first.