LDS BS in Nitrox class today...

[redacted]

I change batteries before they die (yes even my every day watch), oil every 3000 miles, and have my dive gear serviced every year whether I think it needs it or not. I pretty firmly believe that preventive maintenance really does prevent equipment failure and my own experiences tell me that I'm not wasting any money by adhering to those beliefs. That said I respect your opinion to the contrary and we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

In my case, it is not really just opinion. I have tried both annual maintenance and extended interval maintenance and my experience is that the extended interval maintenance does not reduce reliability or increase repair costs. Smart preventative maintenance does work in most cases. But, excessive PM may increase cost with no payback and even decrease reliability in some cases.

What exactly, in your experience with scuba regulators, tells you that you are not wasting money??

 

[Mark_J]

To play devil's advocate, why don't you get your oil changed every 1000 miles. That has to be better, right?

No, it could be worse. First, studies of cars, even cars driven hard say that following the mfr schedule is already conservative. Many cars now recommend 7500-10000 and more mile intervals between oil changes under normal conditions and half that for extreme conditions like being stuck in traffic, towing, etc.

Second, I know and I imagine all of us do people who have had their engines ruined or severely degraded by grease monkeys who didn't tighten the oil plug sufficiently, allowing all the oil to drain out. That's the equivalent of the reg that has problems immediately after service.

So the choice I've made, which I think is both prudent and economical, is to have my service done every few years or couple hundred dives and not worry about mfr imposed limits.

Considering that the service cost for a reg is 10-30% the cost of the reg, everything I've read about failures, and the types of diving I do, I think that's reasonable.

I also change my oil at the mfr suggested (extreme conditions) interval of 5K miles. That's about 0.1% of the cost of the car, so I feel that's a good trade off.

But more is not always better and I'm sure your example company didn't just say "OK, lets spend twice as much on preventative maintenance and see what happens" I suspect they studied the situation.

I'll have to disagree with you that preventive maintenance can be bad.

A poor mechanic and the potential for botched work can't be be part of any equation of the effectiveness of preventative maintenance. Botched work can occur in any maintenance window. I have a '95 Full Size Bronco that I use for beach dives, bought it new and managed to put 285,000 miles on it without any major engine work, in fact it just took me to Destin from Biloxi for a trip last weekend. It's going to be pretty hard for you to convince me that vehicle would have accumulated all those trouble free miles with oil changes every 10,000 miles.

In my case, it is not really just opinion. I have tried both annual maintenance and extended interval maintenance and my experience is that the extended interval maintenance does not reduce reliability or increase repair costs. Smart preventative maintenance does work in most cases. But, excessive PM may increase cost with no payback and even decrease reliability in some cases.

What exactly, in your experience with scuba regulators, tells you that you are not wasting money??

Unless you're a manufacturer with accumulated data from tens of thousands of regulators I'd have to say your own experiences (just like mine) would be an insignificant sampling to confirm or disprove the value of preventative maintenance.

I've seen the positive benefits of preventative maintenance work on simple and complex mechanical systems for years, I'm not going to be convinced that following a scheduled preventative maintenance program is a waste of money. I'm sure there are plenty who disagree and think it is a waste of money and only provide maintenance when they think it's necessary, I'm just not one of those guys.

Like I said, we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[halocline]

I don't believe that I made a case for ignoring service on regulators or diving without regard to servicing. Actually, reg service is important enough to me that I have taken the time to learn as much about it as I can, and I am VERY thorough with inspecting and servicing my gear. Partly I did this because it became quite clear to me after a few initial experiences that the tech at my LDS was not qualified to service gear. But to me servicing my own gear is not really a safety issue, given that I'm an open water recreational diver. If my reg fails during a dive, I get air from my buddy. At any point during the dive, if I need to I surface. That's what open water diving is predicated upon; buddy system and immediate access to the surface. Sure it's bad to have a reg fail, it's inconvenient to miss or thumb dives due to equipment problems, and it's a bummer to dive with a poorly breathing reg. But that's not what the guy's nitrox instructor said, he said that it's life threatening. That statement is misleading if not a complete lie.

The big objection I have with what this thread started out as is the false connection that the dive industry makes between spending money on equipment and service and diver safety, and this connection is sold through half-truths and outright lies. I would like to see one documented case of death or injury due to CO2 retention brought on by missing annual service. Not some BS assumption or "what if" scenario, but some proven case where the reg caused injury or death because the owner didn't get it serviced, and therefore it breathed so badly that the owner could not get enough air and died.

And, BTW, I dive because I love diving. I tolerate the dive gear industry because I need to in order to dive.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that diver education will improve significantly when it is separated from gear sales.

 

[vondo]

I'll have to disagree with you that preventive maintenance can be bad.

A poor mechanic and the potential for botched work can't be be part of any equation of the effectiveness of preventative maintenance. Botched work can occur in any maintenance window. I have a '95 Full Size Bronco that I use for beach dives, bought it new and managed to put 285,000 miles on it without any major engine work, in fact it just took me to Destin from Biloxi for a trip last weekend. It's going to be pretty hard for you to convince me that vehicle would have accumulated all those trouble free miles with oil changes every 10,000 miles.

You should follow what your manufacturer recommends, of course, but I doubt they recommend 3,000 miles. They certainly don't on new cars. The studies I saw were fleet tests of NYC cabs that they changed every 7.5K miles and there was no differences.

As for too often being "bad" if there is a 1/10000 chance of something going catastrophically wrong per time serviced, then changing yours 285 times means a 3% chance they destroy your truck. Doing it every 6,000 miles (to pick a number) means 0.5% chance of work-related fatality.

My point is not and never was that PM is bad, rather that following a sensible schedule is best, not going overboard. If unlimited PM is good, you should do it before every dive, right?

Bottom line is who recommends you change your oil every 3K miles? The people who sell and change oil, not the manufacturer of your vehicle. They have an obvious incentive to get you to spend more money than necessary.

The same is true of your LDS and IMHO, the manufacturer is helping the LDS here rather than the customer by recommending a year.

But, as you said, you cannot be convinced so dive on!

 

[Plumb bob]

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that diver education will improve significantly when it is separated from gear sales.

Absolutely!

 

[Mark_J]

I'll agree that there is a point where you are performing maintenance too often, any good thing has the potential to be abused.

Personally I think that the Manufacturers are more likely listening to their legal department than their sales department when determining how often to do a PM.

Now let's get to that Dive On part!

 

[k ellis]

I think your gear is alot like a car. You can drive 10000 miles without changing the oil and maybe never have a problem. But it never fails when you do have a problem it will be the worst possible time every time.

Id say spend the little extra and live to tell your adventures

 

[b1gcountry]

The big objection I have with what this thread started out as is the false connection that the dive industry makes between spending money on equipment and service and diver safety, and this connection is sold through half-truths and outright lies. I would like to see one documented case of death or injury due to CO2 retention brought on by missing annual service.

I agree with you, but one of the problems when considering real world accident reports, like the ones published by DAN is that there are a significant percentage of the divers who died using gear that had been either improperly maintained, or abused. I tend to read the yearly DAN and BSAC reports when they come out (yes, I'm a dive nerd, but that's another discussion.) Every year they seem to have one or two case studies where a diver dies doing something overtly stupid, and reckless, and they blame:
1. Failure to annually service your equipment
2. Not wearing a snorkel (or breaking some other cardinal rule)
3. Diving by yourself

I remember one fatality that was involved a diver who hadn't been in the water for a long time. He used a reg that hadn't been dove or serviced in the same amount of time. I can't remember the details, but he died, and one of the object lessons was that you need your reg serviced every year.

People who use bad judgment tend to get themselves into trouble. They tend to do this whether or not they follow a certain somewhat arbitrary rule, but when they are violating that rule, their bad judgment is often overlooked, and the accident is blamed on the rule violation. It then fuels the people who support that rule, and so on.

I'm not much of one for following "The Rules" just because they are "The Rules", yet I am still a safe diver when held to just about any standard. There are plenty of rules I do follow, mind you, but I follow them because I've put some real thought into my action, and I have decided that there is merit behind that particular practice. I realize that many people don't fall into this category. They don't like rules, and reason be damned, they aren't following them because--well they never quite get that far.

The problem is that these people who shortcut the rules (who are separate from the ones who upon review, find a better way, or make other allowances), also tend to shortcut other things, and get into trouble. When they do, they set a bad precedence for those of us who have very deliberately analyzed a situation and found a different solution.

Tom

 

[DevonDiver]

I gotta take exception to this phrase. Perhaps you didn't mean it as I take it but..

The dive industry is ancillary to diving. It is not diving.

I think and I know many many others will agree that it is very healthy to be skeptical of the motivations of some within the industry. Due to the "bad apple" effect this skepticism does spill over to all unfortunately. Divers should be encouraged to view information provided by those with vested interest as potentially "suspect".

I think the "bad apple" effect applies to any industry...and have to agree that the scuba industry does contain "bad apples".

My bugbear with the industry is all of the unecessary clutter that is marketed and sold to divers. The worst example are the huge 'etch-a-sketch' slates and BCDs with a thousand gizmos and gadgets that are touted as 'top-of-the range'.

However, that should not lead to sceptism of any dive professional that passes on advice.

For me, I would want my student to buy the most appropriate product/services. If they learn to trust your professional opinion and see the value in their investments over the long-run, then the end result is that you have their customer loyalty.

The thing that tempts some professionals into less honest recommendations stems from the low salaries in diving...and the resulting need to boost income via the commission earnt from sales. Remember that the next time you hear someone gripe about the cost of courses etc....

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Sure it's bad to have a reg fail, it's inconvenient to miss or thumb dives due to equipment problems, and it's a bummer to dive with a poorly breathing reg. But that's not what the guy's nitrox instructor said, he said that it's life threatening. That statement is misleading if not a complete lie.

Actually, he didn't say that ... at least, that's not what the OP reported ...

Heyhey I want to run something past you guys that I feel is suspect information...

Today I was doing the in-class portion of my Nitrox class and as part of the presentation one of the things the instructor covered was CO2 retention and the problems associated with it.

Now, I'm familiar with CO2 retention and had believed that it was encountered Purely as a result of ineffective/incomplete breathing patterns (ie. breathing too shallow/not fully emptying the lungs)

BUT he also trys to tell me that its related to people who dont service their regs regularly...

er... huh? Dammit. my BS alarms were in the red and I'm feeling like I'm being lied to/misled in order to sell shop services I probably dont need. (I am of the 'dont fix it if it aint broke' mentality and until I have a problem with my regs I dont intend to have them overhauled, plus for what they'll charge for the Regular service plan I could buy a brand new reg every 3-4 years)

So my question is... does not getting your reg serviced have ANYTHING to do with CO2 retention? (I'm guessing !@#$ no it doesnt)

I'd really hate to think that the instructor Truely believes this, but if the choice is ignorance vs. deceptive salesman its a lose-lose proposition.

I think there's a LOT of interpretation going on ... it would be interesting to know (a) what the instructor ACTUALLY said (verbatim), and (b) what he meant when he said it.

My guess is that he was simply attempting to make the connection between WOB and CO2 accumulation ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)