If it's "holes" and not "hole" then you most likely have a balanced piston (do the hoses attach to a swiveling turret on the end?) and one of two O-rings, the piston O-ring or the HP O-ring, is leaking and allowing air to leak past it, into the ambient chamber, and out the holes.
A fairly easy thing to fix, but most shops will insist on doing a rebuild while they are at it.
You did, as you surmise, in all likelihood get woefully, horribly ripped off by the dive shop. Unless the reg was an absolute ball of corrosion, or had been run over by a truck, and needed half the parts replaced. Even then they should have advised you how much work it needed before they ran up such a bill.
Also, these are very simply, reliable, regs, and those O-rings should last several years at the very least, so failing so soon suggests the shop screwed up on the work as well. Was it an authorized Oceanic dealer? Oceanic likes a harder than usual O-ring in that location, so it might also be a clue than generic O-rings were used.
Oh, and I don't think I'd take it back to that shop, unless you want to confront them and find out how they could have ever charged you so much and still screwed up.
In fairness to the shop, I should say that, if one takes really awful care of one's gear, like storing it wet and salty in a damp, warm basement, it is just possible one could screw up a reg enough to require so expensive an overhaul, and then again enough to cause premature failure of the O-ring.
CapeFearDiveGal once bubbled...
I have an older Oceanic 1st stage with a Omega 2nd. I had it serviced just under a year ago. Now, the 1st stage is leaking air out of holes in the unit. Can someone tell me 1) What are those hole for in the first place? 2) What has broken on my reg? and 3) Is this gonna require a major overhaul?
I'm not too keen on the LDS that did the work, as the 2nd stage nut was very loose when I picked it up after the overhaul a year ago and the 2nd stage fell off. I had to tighten it at home.
thanks!
One more thing...Anyone have a ballpark figure on the price to fix just the 1st stage? I'm thinking I got ripped on the last overhaul. It was <gulp> $250.
