I seriously have to revise this.
I had two XR drysuits. Both of them were dreadful.
Initially I thought I was doing something wrong. I don't know why I thought that because I had been diving dry suits for 30 years....
I bought the XR at the advice of several divers I know who have them. The first one I bought started leaking on day one. After ... I'm going to say 10 dives ... It flooded to the point that I was wet from neck to toes...... It turned out that the wrist cuffs had become delaminated.
o.....k.... that can happen. So I sent the suit back and had it replaced. I have to say that this process took FOR EVER which is what I wrote about in my first post. This is what I wrote about in my first post.
What I didn't write about is this:
Mares didn't repair the suit, they replaced it. Yes, that process took 3 months and I was not happy about it at all but after 3 months I had a new suit and started diving it again.
On the second dive I made with it, the butterfly nut on my backplate caught the material and ripped it open over about 1cm. The suit flooded, thankfully on the descent, for non trivial technical dive. I aborted the dive and patched it.
After that I took it on vacation in Egypt (yeah... call me a pussy... but I did). I made 23 dives in a week with this suit and it flooded 23 times. Every time I patched a leak it sprong a new one. On LITERALLY every dive I made water was flowing in from a different point.
Thankfully the water in Egypt is warm.
When I got back home I sent the suit back to Mares and said (literally) "I'm done with this suit and I want my money back". Our Mares rep agreed immediately. Of course he offered solutions but when I held my back straight he was not difficult and Mares reimbursed my money (contrary to my expectations) without issue and without delay. This is a sign of good customer service to me.
What I also know is that Mares did not only take back my suit, they took back ALL suits from the series that were distributed in Europe. It turns out that they had a defective run and the trilam was defective.
Since then I've ordered a BARE suit. Since the BARE suites in Europe are made in Malta and they only work 6 full days a year in Malta it's taking forever to get it delivered. However, I've dived BARE suits since 1985 (before they were called BARE) and I've never had a single problem that looked like what I had with the XR.....
So I'm going back to what I believe I can trust with my life.....
R..
I had two XR drysuits. Both of them were dreadful.
Initially I thought I was doing something wrong. I don't know why I thought that because I had been diving dry suits for 30 years....
I bought the XR at the advice of several divers I know who have them. The first one I bought started leaking on day one. After ... I'm going to say 10 dives ... It flooded to the point that I was wet from neck to toes...... It turned out that the wrist cuffs had become delaminated.
o.....k.... that can happen. So I sent the suit back and had it replaced. I have to say that this process took FOR EVER which is what I wrote about in my first post. This is what I wrote about in my first post.
What I didn't write about is this:
Mares didn't repair the suit, they replaced it. Yes, that process took 3 months and I was not happy about it at all but after 3 months I had a new suit and started diving it again.
On the second dive I made with it, the butterfly nut on my backplate caught the material and ripped it open over about 1cm. The suit flooded, thankfully on the descent, for non trivial technical dive. I aborted the dive and patched it.
After that I took it on vacation in Egypt (yeah... call me a pussy... but I did). I made 23 dives in a week with this suit and it flooded 23 times. Every time I patched a leak it sprong a new one. On LITERALLY every dive I made water was flowing in from a different point.
Thankfully the water in Egypt is warm.
When I got back home I sent the suit back to Mares and said (literally) "I'm done with this suit and I want my money back". Our Mares rep agreed immediately. Of course he offered solutions but when I held my back straight he was not difficult and Mares reimbursed my money (contrary to my expectations) without issue and without delay. This is a sign of good customer service to me.
What I also know is that Mares did not only take back my suit, they took back ALL suits from the series that were distributed in Europe. It turns out that they had a defective run and the trilam was defective.
Since then I've ordered a BARE suit. Since the BARE suites in Europe are made in Malta and they only work 6 full days a year in Malta it's taking forever to get it delivered. However, I've dived BARE suits since 1985 (before they were called BARE) and I've never had a single problem that looked like what I had with the XR.....
So I'm going back to what I believe I can trust with my life.....
R..