Annual Equipment Service and inspection Pricing

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No, the LDS also runs a dive op and also requires the annual inspection. However, the one that gave us some grief last July was in Florida.
 
This is ridiculous. I have never heard of this practice. I don't have tags on any of my gear and never will. I wouldn't be diving with any operator who had this practice in place.

Who said there were no SCUBA police? Between this and operators demanding medical forms for non training dives, the SCUBA police seem to to out in full force.

Basically I just need the yearly inspection tags (and to make sure our eqp is safe). Our equipment is only a little over 3 years old (last dive was last July). This has only happened once (not that we are that experienced) but last July a dive op looked at our tags and noted that the last inspection was 13 months. He sort of gumbled and said generally they will not let divers us their eqp if no inspection tag or one that is more than 12 months old. Maybe they wanted us to rent their stuff. Or us pay them to do an inspection. We didn't and it all worked out. But I don't ever want to be in a position that I can't use my personal stuff. Our LDS actually has this statement on their forms:

"ALL BCD’s AND REGULATOR’S USED ON ANY ACTIVITY/DIVE MUST HAVE CURRENT ANNUAL INSPECTION/SERVICE RECORDS. You must provide proof of service, by an AUTHORIZED DEALER, within the last twelve (12) months. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE PROOF OF SERVICE WITHIN TWELVE (12) MONTHS, THE EQUIPMENT MUST BE SERVICED."
 
For a "tag", I've seen on a few very rare occasions a tube put on a hose that looks a bit like a strain reliever with the date punched out. Mostly they don't. I think a Scubapro shop I used 25 years ago did this. (I promptly removed them as it's just a thing to hide salt water and get in the way.) I've never had anyone ask for such a thing, and would go elsewhere if they did. Note that there are folks that service their own gear (and it's probably done better than at some shops.)

Certain manufacturers used to require full service every year to keep up their parts for life warranties. Even most of those manufacturers have now gone to bi-annual service and annual inspection. (I thought Scubapro was one of those.)
 
This is something new to me, I have never been asked for service records on my gear and have never seen a service tag except for the paper ones that come with freshly serviced gear which is more to identify the ownership. If I was refused I would find a different dive op. Based on your regular soaking and drying of the regs it is unlikely that they all need a full service. I would have someone competant do an inspection to determine if they require a full service and if they did I would also get another quotation as $650 seems excessive.
To me this " cannot use your own equipment unless it has a current service tag" just looks like a money grab.
 
My wife just had her Oceanic reg serviced; the prices seemed high, so I did some "comparables" locally and on the web.
Regs go for $30-35 per stage, plus the service kits....which are sold at MSRP and are not cheap. For Oceanic, the first stage kit was $35 and the second-stage kits were $25 each. Almost $200 for a single reg set.....no console, nothing fancy.
If it were serviced every year, it would be cheaper to sell the existing one for $100 and buy a new one every 2 years. And never get any servicing.
 
If they are taking $650 for an annual service they insist you need yeah, I bet they are really friendly! and that 'no proof of annual service, no dive' oh HELL NO! Your computer will tell you when it needs a battery change for itself. Carry some spares in your save-a-dive kit along with and IP gage that QDs into your Air2 hose. When your 1st stage no longer maintains a lockup, it is time to service your regs. That will likely be 2 years or more from now. Keep your cracking pressure knob backed off when not in use to help the seat and extend its service life. Of course you won't be able to dive on their charter..... I'm betting though that $650 will give you a couple of dive days for the two of you.
 
Hummm, this is starting to get interesting. A very familiar feeling is starting to come over me - like the time, many years ago when I was young and stupid, a car dealer convinced me that rolling an existing car note into a new loan on a new car was a good idea..... I just emailed the local LDS and asked if a full service was actually needed. This is the [redacted] reply -

"Scubapro requires gear to be serviced every 2 years to maintain the parts for life program. ...... At this point though with it being 2 years, all of your equipment needs to be fully serviced".
 
Hum, they said they were going to wave the parts charge. I'm a little outside of the 2 year requirement but "they can get around that."
 

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