Last year I bought a Suunto Vyper2 and was naive to the grey market pitfall. I have since had trouble with this device and sent in back to the "grey dealer". It has a 2 year warranty with them. This resulted in a barrage of phone calls to find out when I would get it back with a complete report of the devices repairs. I received the device back with a 7 page stack of papers which gave inconclusive test results. The report was in affect garbage. The instrument they tested it against wasn't even set to the same sample rate as my defective device. They did 3 "test dives" and there were ascent errors on my device as I indicated was the reason I sent it back in the first place. My logs reflect my having done a dive for approximately 5 minutes at 9 feet. I never made any such dive. When I saw the failure at 26 feet I had a Gekko as a backup and the Vyper2 went to 14' then 12' then 0 feet before going back into time mode, all this at 26 feet.
The "grey dealer" said they sent it back to a Suunto service center which after some research I found out exactly where it went. The computer only did this after 5 dives in Bonaire and went into lockout for 48 hours. I should have seen it coming because the logged data had spikes moving several feet in a couple of seconds. I had to rent a computer after 24 hours, time enough for me to match the rental as I knew my previous activity would not be an issue doing this.
The lesson here is to buy from an authorized dealer and someone who you can have direct personal contact with concerning your product. This is an Aqua Lung / Suunto product and they have very high standards for their equipment which I commend them for. Only scuba shops sell them, Aqua Lung / Suunto does not allow online or phone sales of their equipment. Aqua Lung is the authorized dealer and service for Suunto products. There are only 3 places in North America that service Suunto products otherwise it's sent overseas to Suunto.
I bought a Suunto D9 computer at a dive shop to replace this device as I know I can never trust it again.
Never rely on just your computer either, a lot can happen. Computers are taken for granted too much now a days and one can get into serious trouble doing this!!!
I'll not mention the dealer name or service center at this time, as I do not know if this would be a violation of the ScubaBoard rules.
The "grey dealer" said they sent it back to a Suunto service center which after some research I found out exactly where it went. The computer only did this after 5 dives in Bonaire and went into lockout for 48 hours. I should have seen it coming because the logged data had spikes moving several feet in a couple of seconds. I had to rent a computer after 24 hours, time enough for me to match the rental as I knew my previous activity would not be an issue doing this.
The lesson here is to buy from an authorized dealer and someone who you can have direct personal contact with concerning your product. This is an Aqua Lung / Suunto product and they have very high standards for their equipment which I commend them for. Only scuba shops sell them, Aqua Lung / Suunto does not allow online or phone sales of their equipment. Aqua Lung is the authorized dealer and service for Suunto products. There are only 3 places in North America that service Suunto products otherwise it's sent overseas to Suunto.
I bought a Suunto D9 computer at a dive shop to replace this device as I know I can never trust it again.
Never rely on just your computer either, a lot can happen. Computers are taken for granted too much now a days and one can get into serious trouble doing this!!!
I'll not mention the dealer name or service center at this time, as I do not know if this would be a violation of the ScubaBoard rules.
