Is this an obsurd price for servicing? Atomic B2

[Scared Silly]

Back to the OP's question ... the price was probably reasonable. The question is - was it necessary. While the mfg say service every year or two years many go far longer with no ill affects. One shop tech will do a complete rebuild but before hand he does tests on the reg as well as a complete look over. If it passes his inspection he returns it - otherwise he recommends an over haul.

 

[beanojones]

Atomic charges approximately $70 per stage, and that includes labor & parts replacement. Even the plastic parts get replaced. So that's $140 every two years. Big whoopdedoo. They work on these things, test them to make sure they're in spec, put them on the breathing machine, etc. To me that's worth the extra $20.

Other regs have annual services ($40-60 depending on the shop). Some regs have "free parts" and some don't.

Or do it yourself and save a few bucks.

Or just keep using the thing until it malfunctions and then send it in for service.

That's a really interesting point about the Atomics. Since missing service intervals does not void warranties, Atomic allows you to extend the interval without lifetime penalty.

I heard that Atomic was even wanting to extend their warranty interval to 5 years/300 dives but the dealers complained about the revenue stream hit.

 

[redacted]

Back to the OP's question ... the price was probably reasonable. The question is - was it necessary. While the mfg say service every year or two years many go far longer with no ill affects. One shop tech will do a complete rebuild but before hand he does tests on the reg as well as a complete look over. If it passes his inspection he returns it - otherwise he recommends an over haul.

What is the charge for just the inspection?

 

[Sonic04GT]

Thanks for all the information guys. To answer a couple of the questions above; yes they are a friendly dive shop that appear to be about the customer. After he serviced my reg he showed me the bag of parts that came out of it and told me that it actually looked really good and to keep doing what I was doing. I'm now kind of puzzled though because a lot of that stuff probably didn't need to be replaced, but he took the time to honestly show me and explain. Turn around time was about 4-5 days though. They are fairly well known and I assume pretty busy. But the story I'm leading up to...shortly after (couple days) I had my first stage sealed, which he said would take about a day. I had a boat dive the next morning. The tech agreed to stay a little bit later, finish my reg, and he met me at the shop in the morning before the doors opened so I could get my reg and get out on the boat. That made me a happy customer.

As some else mentioned, $50 a year I guess isn't bad, but I don't think my reg needed an overhaul. It had maybe 30-35 dives on it over a period of 2 years. (It sat for a year when I was in Iraq)

SCUBA Diving Floridas Best Dive Sites, SCUBA Dive Palm Beach Florida

Edit - Wow! I didn't see there were 4 pages. I only read page 1. I'll read the rest later haha

 

[Scared Silly]

What is the charge for just the inspection?

To be honest I can not remember ... $15-$20 ????

 

[beanojones]

As some else mentioned, $50 a year I guess isn't bad, but I don't think my reg needed an overhaul. It had maybe 30-35 dives on it over a period of 2 years. (It sat for a year when I was in Iraq)

To be fair to your dive shop, every other manufacturer but Atomic insists on annual overhauls. In fact, failure to do schedued overhauls voids your warranty (forever) for every other manufacturer but Atomic.

Atomic is the only manufacturer that does not void the warranty if you don't service it for a couple years, and they are the only manufacturer who has a greater service interval than one year.

 

[halocline]

To be fair to your dive shop, every other manufacturer but Atomic insists on annual overhauls. In fact, failure to do schedued overhauls voids your warranty (forever) for every other manufacturer but Atomic.

Actually I don't think this is true anymore. I think aqualung (maybe some others) require annual inspection with biennial (every two years) overhauls, as long as the inspection on the in-between year checks out. I'm not really sure about this, but I seem to remember hearing something about it.

In SP's case, missing an annual does not void your warranty "forever." It just means you have to pay for parts when you service it, then you go back on the free parts provided you get it serviced annually.

Of course, it would never occur to me to buy a new reg so I really don't care much about the "warranty."

 

[beanojones]

Actually I don't think this is true anymore. I think aqualung (maybe some others) require annual inspection with biennial (every two years) overhauls, as long as the inspection on the in-between year checks out. I'm not really sure about this, but I seem to remember hearing something about it.

In SP's case, missing an annual does not void your warranty "forever." It just means you have to pay for parts when you service it, then you go back on the free parts provided you get it serviced annually.

Actually now that your point it out that way, essentially no manufacturer really warranties their regs at all. SP does by giving you 'free' parts, but when corrosion or wear kills off metal parts they do not replace them, and you only get 'free' parts when you pay for reg service. (They never gave me parts to service my regs at the then current service interval of 100 dives when I used their gear instructing. Of course they would have had to give me 'free' parts every 20 days, so I understood. I was never going to overhaul my regs once a month anyway.)

Atomic gives what amount to free replacement of plastic parts, and some of their metal bits don't corrode, but that 'free' replacement only happens when you send it to the factory for service. Atomic dealers will charge you for any plastic parts they replace, because Atomic charges them for those parts.