By learning to do the work yourself, learning what maintenance is actully required vs what is required to keep up the warranty and then forgetting about the warranty. What you have to realize is the warranty only covers parts, not labor, which is the major cost of the service. If you do not have the proper paperwork or miss any of the terms of the agreement it becomes void anyway. The lifetime warranty is mostly a sales gimick.
The "lifetime" deals are not warranties, they are ways to reduce manufacturer's liability and to keep you coming back into the LDS. There is no logical engineering reason, that I am aware of, for a one year, unlimited dives, service interval, I've seen regulators have problems after just a few dives and I've seen others go for a decade without requiring service. Regulator problems tend to develop gradually and do not feature catastrophic failures, the usual symptoms are either slow leaking or harder breathing.
So you can actually service yourself? How - without the proper tools? What do you need?
There are not a whole lot of specialized tools required, even though an IP guage is nice, you can do without it.
I disagree. I think the lifetime warranty with free parts is great. I recently had my oceanic Delta 4/FDX-10 reg serviced (bought it new from a shop about a year ago). For whatever reason, it basically had to be gutted. I don't know the technical side of things but there was a seal broken (or something) and water had gotten into the first stage. When I got the bill it showed all the new parts and how much each cost (bill was around $280), however I was only charged for the labor $75.
Failures of that sort are usually taken care of by the manufacturer regardless of service history.
To the OP, if you are buying a new reg from an authorized dealer don't dink around with servicing. Get it serviced every year, that way you'll have someone experienced making sure it's in working order and you'll get free parts for life to boot.
Lifetime warranty is not a sales gimmick for those responsible enough to mark a day on their calendar once a year to bring it in for servicing...it really is NOT that tricky...
With all due respect, I think it is basically a gimmick. I'd be more supportive if the service intervals stemmed from a knowledge or prediction of mean-time-to-failure or such, but since there are not different recommendations for first and second stages (very different devices) or for diaphragm and piston first stages (also very different devices) or for sealed or unsealed first stages it appears to me to be more gimmick than necessary maintenance.
I thought herman's statement was worth highlighting and repeating. You'll pay labor each time you have your regulator serviced under warranty. You'll need to do the math to decide whether to stick with the annual service schedule, a "modified" service schedule, or "do it yourself" service schedule.
"Playing their game" refers to never missing an annual services and keeping immaculate records to prove that you have had the services performed.
I have
five regulator sets to maintain, soon to be six, so I decided to do my own servicing, at intervals "other than" annual
In other words, when the regulators actually
need to be serviced. For my regs, that will be at about every 2 years or so, with frequent inspection and testing in between.
Mares I believe also has a free parts warranty (I'm really not sure, I have Mares regs but will be doing my own servicing so I did not buy the regs based on their warranty).
Best Wishes.
I do my own regulators, as far as service intervals are concerned, I'd guess that I do some sort of significant adjustment every year or so, but as far as stripping it down and replacing most of the internal parts ... three to five years is more like it.
Some of us don't trust other people to take care of our own personal gear, especially with something as important as regulators.
Or sometimes the reg techs might not service them exactly to how the diver wants. Might not be "wrong" but perhaps not "optimal".
I would like to point out that most regulator failures that I know of (I mean big failures, like no air or immediate uncontrollable freeflow) occurred right after "professional" servicing.
Some people aren't very technical and would prefer that a professional handle their life support gear. If you don't have an LDS you trust, that is really too bad for you. Telling a brand new diver not to get their gear serviced could be dangerous advice IMO.
People need imformation to make their own decisions. They know what the shops and manufacters recommend, it good that they get other views, but your are right when you say that if you "aren't very technical," you might prefer, "that a professional handle their life support gear," (even if the "Life Support Gear" is, IMHO, a bit overblown). It's good that you found a "pro" to keep your gear tip-top, but they are not found on every corner or at every shop.
While the above in bold might be good for a seasoned diver with the technical skills to rebuilt regulators, I don't advise it as a response to the original poster, who's number of dives says "not certified yet".
He's not ready to start taking apart the gear and rebuilding it yet when he does't even know how to dive....
(However Herman, I fully support you or others rebuilding their regs if you know what you're doing. just not suggesting that we steer folks not ready for it down that path yet...)
Knowing how to dive has nothing whatsoever to do with knowing how to service or repair a regulator. I've known lots of really good helicopter mechanics who wouldn't try to get one off the ground. If you understand the mechanism that make a toilet flush, fill and stop filling, and you are comfortable repairing a toilet yourself ... you're probably ready, with the assistance of a good book, to do a regulator.
Not everyone is ready to feel like they know everything and, in fact, trust a trained service tech more than someone who thinks that his or her hundreds of dives makes them superior to others. Don't try to make those who do not have the interest, time, or perhaps the inclination, feel that they are wrong by having a service technician take care of it for them.
No one should feel bad if based on a real knowledge of what it takes they decine to do their own regs and take them to someone else. I'm quite capable of doing my own automobile brakes, but I tend to take them to someone else. They key is not to be scared into doing so by folks who want to take your money. Hire others to do it if you don't want to, or if yoiu fell you can't, and do not be ashamed of doing so. But don't do it because you've been scared you into services that really are not needed done by people who are likely not much more capable than you are.
... you will pay me for my labor. I paid a lot of money to fly to London and be trained by Apeks. You Should pay me for that knowledge and training if you choose to have me service your regs. Or feel free to do it yourself. I could care less. I would suggest that a new diver have it done by a trained professional. Of course, I get in lots of regs that have been screwed up by those guys who know they can do it better.
That's just the kind of obfuscation that I was referring to. Permit me, please, to observe that that flight and stay was really not required to be competent servicing Apeks regs, some of the easiest to service regs that exist. It would take a real ham-fisted dufus to "screw one up."
