Mares MRS Plus Weight Pouch Dropping Root Cause

[Don Quixote]

Anyone who had the same experience,

My weight pouch dropped out on two occasions, once in Peace Island and again during the Orchid Island dive. The first time, someone saw my weight dropped out, retrieved and handed it back to me. The second time is not as lucky being over 100 meters of depth. I was lucky that only one side dropped out and have weights distributed in the BC trim pockets. It is a scary and frustrating experience. So, I took sometime to look into it and see if it can be corrected. Here is the finding:

1) We have four pouches between me and my buddy and they came in either of the two following situations:

Both assemblies do not secure the pocket tightly to the buckle. The weight pocket will slide against the buckle and may tug the handle causing the weight to drop. It may be difficult for anyone to send a pouch that has dropped back to Mares for analysis. This is a case of bad manufacturing quality. The engineering is superb but manufacturing quality is bad. The Dragon BC (I am using) is superbly engineered too with lots of redundant safety interlocks. But, it came with a lot of the buckles and straps not properly secured. This is common with European products though including Mercedes Benz. That is why they are mostly in the bottom half of the JD Power reliability chart. But I love the BC, just need to fix the loose bolts and nuts.

2) The straps should go in as follows and in the numbered sequence:

Strap 1 is most likely for redundant safety, just in case the retainer on the buckle breaks.

3) A correct and rigid assembly is as follows:

 

[scubafied]

I had a Mares Icon with the same problem and noticed this after trying to locate the issue. Just putting the webbing straps back in the slots won't solve your problem though (temporarily at best). They will still wiggle themselves free during your diving and just general transit of the equipment. The only way to truly get rid of the problem is to sew the webbing straps together or get a new BCD. I chose the latter after my bladder sprung a leak and was able to warranty the old BCD and sell the new BCD they sent me that still had the same old problem. Sometimes I wonder how many people have to complain or have a dangerous experience with the product before brands like Mares finally do something about it.

 

[Don Quixote]

I had a Mares Icon with the same problem and noticed this after trying to locate the issue. Just putting the webbing straps back in the slots won't solve your problem though (temporarily at best). They will still wiggle themselves free during your diving and just general transit of the equipment. The only way to truly get rid of the problem is to sew the webbing straps together or get a new BCD. I chose the latter after my bladder sprung a leak and was able to warranty the old BCD and sell the new BCD they sent me that still had the same old problem. Sometimes I wonder how many people have to complain or have a dangerous experience with the product before brands like Mares finally do something about it.

Thank you for sharing the experience. I have now secured the strap from the inside with a 3mm cable tie as shown below. The tie is rated at 18lbs.

 

[scubafied]

I hope that solution works for you. I hope even more that companies like Mares will eventually wake up and stop releasing products to the market until they have worked out all the bugs and the products operate safely and as advertised.

When I first started diving I made the mistake of buying a complete set of gear from Mares and the only pieces that worked as advertised were the mask and fins. Every piece of expensive equipment has had issues or failures that their customer service department has been less than inclined to help with. The BC was returned due to the Bladder leak but they wouldn't take it back before that when it was because of the weight pouch issue (the problem was nothing new to them). The Mares Icon HD that 3 years after advertising it would, still will not communicate with my Mac. It barely communicates with PC's most times and I've been told that they can't/won't do anything for me unless I want to keep sending it in to them every time they do a new firmware upgrade. And finally a set of Carbon 42 regs that developed an IP creep about 4 months into ownership that not a single technician in 4 services has been able to figure out or stop completely. Admittedly, I have just put up with this problem and not sent it in as I am tired of getting the same old run around from them.

The one person who genuinely seemed to want to help is Zak whom I got a hold of here. Unfortunately he is only able to do so much and most of my communications with him lead back down the road to their customer service department.

You live and learn I guess but this left a taste in my mouth that I share with all of my students and guests that bother to ask about equipment.

 

[swimmer_spe]

I have that set up, and have yet to have issues.I think I am going to get some cable ties and ensure that does not happen.

 

[Roatan]

Great. I recently bought the Mares Dragon MRS and have used it on 8 dives with no problems. I now have to decide whether to modify it and void the warranty or do nothing and keep my fingers crossed.

 

[modustollens]

I have a Mares BC with that set up. The weight pocket fell out too - though, if I am reading the first post correctly - my whole pocket, big red clip and all, fell out and not just the pocket.

Not good. Looked for it but could not find it; had to buy a replacement. Then, another diver found it and took it to the LDS - who saved it for me!

But I bought a wing and backplate. And I won't dive with that Mares BC anymore. The weight falling out accidentally pushed me to look for another system.

I wish I knew, when I bought that BC, what I know now after I used the BP/W.

I also did not like the fact that the weight would shift inside the pocket sometimes. And the weight was too far out from the body. There is so much plastic and material I needed more weight than I require with my new system and my arms have more freedom of movement.

I have never had to dump weights; and I suspect its a rare event - far rarer than those big red handles require. Plus, the teeth on the clip are really small - not surprised the pockets have been lost.

MT

 

[Dom Perignon]

Following up on related threads (Uncontrolled ascent!! - Loss of a Weight Insert for Mares Prestige BCD pocket & Dragon MRS plus dropping pocket), I had to buy two replacement pockets: both are brand new, they even had 'Made in Bulgaria' stickers on it.

Both had only 2 out of 3 straps inserted correctly: one short strap (#1 in picture above), one long strap (#3 in picture above). Both were as easy (very easy) to pull out from the BCD as the original one I still have.

Since I was about to leave for a 3 week trip to Indonesia, I did not want to risk losing another pocket + risk an uncontrolled ascent, I looked into the tie wrap idea described by Don Quixote.

Tying strap #1 and #2 through their loops was not possible with the tie wraps I had, which were too wide to fit into the loops. I tried tying the two below the loops but that did not have enough grip to hold them together.

I ended up tying all 3 together. Getting strap #3 in was the toughest part - there was not much length to play with.

I did a dry test and this tie wrap fix solves the problem! It definitely makes it harder to pull the weight pocket out of the BCD. You have to give it a good tug, as opposed to a gentle tug for the unmodified pocket. This also limits the range the weight pockets can travel, which reduces the tugging force on the clip when weights move.

I also used the whole set in Indonesia and it worked great: weight pockets are easy to put in, require a good tug to pull out but most importantly I did not lose any!

Thanks to Don Quixote for looking into this and suggesting the tie-wrap fix.

 

[johnboywalton]

I'm glad to see the Mares integrated weight bug getting more attention. I saw this very thing -- the weights simply plopped right out of holsters, and up and off the diver went. I'm always suspicious of a very basic system like this that requires a lot of fiddling, like the ripcord integrated weights. A system that looks simple and is actually complex like what is suggested here for Mares? That's awful.

With all the BCDs out there, why would you buy a Mares if you knew it had to be fiddled with like this?

 

[Don Quixote]

Glad it worked for you. Work perfectly for me in 10 dives over the past few weeks. I use 3mm cable ties. To get it into the fold, I used an allen wrench to first widen the space between the fold. Then, thread the cable tie in with a flat-face long-nose plier, 1/8 inch at a time until the tip of the cable tie comes out of the other end. Then just pull it through. I like the way the pocket can now stay fixed inside the BC. It no longer slips forward causing me to turtle on the surface. And, no drop-outs anymore.

~Don Quixote

Following up on related threads (Uncontrolled ascent!! - Loss of a Weight Insert for Mares Prestige BCD pocket & Dragon MRS plus dropping pocket), I had to buy two replacement pockets: both are brand new, they even had 'Made in Bulgaria' stickers on it.

Both had only 2 out of 3 straps inserted correctly: one short strap (#1 in picture above), one long strap (#3 in picture above). Both were as easy (very easy) to pull out from the BCD as the original one I still have.

Since I was about to leave for a 3 week trip to Indonesia, I did not want to risk losing another pocket + risk an uncontrolled ascent, I looked into the tie wrap idea described by Don Quixote.

Tying strap #1 and #2 through their loops was not possible with the tie wraps I had, which were too wide to fit into the loops. I tried tying the two below the loops but that did not have enough grip to hold them together.

I ended up tying all 3 together. Getting strap #3 in was the toughest part - there was not much length to play with.

I did a dry test and this tie wrap fix solves the problem! It definitely makes it harder to pull the weight pocket out of the BCD. You have to give it a good tug, as opposed to a gentle tug for the unmodified pocket. This also limits the range the weight pockets can travel, which reduces the tugging force on the clip when weights move.

I also used the whole set in Indonesia and it worked great: weight pockets are easy to put in, require a good tug to pull out but most importantly I did not lose any!

Thanks to Don Quixote for looking into this and suggesting the tie-wrap fix.