OK Guys and Gals, the bottomline.....

[Wildbill]

Like most of you I got a LP Holiday Specials Catalog. Inside they advertise an MARES MR12 Axis Reg for $114.95 and a MARES MR12 Axis Octo for $59.95. So for about 175 bucks I can get both I know this is a deal but I want the bottomline on the no warranty issue. Is it really a pain to have my LDS service these or is it worth saving alot of money up front and spend it later on the services. I also want to know that what if I bought a reg or octo at a garage sale or pawn shop, I wouldn't have a warranty card. Couldn't I just tell the LDS that I bought them from a buddy?

Please let me know ASAP, I got to start convincing the wife on the great buy I'm getting.

 

[Tavi]

You can pay to have them seviced

You can send them to LP for service.

I usually tell my favotite shop what a deal I can get online. Then they come as close as they can. It's usually close enough that I'll buy from them rather than on-line.

Or, you could tell them you got them for x-mas.

 

[drizzt117]

I really wouldn't worry about the warranty issue. All the warranty covers is parts for a year. I complete rebuild kit for most diaphragm regulators is $15-20. It does not cover labor which is where most of the cost comes in. So unless you are going to get the regs rebuilt about 10 times in the first year, I wouldn't worry about the warranty.

But you also could get them sent to LP.

Thomas

 

[Mnflyboy]

I bought the same set-up from L.P. in Aug and am very happy with them. Now that the season is over for this year I contacted L.P. yesterday about returning my 1st stage and octo because of free flowing problems. Gotta say they have been very cooperative with me.

Jaye from Minnesota.

ps: my first post on the board !!!

 

[Wildbill]

I was thinking that there would not be any problems. I can not think of any reasons not to buy the setup for such a low price.

MNflyboy, Welcome to the boards like me you will learn alot here. With living in FL there really is no season I am just going to have to buy a suit to wear in the water 'cause it can get to a whopping fridgid 60-70 degrees.

Thanks again......
Wildbill

 

[chrpai]

I have the MR12 Axis rig as well. I bought them from a local shop and they had slight hissing problems from day one. I took it to my shop twice and twice they adjusted it. Since then it rarely happens. The guy at the shop said all their rental regs ( same model ) did that when they were new aswell.

Well I've since become older and wiser and I now fix the problem myself. Look for the pin that says LOCK and extract it. Now unscrew the faceplate. Remove the retaining ring and diagphram. At the base of the lever you'll find the demand valve and on it a small nut. Give the nut an ever so counterclockwise nudge. ( about 1/16 of a turn ) and it will tighten it up alittle. Too much of a turn and it'll be hard to breath. Turn it in the wrong direction and it'll freeflow.

There are some good sources of information out there and I can tell you that I'm going to be cheap and never service my regs. I have a pony with a seperate reg just in case. But when a regulator fails it almost always freeflows. I can handle that for the kind of diving I do. And if my second stage fails, thats why I have an octopus. And if my 1st stage fails thats why I have a pony.

Seriously regs are alot tougher then manufactures and diveshops want you to think they are. Comparing the cost of annual servicing vs just picking up a new Mares at LeisurePro, I'll just get a new one every few years.

 

[wreckchick]

is this a joke?

 

[cstreu1026]

I didn't know anyone was building disposable regs yet. To think I wasted $700 on my regs that have to be serviced annually. Of course maybe thats the cost of having a reliable reg that doesn't require me carrying a pony bottle becuase of the constant threat of equipment failure. Of course I hardly think there is a comparison between my scuba pro Mk25/S600/R380 and a Mares Axis.

By the way what happens when the reg on your pony bottle that doesn't get serviced fails?

 

[chrpai]

No its not a joke and I know alot of people who think the same way. Any thing can fail at any time, whether its been serviced or not. The pony isn't there because I don't trust my gear, its there because I recognize that fact. However with that fact in mind its pure statistics from redundancy. If my main air supply has a 1/1000 chance of failing on my dive and my redundant system has a 1/1000 chance of failing, then the chance of either one of them failing on a dive is 1/500. However the chance of them both failing at the same time on a dive is 1/1,000,000. This is a greater level of security then can be bought by paying a dive shop $$$ every year to "service" my gear or by buying more exensive gear. Think computers and you'll think of the term RAID. Redundant Array of INEXPENSIVE Drives.

And for record, almost all regulators made today perform well and are reliable. The only thing the MR12 is missing is a fine tune adjustment. You have to dissasemble it to adjust the cracking pressure.

The reality is an MR12 Axis 1st/2nd and Octopus from LP is less then $200. At that price I do consider it disposable. With the money I save I was able to purchase a pony setup and still have enough money left over to replace either setup in case of failure.

Chris

 

[Ari]

...And had it serviced in Israel. No problem. Had to pay about $30 for the service, including all of the parts replaced.

And, by the way, the LP warranty is quite good. Never had a problem with the way they are doing warranty, other than the fact that it is quite far away from home

Ari