divecon15:
Sorry I can't help it, but some of your guys are morons!
Let me put it this way your 100-80 feet under water what is keeping you alive? Could it be your regulaor???? Thus your regulator is LIFE SUPPORT EQUIPMENT! If you can't see that then in my opion you are a moron.
Now as a person that has serviced quite a few regs you would be suprised what condition so regs have been when they were opened up, sand, corrosion, bad o-rings, bad seats, popets, diaphram's, mouth peices, ect... even though I work at a dive shop sometimes we have to order parts because we don't have them in stock let alone them being included in the anual service kit. Oh yea and one more thing almost every brand/ model of reg has special tools required for their service...
There is a reason that you take regs to the PROFESSIONALS and there is a reason they charge what they do, I could go into all the cost but I won't bore you...
Get your reg serviced by a professional in the time intervaul set by the man. It is worth every penny.
One last question, What is your life worth????????
SURE, IT IS REASONABLE TO CONSIDER IT "life support equiopment". (We are using caps for emphasis, right.) Along with things like your mask, BC, inflator, and your weight belt buckle and of which could catestrophically malfunction contributing to a serious incident. My problem is playing it like it is some kind of trump card to seperate some customer from his cash.
My point is simply that if you really believe that your life is dependent one a piece of rubber that cost the mfgr about $0.01 then you should not be diving. Regs will have problems. Most serious problems will reveil themselves as you set up and test your gear before a dive. Minor leaks are nor uncommon to find during a dive, and will generally do nothing more than possibly shorten your dive at most. For more serious problems, a diver should be planning for available courses of action including reverting to an alt 2nd for things like wet breathing due to a damaged diaphram, mouthpiece, exhaust valve, or primary case o-ring failure. Other problems with your reg may require switching to a redundent air source or perhaps a CESA. None of these things are inherently life threatening. A diver either need to be prepared to handle such thing or they should not be diving. Having a properly functioning reg serviced introduces the opportunity for a servicing error that may cause the same kind of problems you were hoping to avoid. I'm not saying don't service your gear. Lots of things can go wrong with a reg (and other things) and it is probably better to catch these problems at the incipient stage thru periodic inspection and service.
My problem is with folks who would fund their diving by coercing and gouging customers out of their diving $$$. I hope you are not one of them, but you are making the same kinds of statements as they tend to make to induce divers to paythem for annual service with no more consideration than it is recommended (some say required) by the mfgr.
And then there is all those expensive tools. It's a wonder we even had regulators before we had ultrasonic cleaners. If one has the right tools for working on a motorcycle, you are probably under the cost of one service away from having all the tools you need to service your reg. Of course, that doesn't include the professional looking flow bench found in many shops. But that is more like the difference between working on your car while it is up on jack stands rather than having a professional lift. Many special tools are mostly a way of discouraging folks who have no business from fiddeling with it rather than preventing knowledgable DIYer from doing their own thing.
Annual service is appropriate for many divers. It is clearly worth it to the guy working the cash register. How much it is worth seems to vary a bunch: $20 to $40 per stage plus parts with 0% to 500% markup.
How much do you charge? Please, go ahead and bore us a little.
