I get a few e-mails or PMs each week from people asking me to service their Scubapro regs - either because they are not happy with the general quality of service work from their local dealer, or because they have an older Scubapro reg and a dealer that would rather sell them a new reg than service their old one, or they own something like a D400 that the average tech just does not see much and is not very good at servicing and tuning. That latter point was driven home at the last "Expert Tech" where servicing the D400 was covered - this coverage consisted of a 5 minutes lecture no discussion of internals or differences from a normal reg and no description or demonstration of the adjustment procedures for it. It was mostly 5 minutes of "it's a great reg, but it's old and you should sell them a new one". Thus, unless a tech has prior experience with the D400 or has a tech in the shop with them who can pass on that knowledge, a tech will not have any good mechanism to learn how to service an Air 1 or D300/D350/D400.
I really appreciate the support that is out there and the potential business, but since moving to Winterville, NC, I am no longer associated with a Scubapro dealer (or any other dive shop for that matter). The local Scubapro dealer isn't interested in another tech, even one with his own customer base, so such an association is probably not going to happen anytime soon. That's a problem as my only reliable access to parts is through an Authorized Scubapro Dealer, as Scubapro remains strongly wedded to a local dive shop service model. I've approached both Scubapro and Halcyon about a regional service center not attached to a local dive shop and separate from the over head that involves, allowing higher volume of reg repair work with lower hourly charges that would offset the shipping costs involved and neither company wants to pursue that. In one regard I can't really fault them for that as they probably want to maintain service work as a revenue stream for their dealers, but on the other hand there is still a need to address service quality issues and to provide service for older and distinctly different but still very prolific regs like the D400.
However, with that model in place and no local interest, I am just not able to do any reg repair work at this time.
Sorry guys.
I really appreciate the support that is out there and the potential business, but since moving to Winterville, NC, I am no longer associated with a Scubapro dealer (or any other dive shop for that matter). The local Scubapro dealer isn't interested in another tech, even one with his own customer base, so such an association is probably not going to happen anytime soon. That's a problem as my only reliable access to parts is through an Authorized Scubapro Dealer, as Scubapro remains strongly wedded to a local dive shop service model. I've approached both Scubapro and Halcyon about a regional service center not attached to a local dive shop and separate from the over head that involves, allowing higher volume of reg repair work with lower hourly charges that would offset the shipping costs involved and neither company wants to pursue that. In one regard I can't really fault them for that as they probably want to maintain service work as a revenue stream for their dealers, but on the other hand there is still a need to address service quality issues and to provide service for older and distinctly different but still very prolific regs like the D400.
However, with that model in place and no local interest, I am just not able to do any reg repair work at this time.
Sorry guys.