So customer price for poppet, spring and b/c are less then $10 for all? Can we order from you?
Re-read my post, I did
not type poppet, spring, and balance chamber. I wrote spring and balance chamber. The poppet comes in the service kit with the two little o-rings and seat. If one has an older service kit with no poppet, it will have to be purchased separately, the price I can’t remember.
OK There is your proof. Per your post: Spring + balance chamber approximately $10
I'm pretty sure you won't find a poppet assembly for much less than $10 (or did you?)
No, I did
not write poppet assembly. I wrote spring and balance chamber. Do not add extra words into wha I typed.
A poppet assembly is the poppet, the two tiny o-rings and seat, it does not include the spring and balance chamber. Yes, one can get technical and state the whole assembly is everything. If you look at the schematics it clearly shows the poppet assembly is as I described it.
I would love to be proved wrong. Yes, I believe the dive shop may be paying Scubapro ~ $6 for the poppet assembly,~ $2 for the spring, $3.30 for a balance chamber but we are discussing how much the parts would cost the customer on top of labor to install them. I have to admit, I could not sell one of those kits for much less than $30 as that is my replacement cost after shipping, taxes, etc.
The amount for the spring and poppet is less than what you typed. Even so, if the prices were that and a shop used keystone pricing the spring would be $4 and the balance chamber $6.60, making the upgrade (assuming the service tech is using a recent Scubapro kit that has the poppet assembly) $10.60. The service kit for a G250 listed on eBay (the price is average/fair) is $25. Hence the total cost would be around $35 for the kit and parts. This does NOT include labor.
If the OP can take his regulators in, have them rebuilt, and only pay ~ $20 for the upgrade parts (plus a reasonable price for labor) I would consider that fair. But better yet, perhaps
@SlyStrat can send them to
@shurite7 and you can sell him the parts for $10 as you quoted above.
Had you contacted me this past summer I would have said yes, send it to me. However, this past spring I graduated from grad school and left the shop, in mid-summer, to pursue a much better paying career. Recently, I met up with my old shop (I left one state for another) and will teach diving and service regs here and there, but I will not run the store.
When I ran the shop, my price for servicing regs was $30 per stage plus service kits and parts if they were needed, the latter not being very often. Service kits for Apeks, Aqualung and Scubapro varied in price, with environmentally sealed first stages costing the most, rather on the high side. I much preferred paying for the service kits, even with my discount (and yes, I paid for my own, no freebies), for my own Mk25s than my Mk17s. I can’t remember the exact prices for the shop where I am at now in terms of labor, although it is similar to what I was. Now I don’t have to deal with figuring out costs, just teach and service, which is rather nice.
Of course I'm not a dealer so am paying "customer" prices, which means shops are making quite the margin.
I never had to deal with independent service techs. I do know of shop owners / managers who did and they did not give discounts to those techs, let alone sell the service kits. So, I am unable to comment about this. Needless to say, I would not consider becoming an independent service tech or scuba instructor.
When I ran a shop, while attending college as a non-traditional undergrad and graduate student, many of my customers mailed their regs to me. My prices were decent (average) for labor and normal keystone for service kits and parts. I made sure I did a good job servicing regs - I would dive any reg that I serviced. If there was one that didn’t seem quite right I took it on a dive, letting the customer know what I was doing before hand, to see how it performed. I didn’t want my customers and students coming back stating there was something wrong (It did happen a couple of times with tuning second stages too lightly when I first started, but I learned) with the reg or BCD; I wanted them to return and say their trip was great, the gear worked fantastic, and become a repeat customer and/or refer another customer. I am happy to say many did. I also built a rapport / relationship with my customers so that they chose to come back to my shop, take my advice, gain more knowledge, and have fun scuba diving as well as staying safe. I wasn’t perfect, one customer stormed out really pissed off at me because I wouldn’t fill his scuba tank - not sure where he got the cylinder - because he wasn’t certified, yet he was teaching his kids how to dive. Anyways, I ran the shop long enough that I had costs and prices, for the most part, memorized.
