The costs for learning to do servicing correctly and competently in addition to the specialized tools and test devices with all of the associated overhead only to work on a couple of regulators every two years or so don't justify the costs and effort in the greater majority of cases (without taking into consideration people's ability to do the servicing competently). One must also consider that most divers around the world own very few regulators to make it worth their effort and time for the regulator owner to go through the process and for the mfg. to offer the required training and the hassles that go with it. It doesn't make sense to both parties, the regulator owner and the manufacturer.
Some of the companies that sell the parts and train divers to service their own equipment are doing it not because they are nice people but rather to compensate for their EXTREME lack of a real retail support network around the world, they are using the customer as a crutch to compensate for their own shortcomings. They are making a "defect" appear as a "feature" nothing more.
As for the well established manufacturers with robust dealer retail network worldwide, they have invested in their retail network over time and need to support them in every way then can. The dive business is so small and of limited human and financial resources, stakeholders need to watch their dollars and cents in this business. For a company such as AL, Mares or any other mfg., it will take a lot of effort, responsibility, support personnel and resources to start offering proper training and after-training support AROUND the whole wide world for regulator servicing should they chose to open the doors for end users to learn to be competent regulator technicians. It just doesn't make sense financially and from a liability point of view if one takes the big picture into consideration in a logical sense without the emotional noise some people put out. Just imagine the number of calls, emails, complaints, servicing problems AL will be dealing with if they open the training and support to the end users placing a very heavy financial and administrative burden in addition to astronomical liability responsibilities on the company that will be a serious detriment instead of being real gain in the long term.
Most real manufacturers require dealer technicians to attend refresher training every 3 - 4 years through mfg. sponsored training, end users will be need to do the same for a much more expense and responsibility for the mfg. These manufacturers can barely keep up with the much smaller number of dealer technicians' training and follow up as it is now, adding end users to the equation is going to be a much more daunting task and an extreme burden that will have no positive value on the bottom line of these companies. The companies that are doing it and offering training to end user now will probably find other ways of retreating from their initial stand once they get real busy with very thin qualified human resources and increased financial burden with very low and disproportionate return.
Having the president and owner of a dive equipment manufacturer running regulator repair service courses means that he and his company aren't busy enough in their business and that the company doesn't have the financial resources to hire a properly qualified person to do the job leaving the owner and president do what they should be doing for a busy company. One needs to read between the lines.
Some of the companies that sell the parts and train divers to service their own equipment are doing it not because they are nice people but rather to compensate for their EXTREME lack of a real retail support network around the world, they are using the customer as a crutch to compensate for their own shortcomings. They are making a "defect" appear as a "feature" nothing more.
As for the well established manufacturers with robust dealer retail network worldwide, they have invested in their retail network over time and need to support them in every way then can. The dive business is so small and of limited human and financial resources, stakeholders need to watch their dollars and cents in this business. For a company such as AL, Mares or any other mfg., it will take a lot of effort, responsibility, support personnel and resources to start offering proper training and after-training support AROUND the whole wide world for regulator servicing should they chose to open the doors for end users to learn to be competent regulator technicians. It just doesn't make sense financially and from a liability point of view if one takes the big picture into consideration in a logical sense without the emotional noise some people put out. Just imagine the number of calls, emails, complaints, servicing problems AL will be dealing with if they open the training and support to the end users placing a very heavy financial and administrative burden in addition to astronomical liability responsibilities on the company that will be a serious detriment instead of being real gain in the long term.
Most real manufacturers require dealer technicians to attend refresher training every 3 - 4 years through mfg. sponsored training, end users will be need to do the same for a much more expense and responsibility for the mfg. These manufacturers can barely keep up with the much smaller number of dealer technicians' training and follow up as it is now, adding end users to the equation is going to be a much more daunting task and an extreme burden that will have no positive value on the bottom line of these companies. The companies that are doing it and offering training to end user now will probably find other ways of retreating from their initial stand once they get real busy with very thin qualified human resources and increased financial burden with very low and disproportionate return.
Having the president and owner of a dive equipment manufacturer running regulator repair service courses means that he and his company aren't busy enough in their business and that the company doesn't have the financial resources to hire a properly qualified person to do the job leaving the owner and president do what they should be doing for a busy company. One needs to read between the lines.
