Warning local houston dive shop

[ShakaZulu]

What is non-warrantee work on a reg? If you have your APEKS regs serviced by a non-approved dealer, you will not receive the "free parts for life". If you don't mind paying every year for parts, then it's no biggy..........

 

[MSilvia]

it seems to me they should have said we are not an authorized Apeks dealer.
Then I would have said.... OK I'll take my regs elsewhere.

If you're a repair facility, and someone brings you something to repair, I would think the natural thing to do would be to appreciate the business and do the best job possible.

If you brought your BMW to the neighborhood mechanic for an oil change and fuel filter replacement, would you expect him to say, "You know I'm not a BMW dealership, right?" or would you expect him to do the work?

As the LDS isn't an Apeks dealer, why do you assume they would know anything about Apeks' warantee policies?

 

[MSilvia]

What is non-warrantee work on a reg?

I guess that would be the sort of work you'd get from a shop that isn't a certified Apeks tinkerer, without the expectation of free parts. You know... the sort of thing that isn't covered by the warantee.

 

[RIDIVER501]

Some of my students, who don't live locally to the dive center, just purchased new regs this weekend and asked be about this very topic so here was my advice to them.

]"when you are looking at getting your equipment serviced ask the shop personel to show you the certificates for the technicians who will be working on your gear."

They bought Aqua-lung Titan LX's so the shop owner went in to the back of the shop and pulled out the certificates from Aqua-lung for both he and I, that show we are qualified to work on those regs.

Sadly not all dive shops do this but, we have turned away repairs becuase we aren't certified technicians on gear. an example is Oceanic....we aren't an Oceanic dealer, we aren't certified technicians on Oceanic gear....some customers have brought us Oceanic equipment for it's annuals, but we have to turn it away becuase we aren't really authorized or trained to repair it.

 

[scubapro50]

Some warrantes from well known companies are not worth the paper they are printed on after a couple of years .... Example is my lifetime warrenty from VOIT/SWIMASTER now MARES .... the company that bought out AMF doesn't want anything to do with their older stuff ... another example is Dacor (same company) has anounced that they are not going to support the Pacer line anymore (another lifetime warrenty) ... damn ... I just bought a new 360 Pacer less about 4 years ago from my local shop who has done the required service on it each year .....

 

[Cudabait]

OK so I am stupid for trusting my local dive shop and not researching the topic on my own first........

but It seems that there should be some sort of legal obligation for the dive shop to tell you that they are not a certified dealer of the Apeks before they go and

VOID YOUR WARANTEE by working on them
-Mike

Mike, you took the regs to them and requested the work be done. If they did what you wanted, they did their job. Whoever they are, they are not palm readers, they are in the dive business.

Score dive shop 1.....Mike 0.

PS...There are several shops around that I just don't go into.

Regards,

 

[archman]

I always thought it was a LDS' responsibility to notify you if they weren't certified to work on your brand of gear. That's the way my LDS operates, I assumed it was universal.

 

[medic_diver45]

Here's a good question: HOW DOES ONE BECOME A CERTIFIED TECHNICIAN FOR PARTICULAR BRANDS? DO YOU HAVE TO BE A DEALER TO SERVICE THEM (say I wanted to learn to repair stuff, but don't own a dive shop)?

 

[jerrynuss]

There are a couple ways to become a "certified Tech" you could get affiliated with a local dive shop and they could get you into a course at their place when a tech instructor comes around or place you in a class up at Our World Underwater or DEMA. You could get training from the IASRT and get qualified on a bunch of different regulators.

I have a couple of factory certifications and normally the classes are very brief with the disassembly and reassembly of some regulators from that vendor. Some have lasted around two hours and some have lasted all day. Most of them are very similar so the practice is pretty close to the same.

A lot of certifications expire so I have gotten several certifications that have expired over time but I still service my own regulators from my own stock of parts or get new kits from a dealer. This is important when there has been a recall or change in seat material. As far as servicing I do all my own regulators which amount to over twenety different regulators. Now these are for my own personal use so I just service them. For the local shop I only work on what they sell and what my certification is current for. This is to protect the shop and myself legally.

If you have a dive team with a uniformity in equipment that may be owned by the department you could also pursue getting training and parts through the company that provides the equipment.

The Airspeed Press book is a good source of information and so is Peterbuilt.