Thread: Dynafit toe problem

After bumping this thread from the deeps of TGR with my question a few days ago I have since gone back to look at the fittings on the toe of my right boot. Looks like one of the inserts has been deformed towards the top.

Don't suppose that Scarpa will warranty my Spirit 4s from 2008?

Or am I out of luck and have to buy new boots. I was already committing myself to new liners anyways.

A clear picture of the problem would get you a lot of helpful suggestions.

Originally Posted by wardog

Also I tried pivoting my boot to vertical in the toepiece (so there was no boot sole contact with the jaws) and then pushing down on the boot with all my weight -- I couldn't get the jaws to move at all.

In that case, I would guess that your inserts are deformed in some way.

Originally Posted by wardog

I tried pivoting my boot to vertical in the toepiece (so there was no boot sole contact with the jaws) and then pushing down on the boot with all my weight -- I couldn't get the jaws to move at all.

Assuming you are locked out in tour mode, seems that all is well. ISBD, what do you mean?

Originally Posted by LM

Looks like one of the inserts has been deformed towards the top.

Don't suppose that Scarpa will warranty my Spirit 4s from 2008?

LM, as I've reported before in other threads, Scarpa did replace my friend's Spirit 3 shells, which had a deformed toe insert similar to that which you describe. You should try it. Looked to me like a heat treatment gone wrong on my friend's boot.

I have been in contact with Scarpa and things are so far looking positive. Customer service is good with fast emails. I'll see tomorrow though after they get a look at the pictures.

From the pictures you can see the right boot tech fitting in the top picture is slightly deformed.

Resurecting this thread again as I had a tech fitting fail.Lost a ski yesterday in a icy chute with a prerelease on the 3rd turn in.
After the self arrest and downclimb went to step back in and noticed the toe jaws opening if the ski was pressured on its side/ft12`s.
Skied the rest of the day with that toe locked out.Had that weird clicking sound when skiing without the locked out toe.
Seems that the pin slides up and out of the boot socket if you pressure it.Contacting Scarpa to see if anything can be done.

Twins,

What boots are those? Also, did the toe tech fittings deform because of the pre release, or were they deformed earlier and cause the pre release?

Originally Posted by TWINS

Resurecting this thread again as I had a tech fitting fail.Lost a ski yesterday in a icy chute with a prerelease on the 3rd turn in.
After the self arrest and downclimb went to step back in and noticed the toe jaws opening if the ski was pressured on its side/ft12`s.
Skied the rest of the day with that toe locked out.Had that weird clicking sound when skiing without the locked out toe.
Seems that the pin slides up and out of the boot socket if you pressure it.Contacting Scarpa to see if anything can be done.

Looks like you stepped into the binding incorrectly and jabbed one of the toepins in just above the socket, chipping the edge. No disrespect, the reason I know what that kind of damage looks like is I've done it myself. The new dynafit boot inserts (only on dynafit boots AFAIK) have a larger metal area around the socket making it much harder to do this.

[QOUTE=Big Steve]ISBD, what do you mean?[/QUOTE]

I have no idea. Maybe I was drunk?

Originally Posted by Patches

Looks like you stepped into the binding incorrectly and jabbed one of the toepins in just above the socket, chipping the edge. No disrespect, the reason I know what that kind of damage looks like is I've done it myself. The new dynafit boot inserts (only on dynafit boots AFAIK) have a larger metal area around the socket making it much harder to do this.

Scarpa Maestrale and Gea (women's Maestrale) also have the new "Quick Step" inserts.

Originally Posted by Patches

Looks like you stepped into the binding incorrectly and jabbed one of the toepins in just above the socket, chipping the edge. No disrespect, the reason I know what that kind of damage looks like is I've done it myself. The new dynafit boot inserts (only on dynafit boots AFAIK) have a larger metal area around the socket making it much harder to do this.

yeah, or fell with the toe locked out and damaged the toe fitting. It'll "prerelease" if you want to callit that because the boot fittings now fucked.

+1 to the circumstantial evidence analysis by Patches and HC. I've seen similar deformation on Spirit 3's. See above.

Boots are Scarpa Spirit 3`s.I always do the toe entry then swing the leg back and forth 3 times to seat/clean the toe pins.Do not ski with the toes locked.No skinning,bootpacking only with lots of scree scrambles.I took another look at the socket tonight and don`t see any sign of rounding above the toe socket.Only the groove coming out of it.Patches, do you have a pic of what your toe socket looked like when the toe pin was misaligned besides maybe mine?
Time for a new set as I don`t like the idea of locking out my toe unless its a no fall zone.
And I should have locked out the toes on that last run.A learning experience for me last weekend.

Sorry Twins, no pics. Mine looked pretty much like yours, though the chip was much smaller (half the size?)- I put many more days on the boots no problem before giving them away. I think your boots are toast though.

If you don't remember a goofy step in then maybe it just blew out from wear. At least I have the joy of knowing I screwed mine up. Word to the kids: never forget a headlamp on a no-moon dawn patrol, even if its a just a tiny LED light, so you can see to get your skis on correctly.

Originally Posted by TWINS

Boots are Scarpa Spirit 3`s.

Right. I knew that. I guess I should have said "other" Spirit 3's. It's very easy to pinch the pins above the insert, as Patches describes and as those pics indicate. I've done it with my Spirit 3's. I'd guess that you got the bad Spirit 3 inserts. Again, see my prior post re Scarpa replacing my bud's boots and Scarpa telling him that they had a bad batch of inserts. Conversely, my Spirit 3 fittings did not fail notwithstanding my oops. Not an issue now because I demoted my Spirit 3's to lift serve w/Barons cuz I went with lighter more tourable boots.

Thankyou to everyone that offered ideas.
Scarpa warranty got back to me with this info.

The boots that I am seeing with tech fitting issues are brand new and have never worked in a Dynafit binding. You cannot physically see anything wrong with the tech fittings, they are just pre-releasing.

They offered to send me a return authorization# to inspect the boots if I wanted.
I re looked at the boot binding interface again putting lateral pressure away from the damaged toe cup side .The toe jaws would open every time.
Put a pair of spirit 4`s in the binding and could not make them open without quite a bit of force/good.
Boot is the problem.Looked at the opposite side toe cup and saw a small indentation where the inner toe jaw was hitting the plastic shell.
The pressure point has now been spread to the toe jaw/lever.
Or the toe jaw was never locking closed all the way.
Easier to open on left turns only which damaged the toe cup on the right side of boot.Eventually the toe pin grooved a channel to the plastic shell and pre released.
Grinding the plastic down on my AT boots to bring the sockets flush seems to be the fix.

Anyone else having this problem with their Maestrales? Seems like I'm getting it with both boots. Problem goes away when engaging toe lever into tour mode and is consistent with both TLT and Speed bindings.

Originally Posted by Twinone

Anyone else having this problem with their Maestrales? Seems like I'm getting it with both boots. Problem goes away when engaging toe lever into tour mode and is consistent with both TLT and Speed bindings.

What kind of problem do you have with your Maestrales? Are the toe inserts visibly deformed or do you just prerelease very often? If the latter have you checked wether the toe inserts are correctly aligned? With my first pair of Maestrales one boot the heel ended up more than 3 mm off compared to the other when both boots were clicked into the same toe piece. I got the money back and bougth another set of maestrale from another source. The new pair was perfect.

Apparently Scarpa has ZERO quality control when it comes to dynafit fittings.... At least this time they have bougth the fittings from dynafit.

Had the problem of the "click" with my Spirit 3's and Scarpa wouldn't warranty them. Said the problem was overuse. Declined the offer of a "deal" on Maestrale's (too narrow for my feet) and went with BD Quads instead, last spring. Quads have had no problem like the Spirit 3's, which had rather puny inserts.

The fact that Scarpa went with Dyna inserts after all these Spirit 3's self-destructing is interesting coincidence indeed...

I believe Scarpa has always used Dynafit made inserts, and have continued to do so even after the patent expired. Other competitors have elected to make their own with varied success (thumbs up for BD, some growing pains for Dalbello, and disaster for Salomon). Some signicant number of Spirit 3's had problems with misalignment. I've not heard of other Scarpas having that problem. Also, although I've heard several complaints about Scarpa customer service, Tech inserts can be damaged by rocks or (if I recall correctly) repeatedly clicking into bindings incorrectly.

No pre-release issues. Inserts look good. Just clicking when I do turns on firm snow or when I am skating. Actually, it probably does it all the time but I just don't notice when the snow gets deep.

I have popping from my toe piece while skinning. Started a thread here: (http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...icking-popping)

I'm in the process of contacting BD to see if they have any ideas. After reading this thread, however, I'm going to go put my skis/boots on downstairs and try to pressure that boot/ski and see if I get the popping to occur.

I'll post back with my experience.

Seth