Thread: Salomon Quest Tech inserts failure thread

Looking closely at the AT soles, the front inserts are indeed a solid metal piece and not all that dissimilar from the pic Lou posted on Wildsnow of an extracted dynafit sample. It does not appear to benefit from a layer of PU/Pebax below the insert so it is not likely to be as strong as other designs that do. But not having used them yet i can't really comment beyond that. Hopefully Salomon will take close, hard look at them and address everyone's concerns sooner rather than later.

Very hard to tell from the pic, but it looks to me that the inserts are NOT a solid piece. Looks like the inserts are backed by some plastic on either side, but can't really tell if that is metal spanning the gap between the two. FWIW the Salomon insert that failed that I saw bent at a 90* angle upwards, where the plastic is supposedly supporting it. The plastic surrounding the insert seemed soft and deformed easily. Junk IMO. Big name ski manufacturers trying to jump on the Dynafit wagon need to do some more research and testing! Salomon needs to issue a recall and ought to pay for TC's medical! This is not a joke!

Originally Posted by SeatownSlackey

We need jondrums in here... that seems like a weird design. Almost like the person who did it was unaware of what the tech fitting was for and was just trying to position it rather that sink it deep into a the plastic. Other boots must position the tech fittings by the sockets during the molding process? I cant think of any reason to have that void there unless they were positioning the tech fitting by the part of the mold that was in the void.

I'm sure Rick Armstrong had nothing to do with the design of the boot. He was just doing his job as a marketing guy. I like the part where he used his name in the thread title, we should all do that.

Edit- Oh, I get it... the void interlocks with the boot.

Originally Posted by SeatownSlackey

JS ,usually your posts are full of specifics and attn to detail that seem to a bit awol ^^^ here. Unfortunately, only Lou, TC and few select others have the benefit of having actually seen the pictures of the failed inserts and it isn't abundantly clear from Wildsnow, exactly how TC's inserts broke.

Lou received the pictures via me (with TC's permission). This includes both the originally published picture from the extrication scene, and another post-extrication close-up of the inserts. (Sorry to be such a tease, but the pictures are not yet for public distribution.)

Based on the pictures I have reviewed, seems very clear that:

1. The "Tech" interface has no plastic underneath it, i.e., it is at the plastic <> junction. (This is also clear from etailer pictures of the boot soles.)

2. Each end of the interface has a hook designed to latch into the plastic above it, which pulled out on the right side of each boot (and in the process the interface pushed down and out on the rubber).

3. If the two ends are connected, it must be there just to enhance alignment during initial manufacturing assembly, since any connector would have had to be bent very severely on the right side yet doesn't seem to have disturbed the left side at all.

By contrast, all Dynafit (on boots made by Dynafit, Scarpa, and Garmont) and BD Tech interfaces have a strong metal connector that is embedded in plastic.
Note how BD had to cut back on the rubber in order to increase the plastic surrounding its Tech interface connector:

Originally Posted by sfotex

Gotta disagree on these two points. The dynafit toe piece by it's nature gets more force put on it then other 'regular' toe pieces. I've never ripped out any other binding other then dynafit toe pieces.

I'll agree that it is subject to more forces, especially with the other poster's observation that it also gets stressed a lot from skinning, not just skiing.
But I'm disagreeing with though is whether we have enough quantitative evidence to prove a significantly higher incidence of Dynafit toe pieces ripping out of skis. (The Diamir equivalent is broken toe unit mounting plates, plus all the broken toe jaws.) Yes, I know, it's not like anyone has a nicely compiled database anywhere on this, but still...

Originally Posted by SeatownSlackey

JS ,usually your posts are full of specifics and attn to detail that seem to a bit awol ^^^ here. Unfortunately, only Lou, TC and few select others have the benefit of having actually seen the pictures of the failed inserts and it isn't abundantly clear from Wildsnow, exactly how TC's inserts broke.


Clearly flawed?? Could you honestly have come to that conclusion without the benefit of hindsight?

Dude, I have seen the pictures. Believe me, it is CRYSTAL clear how they gave out. You can clearly see that the tech inserts folded out of the damn things like the shell was made of warm butter. Personally, seeing the boots the way they were after the accident IT IS VERY CLEAR that the design is flawed. Please reserve your intensity for Salomon, as IF YOU DID KNOW THE DETAILS I'm positive that being an intelligent person you would form the same opinion.

Johnathan S. is probably getting pissed that people just seem to not get it. It WASN'T THE GODDAM DYNAFITS and WHO CARES IF A BINDING EVER RIPPED OUT OF A SKI!?!? That's not what this discussion is about. If anything, they should be brought up only to show that it's not the issue at hand. Shoddy design and a complete lack of R&D with proper product testing (or actually addressing the beta obtained) is. If anything, it's almost like setting a trap. It's getting people to believe that they can take this someplace when nobody at the manufacturer actually knows it can. It's like making a V12 Ferrari and telling people it'll do 200 but it explodes over 60 mph because the panels are held together by bubble gum because it was easier and cheaper than bonding it.

As a person who works in a certified manufacturing environment all day long and that makes products whose failure could only cause property damage and not physical harm or kill people, it BLOWS MY MIND that there is not more oversight and regulation to the implementation of these inserts. I mean for God's sake I have tensile strength tess, charpy impact tests, destructive examination of sample construction joints and a myriad of X-ray tests all the way back into the last millenium. They're tests to ensure product quality, repeatability and assurance of the product's physical consistency and limits with all other products of the same type that we make. All that and people lives don't depend on any of it, really. Even a catastrophic failure would not result in an injury. The fact that the construction of a tool that many will take to the ends of the earth is not more closely regulated is a fucking travesty. They aren't making shuffleboard accessories, these are very important links in the safety chain when you get your ass out into some real shit. Everyone knows your chain is only as strong as the weakest link. Fuck you Salomon for almost killing my friend you lazy fucktards and I mean no disrespect to the hard working people in the factories or their athletes that had no fault in this. Sure they make some good products, but so do alot of other companies and I personally wouldn't buy a heli-coil from them after this. Those that regularly depend on their gear to work in serious conditions don't like second guessing their equipment. You just failed the test and now a man lays in a hospital bed wondering if he will get to walk again, and feel lucky in not being dead in doing so because you want your boot on the market right away. I'm guessing not many will want to roll those dice when there's so many other companies out there that actually realizing what's at stake when you make a "Burly AT boot" and church it up with all the bro-brah vernacular.

Sorry for the run on rant, but I'm having a hard time with some people's confusion and had to get some ranting off my chest.

Originally Posted by Beyond

Question for folks who know about boot building: Would the fix require a new boot mold, a new sole (suggested at Wildsnow) or just a new toe insert?

Originally Posted by ectreeskier11

sounds like it'd be a new toe insert and sole, as the normal dynafit inserts run the full width of the boot.

The irony in this is that a fix is relatively easy b/c of the swappable lugs, so the rest of the boot can remain unchanged. (The heel block will probably also have to be resigned to add more thickness, since I strongly suspect the redesigned toe block will end up being considerably thicker.)

Here’s another interesting compare/contrast - bottom view of BD sole blocks showing screws going through the toes in the area of the interface (I don’t know though whether the screws are going through the connector):



By contrast, the Quest has a smooth AFD in that area:


Why? According to a post on epicski.com, Salomon was trying to get the Quest AT boot sole to be DIN certified for both AT *and* alpine downhill. I have no way of verifying this, but given the smooth AFD and the relatively thin profile, that would explain why the strength of the “Tech” interface would ever be sacrificed for some other goal.

I do empathize with TC here, however, the issue here is the Quest boot, not Salomon products holistically, eh?

With the Quest boot, Salomon is attempting to give us Slackcountry and BC skiers a tool that we can benefit immensely from, the ability to stomp airs and ski 60 mph lines that AT boots simply can't handle as confidently.

Boycotting their product will only put financial pressure on the company which will result in lowered R&D ivestment and fewer products, which is not good for any of us.

Furthermore, everyone I have met from Salomon are honest, hardworking and passionate about their sport.

Having skied these boots and observed the Dynafit construction, I can only wonder about the installer for the sole, was it installed correctly? I don't know the answer to this question, but it is top of mind for me.

Originally Posted by ectreeskier11

i just want to reiterate that i will not be buying salomon products until this is somehow rectified, and encourage others to do so as well. put some pressure on them to at least make an honest investigation into this, i am sure that they have seen or will see this thread sometime soon, so to know that they have pressure on them from a core market (tgr) will at least make them think twice about fucking something up so badly again. dalton's a good dude and deserves our support.

Originally Posted by CentoUno

Having skied these boots and observed the Dynafit construction, I can only wonder about the installer for the sole, was it installed correctly? I don't know the answer to this question, but it is top of mind for me.

The connection between the swappable toe block and the rest of the boot is just fine -- the failure was within the swappable toe block.

Originally Posted by CentoUno

Boycotting their product will only put financial pressure on the company which will result in lowered R&D investment and fewer products, which is not good for any of us.

Furthermore, everyone I have met from Salomon are honest, hardworking and passionate about their sport.

It's starting to look like they care so much that they're letting people ski a dangerous product rather then get the word out and issue a recall (or at least a discontinue use until farther notice letter while they investigate) and that's my issue with Salomon. If they've known about this all along and they didn't do anything they've lost my business. This is a company culture issue, not a we made a mistake issue. Mistakes can be forgivable, but possibly putting people in harms way while you hide behind a lawyer is inexcusable to me.

first of all, forgive me if i was wrong on the point about toe design, i thought i read that earlier in the thread and must have misunderstood.

Originally Posted by CentoUno

I do empathize with TC here, however, the issue here is the Quest boot, not Salomon products holistically, eh?

With the Quest boot, Salomon is attempting to give us Slackcountry and BC skiers a tool that we can benefit immensely from, the ability to stomp airs and ski 60 mph lines that AT boots simply can't handle as confidently.

Boycotting their product will only put financial pressure on the company which will result in lowered R&D ivestment and fewer products, which is not good for any of us.

Furthermore, everyone I have met from Salomon are honest, hardworking and passionate about their sport.

Having skied these boots and observed the Dynafit construction, I can only wonder about the installer for the sole, was it installed correctly? I don't know the answer to this question, but it is top of mind for me.

so you mean what bd did with the factor two years ago, with no similar failures (AFAIK)? it has nothing to do with the people, athletes, or their passion for the sport. if i'm not buying the product (which I don't plan to), i don't give a fuck if their r and d dollars get cut, or if they have fewer products. that's the point. i don't think it's unfair to say as i did in the other post that this deserves salomon's attention, and if that means putting monetary pressure on them (it seems that after reading the french posts, they should have already investigated and didn't), then so be it. trust me, that's hard because i was as excited for the re-release of the 916, the rumored touring bindings and the dictators as anyone.

Jong non-engineer question:

Is there a difference between the metal used in a tech fitting in a salomon and in a dynafit?

e.g., is the metal forged or otherwise hardened?

since someone else suggested that sally was not buying dynafit toe inerts, they had to be making their own or buying some aftermarket (Chinese-y ??) replica.
were those made to spec? were they tested?

I wonder if you took a tech fitting out of a dyanafit boot, screwed it to a block of wood, then put it in a dyanfit binding with the toe locked out, would the metal bend?
Or would the toe release first?

Point being, lots of folks are focusing on the lack of plastic below the ears of the fitting, but what about the strength of the metal itself??

If someone had an old dynafit boot and some time on their hands, they could perform such a test.

Originally Posted by sfotex

It's starting to look like they care so much that they're letting people ski a dangerous product rather then get the word out and issue a recall (or at least a discontinue use until farther notice letter while they investigate) and that's my issue with Salomon. If they've known about this all along and they didn't do anything they've lost my business. This is a company culture issue, not a we made a mistake issue. Mistakes can be forgivable, but possibly putting people in harms way while you hide behind a lawyer is inexcusable to me.

They screwed up a boot. Its still early. We don't know what their testing was. Maybe they far exceeded all the industry testing standards. Who knows?

This event, which completely sucks for TC, is pretty specific to the toe blocks and dynafit binding usage of the Quest boot.

Would I buy the QUest and use it with Dynafits? No

Would I buy other salomon boots like the ghost? Yes.

We cannot extrapolate this to other boots.
We shouldn't form a lynch mob
Its silly to add a bunch of drama that is unneeded.

I think the calls to boycott or otherwise avoid Salomon products until this is resolved is not a complaint of ALL Salomon products but as a statement about Salomon's lack of addressing this issue thus far, i.e. poor customer service, which could potentially lead to other customer service issues in the future. Once this issue is resolved and Salomon establishes that they are supportive of their customer base and properly back up their products, then I imagine those calling to avoid Salomon products would continue to purchase and endorse them.

I'm not saying you should choose to boycott either the quest or other salomon products, but this is what I understand from the previous posts. I for one would be inclined to avoid all Salomon products until I see they take care of this situation appropriately.

exactly. i would hope they get all this cleared up before trying to release a touring binding as well.

Originally Posted by XtrPickels

They screwed up a boot. Its still early. We don't know what their testing was. Maybe they far exceeded all the industry testing standards. Who knows?

This event, which completely sucks for TC, is pretty specific to the toe blocks and dynafit binding usage of the Quest boot.

Would I buy the QUest and use it with Dynafits? No

Would I buy other salomon boots like the ghost? Yes.

We cannot extrapolate this to other boots.
We shouldn't form a lynch mob
Its silly to add a bunch of drama that is unneeded.

Agreed ... money talks bulshit walks , I bet the ranting & the raving that salomon will never be a part of their quiver will all be forgotten next year when the snow flys and the deal comes along



So lets armchair engineer without the rhetoric

Someone asked why leave out plastic ,the obvious reason would be to save weight but looking at that that picture it just doesn't look right ,I would expect that toe bock to be a solid chunk of plastic ... it doesn't look strong enough if you are aware of what forces it will need to take

ALSO ,what kind of plastic is that , it doesn't really look like ski boot shell plastic to me ... not pebex ,not PU ?

WHAT kind of fittings are they using ,it would seem there are tech fittings and there are tech fittings ... this incident could /should prompt the consumer to insist on real dynafit fittings in their boots and wildsnow has a artical on the subject

According to Rick Armstrong this is supposed to be a SUPER HOT alpine boot with touring capabilities ,I am betting they tested the super hot alpine bits in a non-tech binding extensively and not so much the touring ... I mean that should be the easy part eh?

Originally Posted by jon turner

I think the calls to boycott or otherwise avoid Salomon products until this is resolved is not a complaint of ALL Salomon products but as a statement about Salomon's lack of addressing this issue thus far, i.e. poor customer service, which could potentially lead to other customer service issues in the future. Once this issue is resolved and Salomon establishes that they are supportive of their customer base and properly back up their products, then I imagine those calling to avoid Salomon products would continue to purchase and endorse them.

I'm not saying you should choose to boycott either the quest or other salomon products, but this is what I understand from the previous posts. I for one would be inclined to avoid all Salomon products until I see they take care of this situation appropriately.

I'm not calling on anyone to do anything, just for the record. I'm simply stating that this incident shows me just how much emphasis is placed on safety vs. getting the product on the shelves in time to make quarterly profits to get the money ball rolling to make up for what they've spent designing the boot so far. It's a personal view of mine and I don't expect everyone or even anyone to agree with me but I won't be giving my money to a company with this philosophy, ever. I don't want to do business with anyone that thinks this way and it would in all seriousness take pretty much a full admission and apology on behalf of Salomon to do this for me- but admission isn't in the modern legal vocabulary, so that will never come. It just goes to show you that you can either spend the money making a good product, or spend it trying to defend a shoddy one. I wish they had done the former, as my friend would probably be healthy and planning his next BC trip if they had.

Originally Posted by XXX-er

Agreed ... money talks bulshit walks , I bet the ranting & the raving that salomon will never be a part of their quiver will all be forgotten next year when the snow flys and the deal comes along

You clearly do not know me. I'm not trying to form a lynch mob, I'm voicing my personal opinion. I don't care if anyone agrees and that's why it's MY opinion. I can spend my money with anyone, and it won't be Salomon. I am poor as fuck and my stance/$ will never matter, but that's my $.02. Sfotex's posts make perfect sense to me and I don't see why anyone could have a problem with how he feels.

Originally Posted by XtrPickels

We don't know what their testing was... Maybe they far exceeded all the industry testing standards. Who knows?

Did you read any of the information in any of the links in this thread? Not trying to be a dick, but it doesn't seem like you did.

Originally Posted by CentoUno

With the Quest boot, Salomon is attempting to give us Slackcountry and BC skiers a tool that we can benefit immensely from, the ability to stomp airs and ski 60 mph lines that AT boots simply can't handle as confidently.

What the fuck are you talking about? Have you tried these things on and compared them to the other stiff AT boots on the market? I have, its the same same. There is NOTHING groundbreaking about this boot other than the crippleromatic feature

Solomon is trying to capitalize on the innovations made by Dynafit, Garmont, and Scarpa over the last 15 years.

BD and Dalbello are johny-come-latelys too, but they DIDN'T FUCK IT UP.

They should have already issued, if not a recall, at least a warning to not use the tech blocks till this gets investigated.

Originally Posted by XtrPickels

They screwed up a boot. Its still early. We don't know what their testing was. Maybe they far exceeded all the industry testing standards. Who knows?


We cannot extrapolate this to other boots.
We shouldn't form a lynch mob
Its silly to add a bunch of drama that is unneeded.

They made a mistake, happens all the time.
It's how they deal with the mistake that is important.

What would you think if someone died/got badly hurt tomorrow when the inserts on their quest boots failed?

Originally Posted by Jonathan S.

Lou received the pictures via me (with TC's permission). This includes both the originally published picture from the extrication scene, and another post-extrication close-up of the inserts. (Sorry to be such a tease, but the pictures are not yet for public distribution.)

Based on the pictures I have reviewed, seems very clear that:

1. The "Tech" interface has no plastic underneath it, i.e., it is at the plastic <> junction. (This is also clear from etailer pictures of the boot soles.)

2. Each end of the interface has a hook designed to latch into the plastic above it, which pulled out on the right side of each boot (and in the process the interface pushed down and out on the rubber).

3. If the two ends are connected, it must be there just to enhance alignment during initial manufacturing assembly, since any connector would have had to be bent very severely on the right side yet doesn't seem to have disturbed the left side at all.

By contrast, all Dynafit (on boots made by Dynafit, Scarpa, and Garmont) and BD Tech interfaces have a strong metal connector that is embedded in plastic.
Note how BD had to cut back on the rubber in order to increase the plastic surrounding its Tech interface connector:

thank you for taking the time to explain it with some more explicit detail.

While not super clear from the pic i put up, the metal insert appears to be very similar to this one that Lou put up. I think this begs the question that Core Shot brings up, which is just how strong is the metal used in these knockoff inserts?

Originally Posted by DoWork

Dude, I have seen the pictures. Believe me, it is CRYSTAL clear how they gave out. You can clearly see that the tech inserts folded out of the damn things like the shell was made of warm butter. Personally, seeing the boots the way they were after the accident IT IS VERY CLEAR that the design is flawed. Please reserve your intensity for Salomon, as IF YOU DID KNOW THE DETAILS I'm positive that being an intelligent person you would form the same opinion.

Thanks, i don't think i was being INTENSE, but rather just trying to get a crisper understanding of how the insert failed. There has been a wide range of adjectives being used to describe the damage in lieu of the pics themselves. The fact that they failed, no matter how it happened, is proof that Salmon dropped the ball. At this point it still not entirely clear to me if the culpability falls on the design or on the manufacturing and materials used in the Quest's tech soles (or some combo perhaps?) but the nonchalance of the Solly rep on the french forum is at minimum disturbing given the current context of Thin Cover's injuries. Especially if it turns out no changes were made to the soles after receiving this beta.

Originally Posted by Patches

They should have already issued, if not a recall, at least a warning to not use the tech blocks till this gets investigated.

^^^Agree, one serious injury with clear evidence the soles failed should be enough to issue some sort of warning to others who may have already purchased the soles.

Originally Posted by SeatownSlackey

^^^Agree, one serious injury with clear evidence the soles failed should be enough to issue some sort of warning to others who may have already purchased the soles.

It's cool man, I hear you and there's been some very good posts here- I've certainly learned alot, maybe when this is all said and done we can rename this thread "Making an AT boot: Do's and dont's" but there's just one thing I'd like to point out about the part I quoted from you- there were known failures of this system long before this accident and they were clearly not addressed. The warning/recall should have been issued before the boot even went past beta, which means it should have never entered full production to begin with. It just doesn't make sense- hence my heated nature at times. Trust me, the only reason this thread is here is because TC wants to keep this from happening to anyone else- Seriously, it took HIM blowing the whistle to get the unsafe product pulled. Think of how many people Solly let buy that boot thinking it really was "ready to stomp 40 foot airs" etc... To me, that's just blowing smoke up people's asses and setting them up to get killed should they try it with the Tech inserts rather than the DIN soles.

Not trying to harp on you, you just seem to be smart and extremely interested and make me think maybe I need to clarify myself a little more at times. Sorry if I come across like a dick, it's not my intention.

My lay unenginerd question is, was there any play in the tech inserts, if so, could this have caused the massive failure which lead to the disastrous failure?

Originally Posted by DoWork

Think of how many people Solly let buy that boot thinking it really was "ready to stomp 40 foot airs" etc... To me, that's just blowing smoke up people's asses and setting them up to get killed should they try it with the Tech inserts rather than the DIN soles.

Without really having any hard numbers on sales, I have a hard time imagining how many people are actually using this boot with the tech inserts vs standard DIN soles. Add to that the total number of people using dynafit bindings to huck 40 fters, and we may be in the range of countable with fingers. Regardless, it's still inexcusable to allow a proven shoddy product to continue to be sold.

Originally Posted by Core Shot

Is there a difference between the metal used in a tech fitting in a salomon and in a dynafit?

e.g., is the metal forged or otherwise hardened?

Don't know the answer to either, but, FWIW, based on my somewhat informed observations, the inserts on Scarpas appear to be hardened steel. I based this on deepening the insert dimple on a Spirit 3 (which had span that was slightly too wide, thus no allowing the jaws to close). HSS was too soft, so I had to use a carbide tool on a vertical mill.

But this may stray from the point. As I understand the episode (I concede limited info at this time), the boot sole/insert connection failed.

Originally Posted by Jonathan S.

Here’s another interesting compare/contrast - bottom view of BD sole blocks showing screws going through the toes in the area of the interface (I don’t know though whether the screws are going through the connector):

The bolded statement piqued my curiosity, so I pulled the soles on my Factors and took some photos.

It appears to me that the tech fitting and the screw reinforcement in BD soles is the same piece of metal.

In the photo below you can see a bit of metal showing through the plastic above the reinforcement (just above the center of the photo, on the front right part of the screw reinforcement). This bit of metal looks like the edge of the back side of the tech fitting and it lines up perfectly with the faint rectangle (secondary plastic injection?) around the tech fitting in the plastic on the outside of the boot.


You can see it in this photo as well.


In the three photos below you can see how closely the metal from the tech fitting and the screw reinforcement (must) overlap. If they're that close, I have to think that BD made it out of one piece of metal. Intuitively that seems much stronger than having separate pieces, although I am definitely not an engineer.