Salomon Quest Tech inserts failure thread

[Hugh Conway]

Also, Mike or the USA division of Salomon don't do or deal with product design. He said Salomon tested the boots for two years, in dynafits, and thought they had built them sufficiently strong. He wasn't placing blame on anyone, or taking it away from Salomon. Now that they have a hold of the issue, I'm sure they will deal with it in a timely manner and take whatever action necessary to fix it.

Funny. That doesn't sound at all like what the Salomon rep was posting on SkiPass.

[lobstahmeatwad]

Funny. That doesn't sound at all like what the Salomon rep was posting on SkiPass.

post link?

[bossass]

Funny. That doesn't sound at all like what the Salomon rep was posting on SkiPass.

Funny. How you always say dumb shit.

And I'm not saying somethings not legit, but I'm not gonna chalk some supposed French Salomon reps posts on a translated website's chat forums to Salomon being big, bad, and evil.

[Hugh Conway]

Funny. How you always say dumb shit.

You're the one repeating stupid shit here. That Salomon are warm and fuzzy people has fuck all to do with shitty boots...

And I'm not saying somethings not legit, but I'm not gonna chalk some supposed French Salomon reps posts on a translated website's chat forums to Salomon being big, bad, and evil.

So you don't care that people were wondering why the insert hadn't been recalled back in March? There was little about them being big bad and evil (only you'd be that dumb), just people complaining about shitty stuff:
http://www.skipass.com/forums/sports...05712-150.html
Just say you really don't give a fuck what's going on and are a useless mouthpiece please?

I'm not for lynching the guy, or harassing him, but jesus the ski industry looks like a fucking bunch of tools here.

[Jonathan S.]

do my megarides have dynafit tech inserts or something else garmont came up with?

Yes, your MegaRides were produced when the Dynafit patent was still in effect, and the interface was purchased from Dynafit by its licensee Garmont.

Unclear though what the situation is for Garmont with future production of its current Tech-compatible line (i.e., Radium and Axon, plus various derivatives thereof):

http://www.wildsnow.com/2511/dynafit...boot-fittings/
Lou February 5th, 2010 11:52 am
"Official word from a source at Dynafit:
[...] As of 1/1/10, Dynafit is no longer supplying standard inserts to Garmont"

[bossass]

Hugh, quit being a flamer. I posted because I could see people getting riled up and calling Mike and chewing on his ear is pretty counter productive. That was the point. I'm sorry you're a r'tard and take that for me passing judgement one way or the other. Mike is a friend, and it's big of him to put his personal number out there for people who actually have issue with these boots to be dealt with. Saying that doesn't make me a mouthpiece and it doesn't imply I don't care.

And exactly how does one potentially bad boot insert design make the entire industry look like tools? What the shit are you talking about? Idiot.

[LeeLau]

Funny. How you always say dumb shit.

And I'm not saying somethings not legit, but I'm not gonna chalk some supposed French Salomon reps posts on a translated website's chat forums to Salomon being big, bad, and evil.

You're sounding like the hack mouthpiece shill here.

I'm more than a little pissed here because I could have been stuck on that piece of shit boot for a gear review.

You blurt out that Saloman has tested this boot for two years? On Dynafits? And this never happened. That is complete shit.

Tell you what, put that boot on your feet. Go ski some no-fall zone, you hard-charging pro you, and come back safe and tell us about it and tell us more about Saloman's testing protocol.

[LeeLau]

Garmont uses Dynafit-produced inserts, as I think Lou and JS stated elsewhere.

Scarpa also has licensed and uses the Dynafit inserts. The test which Lou used on the Dynafit inserts had the Scarpa Spirit 3 as the control.

When pried with the crowbar the Spirit 3's insert didn't fail. Lou stopped prying because either the binding was going to fail or the wood screws for the vise were going to pull out of the workbench.

Conversely the Saloman inserts (which at least one Saloman pro-who hack has asserted were tested over two years) failed with moderate force on the crowbar

[XXX-er]

^Yeah, but some standards would be better. Obviously, these systems are getting more popular and dynafit isn't the only game in bindings anymore.

Do you realize this issue is not about a binding the problem it is the failure of the NON-dynafit tech fittings built into a salomon boot?

edit:I don't think you have read the thread cuz it looks like you don't know what is actualy going on

There are not many boots out there ,3 toe block failures out of maybe a couple of dozen boots sold ,they may have done a bunch of cliff hucking but how much skiing on a Tech binding ? ... what looks really bad is that it looks like Salomon dropped the ball SO badly on engineering and testing the tech part of the boot

[bossass]

^Wow. Thanks for the personal attack.* Real professional.

This is the last I'm gonna say about this. I wasn't defending Salomon or their testing. I never said a mistake wasn't made. But I'm not gonna jump on any bandwagon and shout malice when that has yet to be seen. In short, I was discouraging angry, unproductive phone calls and encouraging a look at standardizing the tech binding system.

I was however, firmly asserting that I'm a hard-charging pro caliber super shredding mountaineer huckmeister. If you'll excuse me, I have some exposure to get back to.

*We all know Hugh deserves what he gets, so don't even go there.

[bossass]

Do you realize this issue is not about a binding the problem it is the failure of the NON-dynafit tech fittings built into a salomon boot?

edit:I don't think you have read the thread cuz it looks like you don't know what is actualy going on

There are not many boots out there ,3 toe block failures out of maybe a couple of dozen boots sold ,they may have done a bunch of cliff hucking but how much skiing on a Tech binding ? ... what looks really bad is that it looks like Salomon dropped the ball SO badly on engineering and testing the tech part of the boot

Ok, one more. Again, never said a ball wasn't dropped. And advocating standardization has nothing to do with me knowing what's going on. The alpine binding system was standardized decades ago. The tech binding system could obviously benefit from the same.

[Hugh Conway]

^Wow. Thanks for the personal attack.* Real professional.

This is the last I'm gonna say about this. I wasn't defending Salomon or their testing. I never said a mistake wasn't made. But I'm not gonna jump on any bandwagon and shout malice when that has yet to be seen. In short, I was discouraging angry, unproductive phone calls and encouraging a look at standardizing the tech binding system.

I was however, firmly asserting that I'm a hard-charging pro caliber super shredding mountaineer huckmeister. If you'll excuse me, I have some exposure to get back to.

*We all know Hugh deserves what he gets, so don't even go there.

real professional there, real professional

If you don't want to read any of the threads - there's plenty out there - then don't proclaim you can't see anything.

[XXX-er]

Ok, one more. Again, never said a ball wasn't dropped. And advocating standardization has nothing to do with me knowing what's going on. The alpine binding system was standardized decades ago. The tech binding system could obviously benefit from the same.

http://www.wildsnow.com/bindings/dyn...iing-bindings/

you should learn what you are talking about before you try to talk about it in a place where you will get flamed

this is about a boot made by salomon ... not a binding

read the above link to understand what you are trying to learn about, then all the posts relevant to TC's accident and the BOOT's failure

then come and talk

[bossass]

http://www.wildsnow.com/bindings/dyn...iing-bindings/

this is about a boot made by salomon ... not a binding

I'm not faulting the binding. I used to be a ski tech. I get it. Salomon made a mistake with the Quest. I get it.

What you don't get is all I'm saying is if there were standards for manufacturing and testing boots to be compatible with the tech binding system, TC's terrible accident would not have occurred. Up until this point, testing protocol has been put in the hands of the manufacturers and it's up to them to decide what is good enough to go to production. This has been fine up until now. CLEARLY, there should be oversight, standards, and guidelines put in place, ala the alpine binding system. Were standards in place, Salomon would have never released an unsafe product because it would've been manufactured and tested to predetermined safe standards. Are you saying I'm wrong about this?

[Hugh Conway]

What you don't get is all I'm saying is if there were standards for manufacturing and testing boots to be compatible with the tech binding system, TC's terrible accident would not have occurred. Up until this point, testing protocol has been put in the hands of the manufacturers and it's up to them to decide what is good enough to go to production. This has been fine up until now. CLEARLY, there should be oversight, standards, and guidelines put in place, ala the alpine binding system. Were standards in place, Salomon would have never released an unsafe product because it would've been manufactured and tested to predetermined safe standards. Are you saying I'm wrong about this?

How is an internal failure of the Tech Insert a compatibility problem?

The ISO standards (last I looked) spent most of their time defining the shape of the interface for the boot, not specifying material strength in the boots.

[bossass]

How is an internal failure of the Tech Insert a compatibility problem?

The ISO standards spend most of their time defining the shape of the interface for the boot, not specifying material strength in the boots.

Right, but unless I'm mistaken they do specify what materials can and can't be used? You couldn't just make an alpine sole out of soft plastic or one that was prone to breakage in moderate cold? The tech system is different with forces concentrated on smaller areas and ISO standards should specify the shape, interface and material for the tech insert AND what kind of plastic it goes into. And then it should be tested with a standardized device (or sent to Lou for his workbench and crowbar test).

[bossass]

How is an internal failure of the Tech Insert a compatibility problem?

It's not. I'm saying if I decide to make Bossass AT boots and sell thousands of them (I know you'd be my first customer) with tech compatible soles then there should be ISO standards to which I had to build and test those boots to bring them to market.

[summit]

Right, but unless I'm mistaken they do specify what materials can and can't be used? You couldn't just make an alpine sole out of soft plastic or one that was prone to breakage in moderate cold? The tech system is different with forces concentrated on smaller areas and ISO standards should specify the shape, interface and material for the tech insert AND what kind of plastic it goes into. And then it should be tested with a standardized device (or sent to Lou for his workbench and crowbar test).

If Solomon needs that level of instruction on how to make a functional boot, I am terrified to use anything of theirs that doesn't have such specific requirements.

This problem would have been avoided by competent engineering and testing.

[mc_roon]

It's not. I'm saying if I decide to make Bossass AT boots and sell thousands of them (I know you'd be my first customer) with tech compatible soles then there should be ISO standards to which I had to build and test those boots to bring them to market.

Agreed, there needs to be some sort of standard. The issue is that even though there is no standard, the fact that Salomon believed that the Quest tech inserts were safe is a farce.

Without knowing the full story on Salomon's end i am reserving judgment. It could have been a penny pinching accountant overriding the recommendations of the engineers as far as we know. However, no matter how the soles were created, I cannot believe that Salomon tested the inserts and found them to be safe.

[skifishbum]

maybe i'm missing something but it sounds like your saying that unlike dynafit or scarpa boots which have logged millions of vert without issue. Salomon put shitty cheap inserts in this boot because there isn't a standard they had to uphold
FUCKIN WEAK EXCUSE
and if they spent 2 years testing this boot with dynafits
THEY SUCK AT TESTING
am I missin something?

[Jonathan S.]

There are not many boots out there ,3 toe block failures out of maybe a couple of dozen boots sold ,they may have done a bunch of cliff hucking but how much skiing on a Tech binding ? ... what looks really bad is that it looks like Salomon dropped the ball SO badly on engineering and testing the tech part of the boot

Three complete failures, plus what Hop reported on Gunder's experience sure sounds like it might have been a partially bent interface creating alignments problems for binding entry. If so, that counts as four failures in North America.

I'm starting to wonder if *any* of these Quest boots have been used extensively in Dynafit or Onyx bindings successfully?

[bossass]

Agreed on the engineering and testing. There should've been some consulting probably as well. I'm not saying Salomon gets off the hook because there was no standards in place.

Standards aren't instruction, they're standards. Cars have them, alpine boots and bindings have them. Tech system components should as well.

[XXX-er]

Three complete failures, plus what Hop reported on Gunder's experience sure sounds like it might have been a partially bent interface creating alignments problems for binding entry. If so, that counts as four failures in North America.

I'm starting to wonder if *any* of these Quest boots have been used extensively in Dynafit or Onyx bindings successfully?

It sounds like Rick Armstrong may have hucked some big drops but for hucking drops I bet he was on alpine bindings or at least barons or SFT besides tech bindings ... its possible to not have tested the Tech binding usablity part of the boot much at all

its pretty obvious standards would have been good ,we HAD standards when the Low tech system patent was held by OR royalties were being paid to dynafit

A patent expiring and then a failure to follow a design in an attempt to cash in on a system you are selling to people who do dangerous things ...doesn't look very good if it gets fucked up , people are pissed and rightly so

edit: I'm completely rational but almost pissed, that fitting just looks so fucking lame ...it must take a corporation to fuck something up that bad

[Beyond]

FWIW, I just got a voicemail safety recall notification this am from the place I purchased the Quests, with detail that it did not appear to be the boot, but the insert, that I was welcome to return the whole deal or just insert, they will provide free shipping etc. Said if I wanted more details to call Salomon. The wording appeared to be generated by the merchant, not same as notification shown last page. So apparently Salomon is not contacting purchasers directly.

Wonder if Salomon is picking up the costs to merchants of the calls, shipping, etc.

Does making it official get TC on a more or less secure legal ground?

[DoWork]

maybe i'm missing something but it sounds like your saying that unlike dynafit or scarpa boots which have logged millions of vert without issue. Salomon put shitty cheap inserts in this boot because there isn't a standard they had to uphold
FUCKIN WEAK EXCUSE
and if they spent 2 years testing this boot with dynafits
THEY SUCK AT TESTING
am I missin something?

Well, yeah that's pretty much exactly it.