Salomon Quest Tech inserts failure thread

[SeatownSlackey]

You can't be serious???

I fully support your right to do what you want in terms of buying whatever it is you want, but to say all the facts weren't presented. That is ridiculous. I think it's pretty clear that a boot with a malfunctioning piece(the tech insert pad) was released to the public. And there are only two scenarios that could have happened at Salomon R&D. 1) They didn't test the product, and released it. 2) They tested it, knew the results, and released it anyway, thinking that maybe it would they would get everything dialed by the time the 2010-11 season came rolling around.

Lou Dawson's tests make it pretty obvious that the product should never have made it to stores. Inferior material/build quality of the insert, and inferior design with the rubber underneath the insert not plastic.

You can do what you want, and I support you in that. But don't say the facts haven't been presented. A very reputable 3rd party (Lou Dawson) tested the products and found the same results Dalton experienced on the mountain. Salomon blew it on this one, and people need to know about it!

So by your logic, since the touring soles have been proven to be defective and prone to failure = all the facts presented????

As someone who bought the quest 12 and touring pads i consider myself extremely lucky that i didn't end up hospitalized just like Dalton. Just like most everyone else i am still pissed and utterly disgusted in Solly's quality control or lack thereof. That said, i think the focus on the litigation and settlement aspect of this fuckup is stupid. Amer/Solly is a publicly traded corp and as much as we'd all like to see Dalton get compensated quickly and generously, this is america and our legal system just doesn't work that way. Hate the game, not the player, here.

Yes this is TGR, people here do a great job of getting the scoop on new gear, scouring the web for best deals, and so on but that hardly means the collective knows EVERYTHING.

I will be more hesitant than Professor in giving Solly future business but i certainly respect his restraint amongst the rabble.

[ectreeskier11]

it's sad, because in the past i have disliked salomon so much that i would never buy their products. but this year, i can honestly say before their massive fuckup i was planning on buying dictators, and having heard great things about the czars, probably a pair of those as well, in addition to the reincarnation of the 916s and possibly some ghosts as well. was even thinking about trying some of their outerwear. other options had me thinking atomic. i'm not just saying this to make it seem like they're losing out on a bunch of business and goodwill because of their mistake, there was actually a very real chance of me making some very major purchases (i like to give one company a try, through a bunch of their products, like when i bought armada skis and outerwear last year). well, i won't be doing that, won't be buying a single piece of their gear. there are way to many other options that, despite salomon's quality (yeah, most of the shit that company produces is solid), there is no doubt something as good or better on the market. it honestly seems ridiculous that people could buy salomon after considering this last point. sure, professor, the whole story is probably not present, and somewhere along the way i'm sure we'll hear something different. REGARDLESS, salomon put out a completely and undisputedly (after seeing lou's tests) unsafe product that failed during its inherent use, and that should be reason enough to avoid them. i find it hard to believe that there's any way you can't find something as suitable for your purposes as salomon or amer's gear, no matter what it is.

[ectreeskier11]

mean to say i disliked salomon's products that i've used in the past, but have heard great things about the stuff that came out last year and this year that i was going to give them a try. but after this fiasco, there are plenty of other companies i would MUCH prefer to support, that will work just as well as salomon's products.

[neck beard]

I don't think that the Prof's restraint is out of place.

I also think that Saroman should be answerable to the damage that they caused with their negligence. As a ski tourer myself I feel that TC deserves my support.

But it is this, as a simple minded backcountry skier, that gets my goat:

Lou Dawson's tests make it pretty obvious that the product should never have made it to stores. Inferior material/build quality of the insert, and inferior design with the rubber underneath the insert not plastic.

We know Solly can make very good gear. Yet they so obvioulsy and shockingly really screwed this design up.

Why?

Because their motivation for including this feature was simply to get in on the backcountry scene for the money and only the money. Not because they believe in supplying backcountry skiers with good equipment for good backcountry times in exchange for well earned business income from our wallets. There are other quality businesses who follow that model and deserve our support. I quite like Dynafit myself.

Salomon's lack of care in designing the tech insert was arrogant and disrespectful to a group of skiers who require quality and place trust in their equipment when far from help. For that reason I will not support Salomon's bullshit Quest product platform launch. They should stick to making money from products that they understand and actually use themselves.

[Patches]

I suggest someone write a small (2-3 line) blurb about the quest failure with links to this thread and lou's article. Then those who are motivated can copy and paste it across the internet in blogs and forums whenever a Salomon product is discussed. More people will find out, more people will boycott.

Post 'em up here, lets see what you've got. I'd do it but its a powder day here...

Can someone get TGR to change the spelling in the title of this thread?

[Patches]

OK, how about:

Have you read about the catastrophic failure of Salomon's Quest boots, and how Salomon chose to respond to it?

[ame="http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=191256"]Saloman Quest Tech inserts failure thread - Teton Gravity Research Forums[/ame]

http://www.wildsnow.com/2888/salomon...ttings-failure

Edit: Can't figure out how to make the forum here display a web address without turning it into a formatted link...

[DoWork]

Dont get me wrong, I fully support your right to boycott. I just dont believe that all the facts are presented in this kind of internet forum. Put me on the jury and let me hear both sides and then I will tell you whether I think Salomon was negligent. Until then, just count me out, but please fix the spelling in the title, or this thread might simply get lost in the wide wide world of the innertube.

Just because you haven't taken the time to read them doesn't mean they're not there. Go read the thread before you make a comment like that, please. Plenty of facts throughout this thread that are pretty damning for Salomon. Class is dismissed.

[Skidog]

Listen dicksmoke... You want to be a cunt, do it elsewhere.

Hey jerkoff take your holier than thou attitude and shove it up your ass.

Like mentioned before in this thread Salomon, Amer, et al. have a far reaching marketing arm that a lot of members here buy crap from. Movies, outerwear, binders, skis, etc.

LOTS of people talking boycott, im just pointing out what a "real" boycott means.

I fully support you if you choose to boycott them. I don't know that i'll be rushing out to buy any new sallie gear myself, but i do have it in my quiver. That wont likely change anytime soon.

I hope Dalton gets what he deserves, but as mentioned also in this thread, the Justice system in the US kinda blows. Amer will drag it out, just like any big corp would do, and in the end Dalton will likely get tired of all the crap and settle (years down the road). Trust me my family has been in this situation before....Big corps suck with their legal teams and endless litigation.

[toast2266]

Personally, if a company exhibits simple negligence, I don't see that as grounds for a major boycott. Virtually every company, especially big ones, will at some point produce a shitty product that fails, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. That sucks, and I wish it didn't happen, but for whatever reason, that's how it is. The fact that a company makes a crappy product doesn't mean I'll proactively boycott them, although it may mean that I am more hesitant or more cautious about buying their products.

What does (in my view) warrant a boycott is if the company produces a product that fails despite the fact that they knew it had a high likelihood of failure. I would also boycott a company if they actively resisted "doing the right thing" after learning of the failure. "Doing the right thing" is obviously going to be different in different situations.

My point: unlike professor, I think Salomon was negligent. They produced a product that was clearly prone to failure. However, I don't have enough information at this point to decide whether a boycott is appropriate or not. I have no idea whether Salomon knew that the inserts were prone to failure ahead of time, and other than the voluntary recall, I don't really know how the situation has been handled. Thus, like professor, I'm withholding judgment on the boycott until I know more information.

Regardless, like prof. said, I wish the best to TC and I hope that all responsible parties make things right with him (or at least as right as they can be made at this point).

[ACH]

Dont get me wrong, I fully support your right to boycott. I just dont believe that all the facts are presented in this kind of internet forum. Put me on the jury and let me hear both sides and then I will tell you whether I think Salomon was negligent. Until then, just count me out, but please fix the spelling in the title, or this thread might simply get lost in the wide wide world of the innertube.

I see your point...
And perhaps one that wasn't intended.

This thread has gotten very long, and it seems to have server several purposes. 1) To report what happened, 2) to wish TC well, 3) to organize and effect an responsible response, and 4) to call out what appears to be negligence on the part of the manufacture in bringing a product to market that wasn't ready.

Perhaps this has gotten too long for the average non-mag to wade all the way through it, to collect all the necessary bits and pieces that would allow them to shape their own opinion. Maybe a new thread should be started that summarizes the key points up front, keeping the speculation to a minimum. After that, it's up to us to make sure it keeps getting bumped to the front page?

Just a thought.

At the end of the day I'm making my own judgement based upon what I have been told here and personal experience with bringing products to market (product development, engineering, prototyping, testing, first article of inspection, etc), recalls and the like. I'm not going to define anything I read hear "fact" (regardless if it is or isn't) because I simply am not in a place to say that. Coming from me, any judge would define it as hearsay evidence and throw it out as inadmissible.

From what I have learned here (and other places on teh webz), I personally feel; that Salomon produced and brought to market a product that failed to live up to basic expectations of skiers that it was positioned to (advanced/expert). That there was negligence in the development process that manifested it's self through insufficient testing of their design, separate and apart from any existing or lack there of, an industrial norm. That this design, and it's failure directly lead to TC's accident/injury. That said, I will boycott and spread the word to try and bring about a responsible result that ends with TC getting his life on track.

As always, best wishes to TC, I hope for a speedier then normal recovery and a fair resolution to this situation.

[Beyond]

Not being a lawyer, unsure that "negligence" means "honest mistake," as some have implied, or willful decisions to rush a poorly tested product to market. And as far as hearing "both sides," a corporate lawyer friend of mine once quipped that his company's version of any injury claim was always "we're clean, it's his fault." For me, the real issue is where to target a boycott. Here is a cut and splice profile of Amer:

"Finland's Amer Group plc owns Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Goods; Austria's Atomic, producer of ski and snowboarding equipment under the Oxygen and Dynamic brand names; and, since 1999, fellow Finn Suunto, a maker of high-performance wristwatches (the company prefers "wrist computers") and other accessories for the sports and outdoors markets. Amer is also Finland's leading manufacturer and distributor of cigarettes, cigars, and other tobacco products, the company's historic activity, which accounts for 9 percent of its annual sales. Yet sporting goods has become the company's strategic focus. The company groups its operations into the Golf, Racquet, Team Sports, Winter Sports, and Outdoor and Sports Instruments divisions. Wilson, which manufactures equipment for the first three divisions, is also the company's largest subsidiary, accounting for some two-thirds of annual sales. The United States is also Amer's primary market, representing more than half of the company's sales. Europe, excluding Finland, adds another 25 percent of sales, while Finland, incorporating the company's tobacco sales, accounts for 11 percent of the company's sales.

Principal Subsidiaries: Amer Holding Company (U.S.A.); Amer Sport AG (Switzerland); Amer Sport Oy; Amer Tobacco Ltd.; Amera Oy; Amernet Holding BV (Netherlands); Atomic Austria GmbH (95%); Konemuovi Oy; Suunto Oy; Wilson Sporting Goods Co. (U.S.A.)."

Two things stand out. First, Salomon is at least three levels of management away from Amer. Amer's holding company is a subsidiary, and as I understand it, Salomon is owned by Atomic, which is owned by the holding company. This may be analogous to Arteryx, which I think is now owned by Wilson.

Might someone with expertise in business organization take a stab at where the actual decision making probably rests? Did Atomic OK the Quest? Did the Amer holding company, or Amer Group itself, even know about the process? Should they have? Not even clear who is paying the lawyers who are taking their sweet time with TC. So saying that we should boycott Amer might be dead on, or it might be like saying we should boycott the federal government because the town we live in screwed up its traffic lights, causing a serious crash. Unclear what constitutes the most effective target.

Second, even if called for, a boycott of Amer Group is going to be difficult because it was founded on Finnish tobacco products, and still makes decent money from same, as well as from various paper manufacturers, clothing companies etc. that have ziltch to do with sporting goods and are not marketed in the U.S. Yet the U.S. is its biggest market, largely because it owns Wilson. So do we achieve more from a focused boycott on Salomon, or one that targets a bunch of U.S. downstream subsidiaries that may be profit cows for Amer?

[_koppen]

Been thinking that to, this has gotten way out of hand!

It's kind of ridiculous that people over here has begun to sell away their loved stuff from Arc'teryx just because of Salomon's fuck up..

[ex-powderbroker]

fact: cpsc issues recall right after "voluntary"* recall.

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml10/10285.html

why: this is retarded:


*voluntary as in, recalling defective product after related legal proceedings because said product was bullshit.

[Jonathan S.]

Believe it or not, the internet does not have the whole story since companies being sued dont usually present their side of the story.

In general, I agree with your sentiments.

But in this specific case, I don't understand what the other side of the story could possibly be regarding the final three pictures (i.e., comparing/contrasting the Dynafit vs Quest "Tech" fittings removed from the boot) in this blog post:
http://www.wildsnow.com/2888/salomon...tings-failure/
And adding to the inherent weakness of the Tech interface, it was inserted at the junction of the plastic & rubber, rather than molded within the plastic, so unlike all other Tech interfaces (which are far stronger to begin with), it could not count on any additional strength imparted by the plastic.

The Quest design did not require further testing: rather, it required the designer being assigned to other duties (or just outright fired), since anyone with any familiarity of the "Tech" system would recognize immediately that this design was doomed to failure. (Overall, for me personally, it's a three-way tie between for my visceral reaction at the pictures of the removed Tech interface vs TC's visibly broken Tech interface as he awaits the helicopter extrication vs TC's external borg-like post-surgical leg connector.)

The other important facts are that TC's sole blocks were purchased through a regular retail channel (backcountry.com) and Lou's test pair were also purchased through a regular retail channel (evogear.com) that I found for him simply by Googling around.

[COUTCA]

Ah hell. All this talk of rushing to the market and inferior builds. Look at this! Guess it's time for you all to sell your Ferrari's and start boycotting them as well.

Ferrari 458 Italia Recalled over fire risk. All of them!

[Hugh Conway]

All this talk of rushing to the market and inferior builds. Look at this!

Ferrari's have had inferior builds for a very long time.

It doesn't count as a boycot if Amer stuff sucks and is overpriced already.

[DoWork]

Like mentioned before in this thread Salomon, Amer, et al. have a far reaching marketing arm that a lot of members here buy crap from. Movies, outerwear, binders, skis, etc.

LOTS of people talking boycott, im just pointing out what a "real" boycott means.

I fully support you if you choose to boycott them. I don't know that i'll be rushing out to buy any new sallie gear myself, but i do have it in my quiver. That wont likely change anytime soon.

Great, you have a point. Articulate that a little bit instead of just popping in to make some snarky remark, there's enough confision and frustration here already. I do fully understand this point, and I really don't care about the poboys movie to be honest so no it's not keeping me up at night. I also recognize that a company as large as Amer/Salomon has ingrained itself into many facets of skiing internationally and it will be impossible to fully eliminate them completely from all things skiing in my life. Just like I'm not going to stop posting on TGR because Sally is a sponsor and I'm not walking out of Light the Wick if a Sally sponsored athlete happens to ski in it. I'm just doing my best here and eliminating it where I can.

Each person will find their own meaning and scope to attach to this. My personal stance is that there are so many companies that put out great products that haven't almost killed my friend and then lied to us about it that why in God's name would I support one that did?

[roark]

Each person will find their own meaning and scope to attach to this. My personal stance is that there are so many companies that put out great products that haven't almost killed my friend and then lied to us about it that why in God's name would I support one that did?

^^ this.

[laseranimal]

^

+1

I for one will be keeping my 9xx series bindings because I know they've at least stood the test of time, I will not be buying anything new from Amer Sports and interestingly enough I was planing on making a pretty big "for me" order of Wilson product for the proshop next season, however I'll be looking elsewhere for product

[verbier61]

am I the only one to remember a pic from a fair of atomic boots with dyna inserts that looked more or less like quest in disguise?

[SeatownSlackey]

you thinking of the new Tracker 130 boot? There was a SIA or something picture where it kind of looked like dyna dimples.

[Huck_Schmuck]

Units: About 175 pairs of “Quest Touring Pads” about 83 pairs of “Quest Pro Pebax” and “Quest Pro” ski boots

More Salomon lies to the consumer! How many times have Salomon said that there were "14" pairs released to the public - I'm sure read such BS over and over, including in the Powder & BC Gear Reviews?? Interesting that the figure given to the CPSC is rather higher, and is still "about".

Stops the lies Salomon!

If anyone is doing a head count: my other half had one pair. Bought in Nelson, BC, the shop had at least 3 pairs, I suggest more like 5, possibly as many as 7. They sold them all.

[SeatownSlackey]

More Salomon lies to the consumer! How many times have Salomon said that there were "14" pairs released to the public - I'm sure read such BS over and over, including in the Powder & BC Gear Reviews?? Interesting that the figure given to the CPSC is rather higher, and is still "about".

Stops the lies Salomon!

If anyone is doing a head count: my other half had one pair. Bought in Nelson, BC, the shop had at least 3 pairs, I suggest more like 5, possibly as many as 7. They sold them all.

Most in this thread don't want to hear anything that isn't vehemently against Salomon but when i actually spoke to Sally before returning my touring pads, i understood the recall to be for the entire production run, the bulk of which remained in their warehouse. I for one, don't think there is some cover up conspiracy. But make no mistake, these were a production product not a beta.

[njfreeskier]

^^^Going to have to disagree. Believe it or not, the internet does not have the whole story since companies being sued dont usually present their side of the story.

You're right, the internet doesn't have the full story or all the facts. But I'm not getting my facts from the internet. I'm getting my facts from the people who were there. I'm also getting my facts from simple tests done that prove something was definitely off when the product was released. The fact that such a small amount of pressure resulted in the defect appearing, makes me really wonder what Salomon did during their R&D process, and if there even was an R&D process. I'm all about hearing both sides, but in this particular instance, I think the facts speak for themselves, and I don't see how Salomon can explain or justify the results.

So by your logic, since the touring soles have been proven to be defective and prone to failure = all the facts presented????

No, by my logic enough facts are presented to show they really messed up somewhere along the lines. And to me personally (and many others), it really doesn't matter why they messed up. The fact is they messed up big time, in an industry where the consumers depend on the safety and proper functioning of their products, because it is a life and death matter. Maybe that's something we shouldn't assume anymore, who knows. It rubbed me the wrong way when Professor said he wants all the facts presented before he judges. I think enough facts were presented, that Salomon dug themselves way to big of a hole that nothing they say can help dig them out, or in literal terms explain and justify how the quest made it to the market with such an obvious defect.

to call out what appears to be negligence on the part of the manufacture in bringing a product to market that wasn't ready.

From what I have learned here (and other places on teh webz), I personally feel; that Salomon produced and brought to market a product that failed to live up to basic expectations of skiers that it was positioned to (advanced/expert). That there was negligence in the development process that manifested it's self through insufficient testing of their design, separate and apart from any existing or lack there of, an industrial norm. That this design, and it's failure directly lead to TC's accident/injury.

EXACTLY! That was the point I was trying to make.

[~mikey b]

curious...

How common is a CPSC recall on something like this? The only other one that I know of off-hand is the recall of BD's first version of the 01 that was esploding. I think that was a voluntary recall, not something official from CPSC, but I could be wrong.

Quick trip to http://www.cpsc.gov/ and a search on "ski" shows (besides the Tech Inserts recall) Atomic, Salomon and K2 binding recalls, BD T2X recall, and a Line snowlerblade recall.

I didn't even know Line made snowlerblades.

Did you know about these other recalls? Should you? The binding recalls specifically say "...Due to Unexpected Release, Fall Hazard". Salomon's 2009 recall was about 10,000 units. Atomic's 2008 recall says about 125,000, plus over 1 million more sold outside of the US. K2's 2007 Marker demo binder recall was about 7,400 units. Those were the only ones I could find.