G3 Zed Heel Turret Failure

[jono]

The exact mode of skiing at the time of failure may be a red herring. There's a distinct possibility that the bindings were compromised some time before the ultimate failure, resulting in tiny cracks that grew slowly until they were big enough to grow quickly.

I know, this is a blame thread, so the above probably means nothing of ultimate significance. But it's worth noting that G3 may have found a mode of loading which replicates the failure and which has more interaction with the stomp pad than would be the case at the exact moment that OP's bindings failed. Adding support below the boot changes the ski's flex along with redistributing the loads against the boot, so it's not impossible for that to be critical to their design.

Tl/dr: the solution offered May be more effective than this one case makes it appear.

Hopefully they gave themselves some margin and a 2.5 mm gap would have been fine. Or they may have ignored the variation in skis, so the whole thing only works some of the time--I'm just speculating here.

In any case, it seems sadly likely that the guy doing the design (and moreso, the one analyzing the stress) did not know about the boot variation any more than the photographer knew that the designers had assumed the presence of a stomp pad. Engineers seldom get to work in the same field they play at. Of course, sometimes a company tries to save a buck by commotidizing its human resources and just cheaps out, too.

[SumJongGuy]

The exact mode of skiing at the time of failure may be a red herring. There's a distinct possibility that the bindings were compromised some time before the ultimate failure, resulting in tiny cracks that grew slowly until they were big enough to grow quickly.


Tl/dr: the solution offered May be more effective than this one case makes it appear.

It was the FIRST run after the first ascent right? It was the first run of the first day on them. That's what I thought OP said initially.

[jono]

I was referring to the specific mode of loading. Thread contains much discussion of how the stomp pad wouldn't matter in a gentle turn. Obviously anything that overloaded the binding is still a giant cock up, but the point is that the initial cause may not have been totally disconnected from the stomp pad--it might have happened 3 turns prior or at transition or anything and been totally forgotten by the time they broke.

[XXX-er]

Its early season the 200 lb OP was skiing at < 15 mph on his very 1st run ever when both heelpieces break so there was no chance for the binding to be abused in any way before it broke unless it got run over by the fork lift at the warehouse

sorry but we need more data

G3 is seen to have practised due diligence even if its BS

Its Canada so nobody is going to jail eh

[jono]

sorry but we need more data

Depends

[t-the-east]

The failure may be a red herring.

the binding is still a giant cock up.

Word

[lucknau]

The ones I downloaded yesterday do, but I'll have to check when I get home and see if my printed copy does as well.

Edit: actually, no there's nothing regarding structural necessity. Only a statement that you MUST install either brakes or the stomp plate.

Original instructions do not mention the stomp pad at all. The box I got has an addendum to step 4 of the mounting instructions, printed on a separate sheet of paper. Nowhere in any of this is the word "MUST" used in reference to using the brakes or stomp pad.

So it's entirely possible that the Zeds the OP had installed did not have the addendum available with the mounting instructions.



Addendum:



Edit: also, there is no mention of the stomp pad at all in the operating instructions. Only a note that says the brakes are optional. The stomp pad is not even on the parts list.

[Meadow Skipper]

What is the point of damage control that nobody really knows about ?

FIFY. I’m not sure this is news outside of teh TRGz yet. This was published yesterday, and no mention of our issue:
https://blisterreview.com/gear-revie...2019-g3-zed-12

[SumJongGuy]

Original instructions do not mention the stomp pad at all. The box I got has an addendum to step 4 of the mounting instructions, printed on a separate sheet of paper. Nowhere in any of this is the word "MUST" used in reference to using the brakes or stomp pad.

So it's entirely possible that the Zeds the OP had installed did not have the addendum available with the mounting instructions.



Addendum:



Edit: also, there is no mention of the stomp pad at all in the operating instructions. Only a note that says the brakes are optional. The stomp pad is not even on the parts list.

This is why I suggested that they already knew there might be trouble brewing with these. Somewhere in testing somewhere something failed and that's why they added the "stomp pad" and revised the included instructions to mitigate that scenario happening globally.

[SumJongGuy]

FIFY. I’m not sure this is news outside of teh TRGz yet. This was published yesterday, and no mention of our issue:
https://blisterreview.com/gear-revie...2019-g3-zed-12

Also no mention of the stomp pad, no photos of stomp pad where there is no brake either..

[DolphinSki]

Lou weighed in on the issue today...https://www.wildsnow.com/25544/g3-st...d-ski-binding/

"Stomps pads are a kludgy solution to inherent binding fragility"

[cmcrawfo]

Say G3 had to recall and refund every Zed in the wild or replace it with a totally different stronger heel piece? Are they on solid enough financial ground to pull that off if they had to? Add in the damage to the reputation. Marker and Atomic are still suffering from their product recalls years and years ago..

The thing is. Every binding brand has a bad name one way or the other. So reputation is relative.

How many days did it take them to respond with a statement and fix? Let’s see if Solomon can match it.

[lucknau]

FIFY. I’m not sure this is news outside of teh TRGz yet. This was published yesterday, and no mention of our issue:
https://blisterreview.com/gear-revie...2019-g3-zed-12

There's an article on Wildsnow about it, published today, that gives a shout out to this thread and talks about the ISO standard and how it allows a +-3mm tolerance in boot sole thickness. Makes the point that a boot could be well outside of G3's max recommended gap of 1.5mm and still conform to the ISO 9523 standard.

https://www.wildsnow.com/25544/g3-st...d-ski-binding/

[SumJongGuy]

The thing is. Every binding brand has a bad name one way or the other. So reputation is relative.

How many days did it take them to respond with a statement and fix? Let’s see if Solomon can match it.

Looks like they responded with some apologist BS blaming the victim for the missing stomp pad..sending them another box of impending doom.. because they knew these kinds of problems were definitely coming. The "ya but Salomon" doesn't change the fact that there's a potentially unsafe situation for the hundreds or thousands of people skiing on these with or without the "work around" they're trying.

[DolphinSki]

The real takeaway here is don't buy first-year tech bindings if you want your bindings to not break.

[cmcrawfo]

Looks like they responded with some apologist BS blaming the victim for the missing stomp pad..sending them another box of impending doom.. because they knew these kinds of problems were definitely coming. The "ya but Salomon" doesn't change the fact that there's a potentially unsafe situation for the hundreds or thousands of people skiing on these with or without the "work around" they're trying.

The ya but Solomon wasn’t meant as means of excusing anything, rather it was to exemplify my point.

by your logic every binding manufacturer is slinging death traps with shady pasts and indemnified futures.

[reckless toboggan]

There's an article on Wildsnow about it, published today, that gives a shout out to this thread and talks about the ISO standard and how it allows a +-3mm tolerance in boot sole thickness. Makes the point that a boot could be well outside of G3's max recommended gap of 1.5mm and still conform to the ISO 9523 standard.

https://www.wildsnow.com/25544/g3-st...d-ski-binding/

Yup. This.

Further, G3 states the following in their service bulletin:
“To address the potential scenario where non-conforming boots are used with the ZED binding, G3 has developed two additional stomp pad height options which will be available on December 19, 2018. The optional stomp pads will be 1.5 mm and 3.0 mm higher than the standard ZED stomp pad that has shipped with all currently available ZED bindings. These additional items should address any outstanding sizing needs at this time.”
Above is okay, but odd. If you examine the ISO standard, you’ll see it allows <>3 millimeters variance in boot heel height. That means a boot could still be “norm” and exceed the 1.5 mm gap needed to make ZED reliable. In other words, a boot doesn’t have to be “non-conforming” to have dimensions that cause excessive gap above the original ZED stomp pad. One has to wonder if somehow G3 missed that pesky detail of the ISO standard?
Further, the G3 communique states that “We were unaware there are many alpine touring ski boots in the market that do not conform to the recognized industrial norm for positioning tech inserts in their boots.” That’s a jaw dropper for me, as I thought it was common wisdom that boot dimensions are all over the map.

[SumJongGuy]

The ya but Solomon wasn’t meant as means of excusing anything, rather it was to exemplify my point.

by your logic every binding manufacturer is slinging death traps with shady pasts and indemnified futures.

Only if there are instances of catastrophic DOUBLE failure on the first run of the first day from every other vendor. Then trying to add a little plastic block after the fact and act like it was supposed to be there all along..

[lucknau]

I just compared my boot specs to the standard, and the heel shelf is 30.25 mm, which is 1.75 mm from the midpoint of the standard, 32 (+-3) mm, so within tolerance.

The gap between my boot sole and the Zed stomp plate is 3.00 mm.

I'm not sure if there's any indication of where the pin inserts are supposed to set with respect to the sole. They word their statement "recognized industrial norm", so I assume there is no standard for placement of the insert.

[XXX-er]

"
Alkasquawlik
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Quote Originally Posted by reckless toboggan View Post
I totally agree. Very un-TGR dammit!

Where is Cody on this!?!?

LOCK HIM UP!

Yeah, sorry, been busy packing up my belongings, stuffing the truck and getting a head start on the pitchforks and tiki torches. "





SO 2 different brands of AT binding, both heel pieces fail, 2 different reactions one is falling off the bottom of the pages and the other one is still festering away wasting cycles on BS and conjecture

G3 makes up up some bulshit while Saloman guy decides that he should leave town ... I wonder if it has anyhting to do with how it was handled ?

[SumJongGuy]

Wasn't it a high level pro skier who was on the Shift when the heels cracked? I'd say that failure's likely to go viral quicker than the G3 simply because the OP doesn't have the media exposure that the Salomon skier does.. Or, does the Shift skier have Salomon backing at risk pressuring them to try to keep it kinda quiet?

[cmcrawfo]

Wasn't it a high level pro skier who was on the Shift when the heels cracked? I'd say that failure's likely to go viral quicker than the G3 simply because the OP doesn't have the media exposure that the Salomon skier does.. Or, does the Shift skier have Salomon backing at risk pressuring them to try to keep it kinda quiet?

More tinfoil !

[XXX-er]

Wasn't it a high level pro skier who was on the Shift when the heels cracked? I'd say that failure's likely to go viral quicker than the G3 simply because the OP doesn't have the media exposure that the Salomon skier does.. Or, does the Shift skier have Salomon backing at risk pressuring them to try to keep it kinda quiet?

I'd say it was the fucking drama that caused the G3 thing to spiral into pages of BS

[jono]

I just compared my boot specs to the standard, and the heel shelf is 30.25 mm, which is 1.75 mm from the midpoint of the standard, 32 (+-3) mm, so within tolerance.

The gap between my boot sole and the Zed stomp plate is 3.00 mm.

I'm not sure if there's any indication of where the pin inserts are supposed to set with respect to the sole. They word their statement "recognized industrial norm", so I assume there is no standard for placement of the insert.

If your measurements are accurate (within .25 mm) they refute the Wildsnow implication that G3 ignored the +/-3 in the standard: they aimed 1.25 mm to the thin side originally, such that adding 3mm would leave a 1.25 mm gap on the worst-case conforming boot. Maybe there's also an issue with the thickest boot, though, if such a product exists--should that be it's own thread? May not be room in this one for all the drama.

[lucknau]

If your measurements are accurate (within .25 mm) they refute the Wildsnow implication that G3 ignored the +/-3 in the standard: they aimed 1.25 mm to the thin side originally, such that adding 3mm would leave a 1.25 mm gap on the worst-case conforming boot. Maybe there's also an issue with the thickest boot, though, if such a product exists--should that be it's own thread? May not be room in this one for all the drama.

Yeah, so on second thought, the assertion about a +-3mm tolerance is pretty much irrelevant to the discussion. As far as I can tell, ISO 9523 has nothing to do with pin insert location on a boot. That spec is for making a touring boot that has a shelf height compatible with an ISO binding heel. It seems like there may not be a standard for pin insert location on a touring boot heel. Hence the phrase "recognized industrial norm", as opposed to "standard".