Back up their Gear

Treezybreez

Treezybreez

Been here much more than a while
Location
Lancaster, SC
So the "broken ring funny world" thread got me thinking. What company, that makes climbing gear, is the most reliable at standing behind their products? I know Petzl did an impressive recall after someone fell as a result of a zigzag failure. However I never heard weather they compensated the guy who fell.
 
I was thinking the company with the greatest safety record or whos shit didnt doesnt break or fail on people. Whoever they are. Certainly some high quality products out there from companies I've never herd of having failures. I never herd about the Kong ring debockle until I read that thread ,that was a huge deal , so shows what I know.. Jack shit really. I hate hate hate hearing about ppe failures .. I think that is such bullshit.
 
Treezybreez said:
...know Petzl did an impressive recall after someone fell as a result of a zigzag failure.
Click to expand...

Yes, they recalled all of the Version 1 units after that, and changed the rope/carabiner attachment point. The more recent Version 2 units that can develop cracks in the link sideplates weren't recalled, but Petzl extended the warranty to 10 years on those units that develop cracks, and will replace them with the Version 3 units at no cost. The issue wouldn't cause a fall. They beefed up the link sideplates on the new ones. I haven't had any cracks develop in mine (I now have 3 of the Version 2 units, 2 that I bought new and 1 that I picked up used on TreeBay). I personally feel that Petzl stepped up to the plate on the issues, and dealt with them in a timely manner. I assume the German climber who fell was compensated, since he hasn't whined about it since, and Petzl has stated that they felt the jammed up, cross-loaded carabiner issue with the first version could happen during normal use. That's essentially an admission of design defect.

I can't think of any manufacturer of this stuff that hasn't had an issue at one time or another. They nearly always jump right on it and fix the problem or recall the product (or at least the suspect batch).

Some dealers keep baskets of broken gear on the countertop of their brick-and-mortar shops, and I've seen broken stuff in there from everybody... Unicenders, DMM biners, Rock O biners, you name it. Of course, you don't know what kind of abuse led to the failures. Could have been rigging with the stuff. There's always folks who will tell a different version of the story than the reality of it.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

From what I've read when the original Zig Zag cracks occurred no one fell or was injured. Did I he that right? If so, no compensation, other than gear replacement, would be expected

There are many top of the line companies manufacturing our gear. In my experience the customer service has been good wih only a few exceptions
 
That's right, Tom... the fall in question was a German climber and involved an early unit, first release of the ZigZag, that had a loop for attaching the carabiner to the rope eye, not the current arrangement where that carabiner passes through a hole in the body with the rubber insert. Those early units were recalled. If the carabiner became seriously crossloaded in the upper loop, and shock forces applied, it could break the aluminum loop. Petzl posted some pics on their site at the time that showed the convoluted crossloading scenario that was required, and although it looked like something you would almost have to struggle to duplicate, they felt that was something that can accidentally occur, hence the recall. I believe there was one other fall from this scenario that didn't result in injuries that occurred shortly after the first one. The crack issue showed up with the version 2 units (probably because the version 1 units weren't out there long enough).

Here's the pics from their site...

recall-zigzag-2.webp recall-ZIGZAG-1.webp
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom