 Poster: A snowHead
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I recently bought new ski boots that are a size bigger than my old ones. I took my skis (K2 Super Burnin Luv with Marker bindings—I think about 5 years old but maybe older) to a shop at Heavenly to get the bindings adjusted to the new boots. The guy at the shop told me that a) he would have to max out my bindings to make them work for my boots and even then they would be a little tight and b) that my bindings are too old and not up to current safety standards so under store policy he can’t work on them. He recommended new bindings and skis as well because he said taking off the existing bindings and mounting new ones will compromise the integrity of the skis. I’ve been toying with the idea of buying new skis anyway because mine are terrible in powder, so it’s not the end of the world if that’s accurate, but I need to know. Does this sound legitimate or am I just being upsold?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@sewalkersd, sorry Chief, but what the flinging flang is "upsold" when it's at home? What on earth has happened to the language? Speak English man/woman.
Perhaps I am being churlish.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| HammondR wrote: |
@sewalkersd, sorry Chief, but what the flinging flang is "upsold" when it's at home? What on earth has happened to the language? Speak English man/woman.
Perhaps I am being churlish. |
Upselling = telling someone they need something better so they spend more money. I’m just trying to figure out if I really need new stuff or if the guy is just trying to get me to spend money.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Sounds like he’s pushing for a sale. Get a second opinion.
Welcome to snowheads.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@HammondR is "upsold" really not English? Cambridge English Dictionary seems to be happy with the concept: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/upsell
@sewalkersd much as I hate people who upsell for their own gain, he might actually be telling the truth here.
On the bindings front there is an indemnity list which goes around every year and tells the ski shops what is and isn't indemnified by the manufacturer. If a binding isn't on the list, then it means the manufacturer no longer officially supports the use of the binding. So yes, if a shop works on the binding and it fails, causing you to mate your head with a tree; the manufacturer claims no liability since the binding has been announced as 'off the list', and so the shop who did the work may end up - from a legal perspective - without any backup as they performed work that they were not meant to perform and they may have to take sole liability in your sizeable court case.
On the skis front it is accepted that you can only mount a ski a set number of times. It does basically depend on where the holes end up, but as a guide people normally say 3 times. So how many times have the skis been mounted before? If it's never, and there's no filled holes on the ski other than the ones you have... then the guy might be upselling a bit but if they have had previous bindings on, then there's every chance that he's just being thorough.
If your bindings are off the list then I think you'll have to replace those in any case. The skis will really depend on how many holes they've already got in them.
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If they are off the indemnified list a decent shop, provided they look and test OK will just ask you to sign a waiver. And then carry on.
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@sewalkersd, As mentioned by others, what the shop is saying may be valid if the bindings are old, and the skis have been mounted multiple times. If as suggested by your link the skis were new from 2012, I would be surprised if the bindings are out of indemnity already after 5 years.
According to this link the binding manufacturers are restricting access to the indemnified binding lists, but maybe only retail shops have access to them.
http://www.skibum.net/do-it-up/gear-guide/indemnified-bindings/
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@sewalkersd, he’s trying it on. Go somewhere else
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@dp, Looks as if I was being churlish!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@under a new name valid point, but annoyingly as I stated in a different thread, the modern day legal value of waivers is disputed.
A lot of people - including many insurers - tend to believe a waiver is only useful in convincing somebody that they can't claim... it may not have any legal impact on defending the shop in the event of a claim being made.
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@sewalkersd, the shop is trying to scam to. That binding is listed on the 17-18 Indemnified List, plus they have sufficient length adjustment/forward pressure adjustment to accommodate any adult boot length.
@albob, checking a binding out by using an out of date Indemnified List is not a good idea.
| under a new name wrote: |
| If they are off the indemnified list a decent shop, provided they look and test OK will just ask you to sign a waiver. And then carry on. |
@under a new name, you keep saying this but it is very misleading is not good practice and it not what I'd expect from a "decent" shop.
Very few shops have the proper testing equipment but even if a binding tests ok at the time of the test it doesn't mean that it hasn't suffered from material degradation etc. If your car was recalled by the manufacturer on safety grounds would you ignore the recall on the basis that it drives ok or that it passed its MOT? I think not.
dp is correct in that having a customer sign a waiver will most likely not indemnify the shop as that is saying that the shop knows more than the binding manufacturer who has been continually testing that binding since it's launch ('cause it's a TUV requirement). The Indemnified List is not a marketing ploy by manufacturers to sell new bindings, if it was then many bindings would stay on the list for the length of time they do, which is often many many years.
I'd like to think that I run a "decent" shop and I won't work on out of indemnity bindings as I've been to a couple of factories/labs and seen their exhaustive testing and know how important it is.
I do use waivers in my shop but they're used when bindings either don't come under din certification &/or the users request a din setting that's different from their chart setting, not as a get-out when a binding has been deemed to be unsafe.
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You know it makes sense.
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@spyderjon, Jon, I get that. And I don’t think it’s a marketing ploy.
But I do believe (and no-one’s produced any evidence to the contrary) that it derives from a US litigation issue. Not that any shop should work on bindings that are patently going to be unsafe. (Bro in law was asked to fit new boots to something like a Look 77 a couple of weeks ago).
Maybe bindings are just a bit more pathetic than in my youth. Maybe skiers are.
I’ll be in Mürren in a couple of weeks and I’ll post some pics if I remember to do so of what the 3 shops are offering for Inferno hire.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@dp, surely this depends on the legislature? Maybe it doesn’t work in the UK, f’rinstance. It seems to hold as per my prior example in Canada or I can’t believe CMH. E.g. would be so strict about it.
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Poster: A snowHead
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In the 80s and 90s, a common event in the music industry was that a record label would find a young aspirational band, offer them a big time record deal, and shove a record contract in front of their noses. The contract would be like 140 pages long and contain terms that stipulated that the band would earn almost no royalties, no licensing fees, no cut of ticket sales... basically no anything... in both this band, and in any future band that any of them went on to be part of. Now we all know what it's like when you have a new piece of software you want to play with and you just go through the motions clicking "I accept... I accept... I accept..." without reading the text and essentially it's all these kids did too. They'd take the contract, flip to the last page and sign it with great excitement so they could start planning their first world tour. Then of course inevitably some of these kids did get famous and subsequently discovered they had no access to their earnings. Some of these went to court, and the courts decided in many/most of these cases, that the band did not have anywhere near sufficient legal knowledge to have signed that contract actually understanding what it meant; and took the view that as a result, the contract was void. They took the stance that the labels did it deliberately (which they did), using clever legal speak, and put it in the hands of people who wouldn't know any better, to sign for something where they didn't actually know what it meant. So now when bands sign a contract, it's often stipulated on the first page of the contract that it needs to be read and countersigned by a qualified solicitor, to say that he has explained the contract in full, to the band.
The issue with waivers is kind of the same. A court may take the approach that the customer signing the waiver did not have sufficient expertise to sign a document that had been written by an expert ski shop; and that throughout the process, the customer would be looking to said ski tech shop for advice. So when the shop says "I can work on this, if you sign the form"... the customer has a reasonable case to state that they didn't understand what they were signing as they're not an expert ski tech, and that the shop, by suggesting that there was an acceptable way in which to mount the binding, misled them to believe that using it was considered acceptable (just under certain conditions) when clearly contrary to that, the manufacturer (by excluding it from the indemnification list) was stating that it was not acceptable to be used.
So in addition to SpyderJon's point about the waiver claiming that the shop knows better than the manufacturer (which they likely don't), there is also the issue, that by a professional shop carrying out the work, there is an underlying implication that using the binding is acceptable providing that certain conditions (ie signing a waiver) are met - even though this is clearly not the case. As a subject expert, you have a professional obligation to your clients that you only perform work which you are satisfied is safe. It is not acceptable to provide unsafe work, providing that the customer signs a form to write off liability. The customer is relying on you for advice and if you know (read: know - because the manufacturer told you so) that using something is unsafe, and you allow them to use it regardless... then whether or not they have signed a waiver, you are guilty of negligence. End of. The only acceptable way, as a supplier, to approach unsafe work is to refuse to do it.
TL;DR: The expert shop will be considered by a court to be the expert in their field. The value of waivers is disputed because the client can argue that by you agreeing to do the work providing an waiver was signed, you were implying that to do the work was still acceptable. If the manufacturer refuses to support the bindings, then mounting them is not acceptable and thus you should not agree to perform the work in any situation. The client will claim that you were duty-bound, by profession, to know better and by giving them a contract to sign, you were implying that performing the work was an acceptable thing to do under certain conditions, so they felt safe to sign it. They will claim that they, as a casual skier, were not suitably qualified to sign a contract written by an expert ski technician as they didn't understand exactly what it meant and that your provisional agreement to perform the work led them to believe that it was acceptable to do so.
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FAQ
