Salomon sth 12 vs 12 driver, and cost?

A snowHead

So I've always had a bit of an aversion to salomon, especially their bindings, I had a set that just would not stop breaking, eventually I got look pivots, which have been the only binding thus far that hasn't broken, but there's a couple of problems with them, the heelpiece is annoyingly hard to unclip sometimes, just because it's so elastic, and when you're clipping in you always need to reset the heel which can get annoying when you're doing it a lot in the day.

I've got my hands on a salomon binding jig(it was £25 so I figured I may as well) and I was thinking I could sell my pivots(any idea what the current value is for 2012 pivot 14s with 90mm brakes?) and then get some salomon sth 12s/14s(don't really need 14s as I'm only at about 9 din, so it's just whatever's cheaper) as they're easily available, and from what I hear a lot the sth 12/14 drivers are of similar durability to pivots.

I was wondering,
1. How much weaker are the sth's than the sth drivers? should I really be getting the drivers?
2. What's the bsl adjustment available on sth's?
3. What sort of price do used sth 12/14/12drivers/14drivers? and where would be the best place to get some, couldn't see any on sh recently.

Thanks.

A snowHead

mag1882, what do you mean reset the heel? mine just clip in and thats it, easy to get back on in powder as well, just do the heel by hand, salomon ones i can't do that. pivot 14's also have vertical release toe and salomons don't. stick with what you have got!

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I'd appreciate if you could just answer the questions, and I'll make the decision, it's nothing to do with manliness, they're both similar bindings both with negatives and positives.

Thanks carroz I wasn't aware they didn't have vertical toe release, It's not like I phantom fall often, in fact I can't remember if I ever have, but I'd rather have it than not, so I'll bare that in mind.

When I say resetting I mean:
1. They often spin off around the turntable, have to spin that back, and while clipping in have to make sure they're straight else they don't clip in and they slide off to the side
2. Because of the elasticity of the heel they very often will spring back up as though the boot was clipped in, when I take my boot out.
3. They move up and down vertically, this isn't a problem though, as that's just an easy push down.

Also thanks for letting me know about the powder thing, I guess I forgot about the hassle of putting bindings on in powder, and the benifits of fks' in that case, but I VERY rarely get a chance to ski powder, and when I do get a chance I'm not falling often, whereas when I'm at the park I'll often fall, which is where the sth's would be a huge benefit.

Appreciate the help

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

mag1882, STH 12 has quadrax toe, with a 3 screw fitting like the z series, sth driver has driver toe which is more elastic and much beefier and 4 screws?. Both have a 5 screw heel.

The fks is a better binding for what you use them for, even if it is fiddly Get the forward pressure checked on them as the screw cylinder things sometimes become loose over time.

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I just got some STH14 drivers from edge and wax, cos they have a nice snowheads discount. The features of the bindings that sold em to me were ease of swapping brakes (so I can swap them between my skinnier and fatter skis on binding inserts) and the toe height adjustability (means you can fit some touring boot toes in there with a lower risk of pre-release or the need for high release value settings).

The non-driver toe lacks height adjustability, but gives you vertical release instead... this is a bonus, but not essential. It also has automatic toe wing adjustment, so they don't need as much setup, or the same sorts of regular maintenance, and you don't have to fiddle with the toe if you change boots. The driver toe design is a good 20 years old, so the design has held up well.

I can't for the life of me remember the adjustment range of the STH heels, but it won't be enormous. I'm fairly certain that it is a little bit longer than the Pivots though, cos those have a tiny range.

The STH heel has a nice satisfying clunk when you click in snowHead

There are loads of threads going back years on TGR comparing the two; Pivots get a bit more love but both designs are sound. If you've got money floating around with nothing better to spend it on, you may as well give it a go wink

(oh, Salomon are releasing a new STH range for next season with a new toe and heel based on the guardian's WTR design. You may not care about the new design, but it does mean that older STH stock may end up going cheap come the autumn, or maybe even sooner)

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

mag1882, sorry just looked it up Serriadh, is correct and i was wrong in part....the standard sth 12 toe has vertical release....or total when you blow the wings off the things in the park...... the driver toe does not have vertical release.

On my very ancient s916's, when i was young.......the manual toe wing adjustment used to self adjust all the time and was a complete pain, don't know if the toe still does that......

After all it is free

Appreciate the advice, Yeah another one of the reasons I'm looking for salomons is they're significantly easier to get parts for, if I break my brakes on my fks' I'm absolutely f'd, hard enough getting the brakes and even harder putting them in. but with salomons both are easy & cheap.

Also planning on quiver killing them for more than 1 pair of skis, and drilling in future will be free with jig.

I'm tempted to get a set of sth 12 non drivers, £50 is a pretty good deal IMO and there's not much harm done if they fail.

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Salomon sth 12 vs 12 driver, and cost?

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