Severine
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I think this belongs here but if not, please feel free to relocate.
Backstory:
While I was down and out with my partial ACL tear this past season, I decided to take advantage of the end of season sales and pick up some new boots. I now knew my ski boots were at least 1 shell size too big and I wasn't getting the performance I wanted out of them. The shop where I bought them had screwed some people over since, so we were on the lookout for a reputable shop. At that time, a couple friends on AZ highly recommended Dave Newman at Ski Market (who previously had his own shop but had recently started lending his bootfitting expertise to the new owners of Ski Market). I had some issues with making an appointment with him and lack of customer service, though, so I ended up going with another shop (that's further away) based on other AZ members' recommendations (also supposedly a Master Bootfitter on staff).
So I went to the other shop in March and they put me in Nordica Olympia Beast 10 25.0 (I was previously in Salomon Performa 4.0 26.0). I had custom unweighted footbeds made at the same time because I had known foot problems while skiing. $160 on top of the boots. Skied in the boots twice and had a lot of issues with the fit after the footbeds were put in, but I figured it was part of the process of breaking in new boots and they have a 1 year fit guarantee so they told me to come back next season for more tweaking at no additional charge.
In the meantime, someone resurrected an old thread I had on AZ about reputable ski shops in my state. I added my experience with Ski Market that I had problems with customer service (lack thereof) in spite of being highly recommended. Lo and behold, someone saw the thread, forwarded it to the shop through their website, and the next thing I know, their Master Bootfitter (Dave) posts a response on AZ apologizing for the issues I had and offering to help me out. I got in touch with him, explained what happened (he remembered me when talked) and how I got my boots elsewhere. So he offered a free stance/alignment evaluation as an amends for the problems I had with the shop. I thought that was extremely generous, and the fact that he went out of his way to make a public apology and make things right meant a lot to me. So I went today for this evaluation.
Right off the bat, I could tell Dave knew what he was talking about. It turns out the footbeds I had made at the other shop were made wrong (which I had suspected but having no experience in custom unweighted footbeds like them before, I thought "what do I know?"). The problems I was having he was able to figure out just by looking at what they did. They also cut them too small so they were floating around in the liner, which is a huge no-no. Again, I didn't know any better at the time. He offered to rework them to make them better, which meant a lot to me. But when I asked him if it was even worth it if they wouldn't be right, he said that honestly, it would take him twice as long to try to fix them and they wouldn't be able to do what they're supposed to because you can't put material back on. So I had him make new ones. Yes, that's a lot of money. And no, I can't afford to have new customs made when I just had customs made that I used twice. But the other pair were not right. And once he evaluated my feet, I could tell how NOT right they were. (I want to add that Dave never volunteered on his own that I should get new footbeds made - which means a lot to me as I know he wasn't just being a pushy salesman or something, KWIM?)
The next step was a lot more intensive than the other place I went. He felt my feet and ankles to find where I was having stability issues, check arches, flexibility, things like that. He could tell that I had broken my 5th metatarsal in my left foot. He could also tell that I had sprained my left ankle repeatedly. He also said he suspected that my left leg was shorter because of the issues I'm having, plus my arch is almost completely collapsed on that foot. I was impressed - I knew this stuff but didn't tell him any of it ahead of time. He made the footbeds (again, more thoroughly) then also checked some other stuff that would come into play for the stance/alignment evaluation.
Since I had completely new footbeds made today, my stance/alignment evaluation has been delayed to next Saturday. I have no problem with this. I want it done right. I have no idea if it will do anything, but once he's done with the new ones, I'm taking those and the wrongly made ones to the other shop to show them that they screwed up and ask what they'll do about it. I wouldn't want them making new ones after how much they screwed up, but I feel like I'm owed something for spending $160 on worthless useless footbeds that were used twice.
The lesson? Be sure you really are seeing somebody who knows what they're talking about. Even though I got excellent recommendations for the other shop, even though they're listed as Master Bootfitters and have certificates all over the shop wall stating thus, that doesn't mean anything. I could tell right away that I was talking to the genuine article today. And that mistake I made is now a costly one. Fortunately, the other shop did at least put me in boots that are right for my feet and skill level, and they're the right shell size. If not, that would have been even worse.
I'll keep you updated on the stance/alignment evaluation on Saturday. But what a difference already!
The other lesson? The squeaky wheel gets the grease. I should have spoken up to Dave and Ski Market originally when I had problems. I didn't but at least they're doing what they can to make it right now. And I'm glad I'm giving them another shot.
Backstory:
While I was down and out with my partial ACL tear this past season, I decided to take advantage of the end of season sales and pick up some new boots. I now knew my ski boots were at least 1 shell size too big and I wasn't getting the performance I wanted out of them. The shop where I bought them had screwed some people over since, so we were on the lookout for a reputable shop. At that time, a couple friends on AZ highly recommended Dave Newman at Ski Market (who previously had his own shop but had recently started lending his bootfitting expertise to the new owners of Ski Market). I had some issues with making an appointment with him and lack of customer service, though, so I ended up going with another shop (that's further away) based on other AZ members' recommendations (also supposedly a Master Bootfitter on staff).
So I went to the other shop in March and they put me in Nordica Olympia Beast 10 25.0 (I was previously in Salomon Performa 4.0 26.0). I had custom unweighted footbeds made at the same time because I had known foot problems while skiing. $160 on top of the boots. Skied in the boots twice and had a lot of issues with the fit after the footbeds were put in, but I figured it was part of the process of breaking in new boots and they have a 1 year fit guarantee so they told me to come back next season for more tweaking at no additional charge.
In the meantime, someone resurrected an old thread I had on AZ about reputable ski shops in my state. I added my experience with Ski Market that I had problems with customer service (lack thereof) in spite of being highly recommended. Lo and behold, someone saw the thread, forwarded it to the shop through their website, and the next thing I know, their Master Bootfitter (Dave) posts a response on AZ apologizing for the issues I had and offering to help me out. I got in touch with him, explained what happened (he remembered me when talked) and how I got my boots elsewhere. So he offered a free stance/alignment evaluation as an amends for the problems I had with the shop. I thought that was extremely generous, and the fact that he went out of his way to make a public apology and make things right meant a lot to me. So I went today for this evaluation.
Right off the bat, I could tell Dave knew what he was talking about. It turns out the footbeds I had made at the other shop were made wrong (which I had suspected but having no experience in custom unweighted footbeds like them before, I thought "what do I know?"). The problems I was having he was able to figure out just by looking at what they did. They also cut them too small so they were floating around in the liner, which is a huge no-no. Again, I didn't know any better at the time. He offered to rework them to make them better, which meant a lot to me. But when I asked him if it was even worth it if they wouldn't be right, he said that honestly, it would take him twice as long to try to fix them and they wouldn't be able to do what they're supposed to because you can't put material back on. So I had him make new ones. Yes, that's a lot of money. And no, I can't afford to have new customs made when I just had customs made that I used twice. But the other pair were not right. And once he evaluated my feet, I could tell how NOT right they were. (I want to add that Dave never volunteered on his own that I should get new footbeds made - which means a lot to me as I know he wasn't just being a pushy salesman or something, KWIM?)
The next step was a lot more intensive than the other place I went. He felt my feet and ankles to find where I was having stability issues, check arches, flexibility, things like that. He could tell that I had broken my 5th metatarsal in my left foot. He could also tell that I had sprained my left ankle repeatedly. He also said he suspected that my left leg was shorter because of the issues I'm having, plus my arch is almost completely collapsed on that foot. I was impressed - I knew this stuff but didn't tell him any of it ahead of time. He made the footbeds (again, more thoroughly) then also checked some other stuff that would come into play for the stance/alignment evaluation.
Since I had completely new footbeds made today, my stance/alignment evaluation has been delayed to next Saturday. I have no problem with this. I want it done right. I have no idea if it will do anything, but once he's done with the new ones, I'm taking those and the wrongly made ones to the other shop to show them that they screwed up and ask what they'll do about it. I wouldn't want them making new ones after how much they screwed up, but I feel like I'm owed something for spending $160 on worthless useless footbeds that were used twice.
The lesson? Be sure you really are seeing somebody who knows what they're talking about. Even though I got excellent recommendations for the other shop, even though they're listed as Master Bootfitters and have certificates all over the shop wall stating thus, that doesn't mean anything. I could tell right away that I was talking to the genuine article today. And that mistake I made is now a costly one. Fortunately, the other shop did at least put me in boots that are right for my feet and skill level, and they're the right shell size. If not, that would have been even worse.
I'll keep you updated on the stance/alignment evaluation on Saturday. But what a difference already!
The other lesson? The squeaky wheel gets the grease. I should have spoken up to Dave and Ski Market originally when I had problems. I didn't but at least they're doing what they can to make it right now. And I'm glad I'm giving them another shot.
I tried to go there first and twice, I had issues with nobody offering me any help when I was looking over the boots. Neither time was it especially busy. Then a friend gave me the name of a person to ask for specifically and make an appointment, so I called him (Dave, incidentally) and discovered that he normally makes appointments on weekdays. Since I'm home with the kids by myself during the week, we discussed having me come in on Sunday. And since he normally didn't make appointments on Sunday, he suggested calling Saturday afternoon to give him a heads up on when I thought I'd be in on Sunday so he could try to make sure he was available. But when I called Saturday, I was told he wasn't in that day. It was sort of the final straw at the time and what drove me to go to the other ski shop (which is 30 minutes further from my home, too). It turns out there may have been some confusion and his schedule might have gotten mixed up as to when he was away on vacation. If I had made one more attempt at Ski Market, I would have discovered that. But it was sort of a "3 strikes you're out" thing at the time for me and I was angry, so I just decided to try over somewhere else. I had already had bad experiences with another ski shop in the area (that put Brian and me into boots that were too big but we didn't know any better at the time and had screwed up mounting a friend's skis.... and so on and so forth) so I was really concerned about ending up in another bad situation like that. Ironically, it looks like the shop I went to turned out to be more problematic in the end.
) So keep on with this process, and I wish you the same good luck that I've had. I've seriously not thought about or done anything to these footbeds (except to transfer them to other boots) in well over 10 years. Talk about money well spent....
