What to do when....? A binding mounting situation...

[Severine]

Based upon SnowHot's recommendation that this would be a good discussion for the gear forum, I'm copying what I posted in Dawning Chorus and posting it here for discussion:

Picked up my skis this afternoon from the shop and I am NOT happy. We had a gift card so I went to another shop to have bindings mounted on my Celebrities. Brian didn't realize the bindings he bought had lifter plates, so I asked that they be mounted flat without them. No problem, he said. We'll just grind down the screws. I figure hey, he's the owner, he knows what he's talking about. I dropped them off last Thurs and was told to pick up today. I show up at 3:30PM and he says, "Oh yeah, I haven't gotten to your skis yet. We're backed up." (Mind you, when I dropped them off, I asked if they were backed up and let him choose when they would be ready. He could have at least called this morning when they still weren't done. ) So he says, "Do you want me to do them now?" Uh, yeah. The shop closes at 5PM... he says, "Oh yeah, I have to grind down your screws. It's going to take a while. Do you have any errands you can run?" I had already been out of the house since 10AM with the kids going to my school for paperwork, getting Mags a haircut, lunch, and shopping... I was not putting them back in the car. He could deal with their crankiness just as I had to. So I waited in the shop... and kind of watched since I could see the work area. Learn while he's working on them that he's one of the owners.... And eventually, he comes out and says "Yeah, there's a dimple on the bottom of one of these. I didn't grind the screw down enough at first, so I took it out and ground it down more. It won't affect the function of the ski." "Oh, and you'll have to check the forward pressure when you get home, since you didn't leave your boots." (He told me I didn't have to...) I paid these people $50 to mount these bindings because I didn't buy them there...the place I went last Fall to have bindings mounted only cost me $30 and they did it on the spot (again, did not buy the bindings in the shop). I am livid. But I am also with 2 crabby kids, and one of them pooped her pants while I was waiting so I was in no position to argue. Took my skis and left. Brian will be checking them to see how bad they are... this shop will NOT be getting another dime from me. Too bad it's the closest shop to us.

When Brian got home, he took a look at the ski and then went online. His sources (Tognar being one of them) said that as long as the screw didn't go through all the way, you can fix the dimple and it should be fine. I guess there were 2 methods mentioned: pounding it back in with a rubber-headed mallet, or heating it and pushing it back in.

In my case, I was more concerned about the (lack of) customer service issue. :mad: But it is a legit concern for the equipment, and I wish I had known more when I picked the skis up instead of just nodding and taking my skis home.

 

[SnowHot]

Severine, I have had a few similar shop experiences.
Situation #1
I had a mismount on a pair of fat skis and a worse mis mount on them when I had them remount them. When I took the bindings off for myself, I found that they had drilled the skis 3 times to get it right
I took the reciept for the skis to the shop and asked them to give me store credit for an alternate pair of skis, although they didn't have anything remotely like the skis I took in to them.
That is how I got the Nordica Nitrous. I felt like I could trust them with a system binding mount
In this situation, they did "okay" by me on customer service after I faced the owner with it, but they weren't going to tell me that they mismounted them 3 times. Can you say, Swiss cheese Skis?


Situation #2
I had a pair of skis mounted with a "too long" screw in one spot with a dimple in the base. The shop tech had no clue he did it, and I wasn't upset because he was apologetic when I shared it with him. they replaced the screw with a shorter one, and I flattened the dimple with a wax iron and some slight pressure. No issues with the skis.


The issue with you is not the dimple but the lousy shop service. I'd be concerned to take skis back to them, so I'm not sure I'd demand anything of them. What do they have that you could possibly want

 

[Severine]

In a way, I'm kind of glad to hear I'm not the "only" one. Misery loves company, eh? Swiss cheese mounting definitely would have been an issue. That's the problem Greg from AZ had with our old shop that led him to the shop which did my recent mounting. He ended up insisting upon a new pair of skis from the old shop (and had to fight for it). In his case, I don't blame him. And had something like that happened to me, I would have been more upset.

Brian was quite upset at first because he was worried about the base separating from the ski in the future. He said he read something online about that. But when he looked for this, he found on Tognar and elsewhere that the dimple can be repaired. He's just worried about the future of the ski... Hearing that you haven't had issues with your dimple-repaired ski might ease his mind.

Everybody makes mistakes and at least the shop owner showed me his. It's just that given the circumstances, you would think he would have done something more than "oh well." You're right, I don't want to go back to them. This is their 3rd strike with me. But having worked in customer service most of my life, siuations like this get to me...

Once again, at least I know now that it wasn't severe damage. I would have felt like a huge butt if I made a stink about it and it wasn't "that" big of a deal. I guess I can be thankful that I clammed up this time.

 

[SnowHot]

Keep in mind that the dimple is no issue, depending on the severity of the dimple.
See if it can be flattened out with a hot iron. If not, then fight for replacements.

Even good shops can make mistakes.
A good shop makes them occasionally, not frequently, and will take care of the customer.

 

[SnowHot]

From the Dawn Chorus thread:

Happy Halloween everyone! and TGI-fricken-F !

Sev, how can a ski shop mount bindings withOUT your boots? Sounds scary, make sure you have them checked somewhere else.

I'm commenting on this in the gear thread.

I let it slip right by that he didn't have your boots to mount the bindings. I can imagine that he would be able to do the mount with a similar BSL boot in the shop, then check the forward pressure when you come back, but it is required that he do this, not tell you to do it!!!

Another thing you mentioned in the DC, is that he didn't fix the dimple, which means that there is a possibility that the dimple is severe and not something easily fixed.

Just thoughts on this issue. Hope I'm not harshin your mellow

 

[Severine]

Went back to the shop today. Spoke to the owner again. He claims he tested the bindings with another pair of boots but "didn't I tell you how to check the forward pressure when you got home?" I reminded him that he did not tell me that he would not be able to do these things if I didn't leave my boots. I also mentioned that the fact that he didn't fix the dimple bothered me. He was pretty flippant about it and actually said "I don't know why I didn't fix it." Cop out. Said he would fix it then. I'm not sure how he did it, but afterwards, he did a base grind on both skis and a wax. Plus checked the bindings with my boots. The dimple no longer appears to be there.

He said that he gets a lot of requests to flat mount bindings (which is what I assumed when I chose that shop since they tend to stock newschooler stuff) and that it's not always easy to figure out how short to make the screws. I asked him why they don't just use shorter screws and he said it would be too much of a hassle to keep track of the different screws for the different brands of bindings. Whether he was just making up a BS story or not I don't know but I guess that could be a valid reason.

The sad thing is is that I chose this shop because I knew they flat-mounted someone else's bindings and did it right. What happened can happen. It's not a unique situation. But the customer service is not there and today was my last visit to that shop.

Why is it so hard to find a good ski shop???? Ugh.

 

[snowski/swimmouse]

Carrie, I had a similar service issue several years ago with the ~only~ ski shop within 60 miles of where I live. I left my skis (purchased at another shop of the same business, but near Sugar Mtn slopes) to be fully tuned, etc.. Because they're more than 40 miles away, it was about a month before I would pick them up. Yet they hadn't been touched! He did them while I waited (majorly annoyed). They were improperly tuned and had to be redone by the shop in the mountains after my first ski day of the season. I may take advantage of their 40-50% sales for the two upstate clubs again with wine and cheese, but otherwise I'll never go there again and they'll ~never~ touch my skis nor sell me any! So, basically, I go 100 miles to the ski shop.