Re: Just want some opinions
Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:38 am
I've tried 4 different shops locally so far, and have found good and bad examples of customer service at each. People are just people wherever you go, IMO.
I had a similar experience at a different "unnamed shop" somewhere between Olympia and Canada! After a long break in diving, I took my trusty old AL 80's to get hydro and vis, it was explained I had to get a vis + due to a potential problem with the alloy of the tank, no problem. After a long day of diving I decided to visit another shop and get some fills while I was there. When the employee looked at my tanks, he snipped at me that he couldn't fill these tanks, they are time bombs, you can't even have these in here! whatever shop that serviced them is wrong. He followed me to the door as I was carrying them out and offered to sell me new steel tanks that won't blow up on my back!His knee jerk response and somewhat snide response in the first place is what lost my business with them.
After many ali 6351 explosions on supposedly hydroed, viped and eddy current tested tanks I can't blame them at all. I won't fill tanks of that material either. On the other hand I have 3aa steel tanks in my fleet that are almost as old as me, born dates on them are the early 1970s.Jeff Pack wrote:there are some places that wont even fill tanks that past a certain # of years old, regardless of hydro, etc. Much as I wouldnt like to have a fill refused, its their life on the line, not mine if they are filling it.
So, I am the one who filled your cylinders Norris. You did bring in a set of steel doubles and a HP120 on 03/19/2015. Your post is incorrect and misleading everyone on this forum. I only took two fills off your fill card and specifically informed you of that when you left. Your card was marked off in my computer system when you were leaving at 2:06pm, and your post was several minutes before that (2:04pm was it?). Which means that while you were waiting for your cylinders to be filled you were sitting in our classroom badmouthing our store on your cell phone before you were even charged for the fills.Norris wrote:So there is a shop that is close to me that I have been more and more, not liking...it just seems their tactics on newer divers are shady and their methods of trying to get more money is nothing short of desperation.
Mind you I already have my reasons for avoiding this place but here is my scenario.
These people know me and obviously I am not a mark. I needed a close fill so I decided to head up.
I have a set of double 100s that are less than half spent (just topping off). And I brought in a 120.
While carting them back I asked..."so considering the doubles are over half full and I am filling another tank too, will you be treating my doubles as a single (I even carried them to the fill station.l)?
Without even a thought the answer spilled out as though read from a book..."If I am filling doubles, I am charging for doubles"
I know the SCUBA shop business needs all the help they can get but this seems counter productive to word of mouth advertising.
Because of the snotty response I will not refer people there and cannot say these are good people that will work with you.
Moving forward I will continue to use lighthouse and don't mind driving from Lake Stevens to do so.
If you were a shop owner, would you have answered the same?
I'm going to get rid of my single 6351 tank so nobody has to worry about it. 17 explosions worldwide out of 25 million tanks built before 1990 is too many but it is not a lot. Driving to the scuba shop to work is still scarier than filling a 6351 tank.CaptnJack wrote:After many ali 6351 explosions on supposedly hydroed, viped and eddy current tested tanks I can't blame them at all. I won't fill tanks of that material either. On the other hand I have 3aa steel tanks in my fleet that are almost as old as me, born dates on them are the early 1970s.Jeff Pack wrote:there are some places that wont even fill tanks that past a certain # of years old, regardless of hydro, etc. Much as I wouldnt like to have a fill refused, its their life on the line, not mine if they are filling it.
There are far more incidents than that now, including one in Olympia 2 yrs ago. I gave up mine a ~6 years ago after several trusted inspectors I know reported that they put valves into freshly hydroed, freshly visualled and freshly eddy current tested al6351 tanks and had them leak through neck cracks which spontaneously developed.Desert Diver wrote:I'm going to get rid of my single 6351 tank so nobody has to worry about it. 17 explosions worldwide out of 25 million tanks built before 1990 is too many but it is not a lot. Driving to the scuba shop to work is still scarier than filling a 6351 tank.CaptnJack wrote:After many ali 6351 explosions on supposedly hydroed, viped and eddy current tested tanks I can't blame them at all. I won't fill tanks of that material either. On the other hand I have 3aa steel tanks in my fleet that are almost as old as me, born dates on them are the early 1970s.Jeff Pack wrote:there are some places that wont even fill tanks that past a certain # of years old, regardless of hydro, etc. Much as I wouldnt like to have a fill refused, its their life on the line, not mine if they are filling it.
I think the point was that they were more than 1/2 full so despite having 2 tanks there was less than 1 tank's worth of air to be filled. Regardless of that, see the last post on the previous page. How you approach customers is more important than the money.Regtechkidd wrote:So, I am the one who filled your cylinders Norris. You did bring in a set of steel doubles and a HP120 on 03/19/2015. Your post is incorrect and misleading everyone on this forum. I only took two fills off your fill card and specifically informed you of that when you left. Your card was marked off in my computer system when you were leaving at 2:06pm, and your post was several minutes before that (2:04pm was it?). Which means that while you were waiting for your cylinders to be filled you were sitting in our classroom badmouthing our store on your cell phone before you were even charged for the fills.Norris wrote:So there is a shop that is close to me that I have been more and more, not liking...it just seems their tactics on newer divers are shady and their methods of trying to get more money is nothing short of desperation.
Mind you I already have my reasons for avoiding this place but here is my scenario.
These people know me and obviously I am not a mark. I needed a close fill so I decided to head up.
I have a set of double 100s that are less than half spent (just topping off). And I brought in a 120.
While carting them back I asked..."so considering the doubles are over half full and I am filling another tank too, will you be treating my doubles as a single (I even carried them to the fill station.l)?
Without even a thought the answer spilled out as though read from a book..."If I am filling doubles, I am charging for doubles"
I know the SCUBA shop business needs all the help they can get but this seems counter productive to word of mouth advertising.
Because of the snotty response I will not refer people there and cannot say these are good people that will work with you.
Moving forward I will continue to use lighthouse and don't mind driving from Lake Stevens to do so.
If you were a shop owner, would you have answered the same?
This April will mark 10 years for me of working full time in the diving industry and never once have I had a customer bring in two single cylinders that are half empty and complain that they were paying for two fills. This is only a complaint that I receive from people diving doubles. In the end you only paid for two single air fills.
I suggest in the future that you do not publicly lie and badmouth a company on this forum, as it is just tacky.
Could you give me a reference to the one in Olympia 2 years ago?CaptnJack wrote:There are far more incidents than that now, including one in Olympia 2 yrs ago. I gave up mine a ~6 years ago after several trusted inspectors I know reported that they put valves into freshly hydroed, freshly visualled and freshly eddy current tested al6351 tanks and had them leak through neck cracks which spontaneously developed.Desert Diver wrote:I'm going to get rid of my single 6351 tank so nobody has to worry about it. 17 explosions worldwide out of 25 million tanks built before 1990 is too many but it is not a lot. Driving to the scuba shop to work is still scarier than filling a 6351 tank.CaptnJack wrote:After many ali 6351 explosions on supposedly hydroed, viped and eddy current tested tanks I can't blame them at all. I won't fill tanks of that material either. On the other hand I have 3aa steel tanks in my fleet that are almost as old as me, born dates on them are the early 1970s.Jeff Pack wrote:there are some places that wont even fill tanks that past a certain # of years old, regardless of hydro, etc. Much as I wouldnt like to have a fill refused, its their life on the line, not mine if they are filling it.
Regtechkidd wrote:So, I am the one who filled your cylinders Norris. You did bring in a set of steel doubles and a HP120 on 03/19/2015. Your post is incorrect and misleading everyone on this forum. I only took two fills off your fill card and specifically informed you of that when you left. Your card was marked off in my computer system when you were leaving at 2:06pm, and your post was several minutes before that (2:04pm was it?). Which means that while you were waiting for your cylinders to be filled you were sitting in our classroom badmouthing our store on your cell phone before you were even charged for the fills.Norris wrote:So there is a shop that is close to me that I have been more and more, not liking...it just seems their tactics on newer divers are shady and their methods of trying to get more money is nothing short of desperation.
Mind you I already have my reasons for avoiding this place but here is my scenario.
These people know me and obviously I am not a mark. I needed a close fill so I decided to head up.
I have a set of double 100s that are less than half spent (just topping off). And I brought in a 120.
While carting them back I asked..."so considering the doubles are over half full and I am filling another tank too, will you be treating my doubles as a single (I even carried them to the fill station.l)?
Without even a thought the answer spilled out as though read from a book..."If I am filling doubles, I am charging for doubles"
I know the SCUBA shop business needs all the help they can get but this seems counter productive to word of mouth advertising.
Because of the snotty response I will not refer people there and cannot say these are good people that will work with you.
Moving forward I will continue to use lighthouse and don't mind driving from Lake Stevens to do so.
If you were a shop owner, would you have answered the same?
This April will mark 10 years for me of working full time in the diving industry and never once have I had a customer bring in two single cylinders that are half empty and complain that they were paying for two fills. This is only a complaint that I receive from people diving doubles. In the end you only paid for two single air fills.
I suggest in the future that you do not publicly lie and badmouth a company on this forum, as it is just tacky.
Wayne doesn't seem to be active here anymore, must have something to do with his upcoming nuptials. But he did say a few months after the fact that it was an Ali tank from a customer. Not one of his bank bottles as previously suspected.AdrianSmith wrote:You can Google this quite easily. No reference to 6351 but plenty to the explosion, including some with video.
http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/o ... /13335290/
AdrianSmith wrote:You can Google this quite easily. No reference to 6351 but plenty to the explosion, including some with video.
http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/o ... /13335290/
You'd have to PM Wayne for more info than that. It was a customer's old alloy tank, 2013 was 2 yrs agoDesert Diver wrote:AdrianSmith wrote:You can Google this quite easily. No reference to 6351 but plenty to the explosion, including some with video.
http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/o ... /13335290/
I don't have a problem finding info about the Capital Divers explosion. I was looking for info on the 6351 tank that exploded in Olympia 2 years ago.
They are one in the same I believe.Desert Diver wrote:AdrianSmith wrote:You can Google this quite easily. No reference to 6351 but plenty to the explosion, including some with video.
http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/o ... /13335290/
I don't have a problem finding info about the Capital Divers explosion. I was looking for info on the 6351 tank that exploded in Olympia 2 years ago.
There was another post (on facebook perhaps?) with different info.Desert Diver wrote:Here is a quote from a post by Wayne on May 10, 2014 in response to my question about what failed.
"One of our storage bottles. It was an aluminium tank with steal windings. After testing it's believed there were fractures in some fatigued metal that had been occurring for about 10 years. It was really fortunate that I'd run the banks down to just under half pressure that afternoon. And no one else was in or around the building. The outside didn't fair any better than the inside.
One day when I get some time, I'll post a report with some better pix..."
I don't think that was your basic 6351 tank. I also don't believe it was a customers tank. Easy to blame all cylinder explosions on 6351 and create panic over something that really isn't a large risk in the whole picture of diving.