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Individual Review Augment Skis -- Buyer Beware

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markojp

mtn rep for the gear on my feet
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No idea what your skill level is. All I can say is my colleagues and I work our tails off on the hill and indoors to help people have a better experience on the hill, so yes, I do get a bit prickly when everyone and everything gets painted with the proverbial large brush. Again, I have no issue with your skiing or your level of experience... I have no idea about any of that, but you've been at it a long time. Would just like to hear more stoke and have the feeling that you're cracking a smile every so often. I'm also guessing you're an absolutely stand up, fun to ski with guy in 1:1.
:beercheer:
 

markojp

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. While it's encouraging that there are stores like yours that take their responsibility to check and correct product seriously it's not a ringing endorsement of "whole industry" when you say you have to do it with all brands.

As long as there are organic components in skis (wood), and human touch in the supply and fabrication process, there will be variation.
 
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fatbob

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Oh I'm cracking a smile quite often - you just can't see it behind my veil of stoical misery. Part of the problem really being you have a good experience you (at least if you are a stoical Northern European) tell a few people but don't like to be seen to be boasting. You have a bad one - well someone's breached the code of expected behaviour.
 

ski otter 2

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I love to ski. I love good ski equipment, esp. skis and boots. As good as it gets, to me.

And I will not let typical human character defects/denials from people trying hard to make a living get in the way, however costly, bothersome or inevitably messed up now and then - or usually. If possible.

I just go somewhere else. (Thank God if I can.)
And/or do it myself: tune/flatten my own skis, however messed up from the factory or most ski shops (in my personal experience).
And thank God again if a ski turns out to be a good one, eventually. One small step at a time, to a great fleet of skis.

I feel a certain relief if others here are able to express the same kinds of frustrations with tunings, etc. I've had to go through on my own, mostly.
Such space for honesty - and freedom to express it - feels good to me.

Also, there's not much need to talk when a grin from ear to ear will do. Things mostly get complicated enough to have to talk - or write - around issues like @Mike King has had to deal with.

.
 

markojp

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Just to clarify, nothing I've posted was meant to infer that Mike's poor customer service experience is anything but, well, plain old poor customer service.
 

Noodler

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Clearly the Augment rep did not handle the situation well.

That said, we've discussed in other threads regarding ski tuning, that no ski comes out of manufacturing with properly beveled tips and tails. There isn't any automated machinery that handles the transition through the up-turns properly. Every ski needs a hand-tuning to get the tips and the tails correct. De-tuning the tips and tails is merely a workaround that doesn't result in the best performance that you will get if you hand-tune the ski properly with a quality base bevel guide and file.

If I ran a ski shop, I wouldn't allow a single new ski to go out the door without at least the tips and tails getting the proper treatment before the customer uses the skis. Ski performance is severely impacted by how the tips and tails engage with the snow. If you care about having skis perform at their very best, don't skimp on the hand-tune and make sure that the tips and tails are properly prepped.

It doesn't matter how much a ski costs, this work is always required for optimal performance in my experience.
 

ScottB

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Who knows? They are sitting unmounted in the corner of my condo.

Sorry to hear of your ordeal and sounds like crummy service from the sales/rep person. You should put your true bar on the skis now and check if they are still railed or not. If not, probably good to go.

I took a pair of skis into a shop for a base grind and re-set of the edge bevels. We talked a lot about how I wanted the angles and structure. I brought my true bar when I went to pick them up and used it to check the skis while still in the shop. I said "the edges look the same as when I brought them in" and the tech responded "I ground and tuned the skis for you like you asked", I said "but the edges look untouched", "I only grind the ptex, I don't touch the metal edges, that would shorten the life of the ski". So much for that shop. SKIMD in Framingham, MA is the only tuner I use now.

Sounds like your first shop was like my experience. Also sounds like your new skis had a tune issue that could have been easily solved by a competent rep and shop. Hopefully (after really poor treatment) you have that now. My advice is take the high road and find out if the skis work properly and if they do, never deal with that rep again. If you want to measure your skis bevels, here is how: (you need a relatively flat base as a reference)

 

Kyle

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Or is it as simple as a complete finished product can't be supplied consistently for the price customers demand?

To me, this is a really important question for the industry. I have skied for over 40 years. But/for this forum (or its predecessor), I may never have known that new skis frequently have significant issues with their tune. I suspect well over 95% of skiers are in the same boat. That is a problem in my book.
 

eok

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When possible, I prefer to buy new skis in brick&mortar shops or (sometimes) in ski swaps. In those situations I (usually) bring a true bar & mini LED flashlight with me. This has saved me a few times from buying skis so railed that their useful life would be greatly shortened if sufficiently ground flat.

Some shops actually do some degree of QA after receiving new skis & proactively deal with egregious quality issues before thinking of racking them. Or at least, proactively, letting prospective customers know the skis are "blemished" and discounted accordingly. But I believe this is a pretty rare practice nowadays.

For other shops, the skis literally go directly from the delivery truck to the racks - so customers sometimes find out about quality/defect issues post purchase. Sometimes, the issues are so bad it's really surprising nobody (manuf, shop, customer) caught it before purchase (I'll admit 1st hand experience here). I guess I could understand this practice for non-premium class product. But, for a premium model from a premium brand? No.

To me, the OP's experience seems the result of a dealer who is not proactive about pre-sale QA. Instead the dealer relies 100% on the manufacturer's QA. When a quality issue arises, the dealer has no real clue how to handle the situation fairly and consistently in a way consistent with the premium product's reputation.

This is a pity.
 

François Pugh

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Terrible service. I think I shall just avoid Augment skis. 4FRNT provided me with excellent service, although I have to admit, there was no problem with their skis.

Still, inquiring minds want to know exactly what was with the skis and what was done to correct it.
Were the metal edges sticking out from the base in places? If so what places?
Were the bases flush with the metal edges, but higher at the edge than in the middle (concave base)?
Did the first shop grind down the bases?
Did the first shop grind down the edges?
What changes to this situation were made by the 2nd retune?
 

ski otter 2

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When possible, I prefer to buy new skis in brick&mortar shops or (sometimes) in ski swaps. In those situations I (usually) bring a true bar & mini LED flashlight with me. This has saved me a few times from buying skis so railed that their useful life would be greatly shortened if sufficiently ground flat.

Some shops actually do some degree of QA after receiving new skis & proactively deal with egregious quality issues before thinking of racking them. Or at least, proactively, letting prospective customers know the skis are "blemished" and discounted accordingly. But I believe this is a pretty rare practice nowadays.

For other shops, the skis literally go directly from the delivery truck to the racks - so customers sometimes find out about quality/defect issues post purchase. Sometimes, the issues are so bad it's really surprising nobody (manuf, shop, customer) caught it before purchase (I'll admit 1st hand experience here). I guess I could understand this practice for non-premium class product. But, for a premium model from a premium brand? No.

To me, the OP's experience seems the result of a dealer who is not proactive about pre-sale QA. Instead the dealer relies 100% on the manufacturer's QA. When a quality issue arises, the dealer has no real clue how to handle the situation fairly and consistently in a way consistent with the premium product's reputation.

This is a pity.
This seems to give way too much credit to the shops. Not sure I've ever experienced a shop that does this in a good way, though some when pressed tell you they do (as a form of denial, not the truth when I've checked myself). Most shops, in my experience, are technically incapable of actually flattening a base if it's rail high, in my experience (but again, they deny this). What I'm saying might seem harsh or improbable even to me, if it were not based on hard experience over many decades. Usually, these same shops will almost never give a refund for tuning - and things can get pretty ugly if one persists on this, a fruitless quest. It's often quite a search to find a good shop in this regard. (So much so that I don't really hold this limitation against them, if the shop is good in other ways.)

P.S. In discussions with lots of brand reps, some of whom I've known pretty well, they have the same difficulty as customers: it's just very hard for them to get good tunes on their demo skis from the shops around the country without a lot of trial and error efforts, and as much time tuning or follow through tuning by hand themselves, of their demo skis, as put in by the few tuning shops they have to trust for at least part of their fleet maintenance. For them this process is so difficult almost every season that they often have a lot of rep employee turnover for the hard job of being responsible for that demo fleet maintenance, in even my brief experience.
 
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eok

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This seems to give way too much credit to the shops. Not sure I've ever experienced a shop that does this in a good way, though some when pressed tell you they do (as a form of denial, not the truth when I've checked myself). Most shops, in my experience, are technically incapable of actually flattening a base if it's rail high, in my experience (but again, they deny this). What I'm saying might seem harsh or improbable even to me, if it were not based on hard experience over many decades. Usually, these same shops will almost never give a refund for tuning - and things can get pretty ugly if one persists on this, a fruitless quest. It's often quite a search to find a good shop in this regard. (So much so that I don't really hold this limitation against them, if the shop is good in other ways.)

P.S. In discussions with lots of brand reps, some of whom I've known pretty well, they have the same difficulty as customers: it's just very hard for them to get good tunes on their demo skis from the shops around the country without a lot of trial and error efforts, and as much time tuning or follow through tuning by hand themselves, of their demo skis, as put in by the few tuning shops they have to trust for at least part of their fleet maintenance. For them this process is so difficult almost every season that they often have a lot of rep employee turnover for the hard job of being responsible for that demo fleet maintenance, in even my brief experience.
I understand & generally agree with what you're saying but I have to say: I deliberately tried not to give ski shops too much credit on this subject. However I did try not to get too critical because so many members of this site (that I respect) own or work in ski shops.

Believe me, over the years I've had my fair share of getting screwed-over by ski shops, reps, "pro deals" and supposed "shop perks" at ski shops I worked in when I was a grub. I probably have too much 1st hand experience on how badly purchases & product support can go wrong. Despite that experience, I still somehow get burned occasionaly on a ski related purchase.
 
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Coolhand

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As a shop owner, I tune every pair of new skis that go out the door. I do it the hard way, by hand, with quality tools, and lots of blood, sweat and tears. It is very rare to find a pair of new skis that don't need some work to be flattened, and have the edge bevels reset. It is the nature of the beast. We are working with a product that is a bit organic and it changes as materials dry, cure, etc. Also, most skis are factory finished on good machinery, but in a more, efficient, production fashion with very little individual attention. It probably wouldn't be cost effective for a manufacturer to do that. It probably isn't cost effective for me to do it either, but, I do anyway and most generally people are very happy with what they buy from me. If they are not, we'll find something different, or try to fix the issue to the best of our ability. Most people that own their own business will do that kind of thing, so that they can stay in business. I have found that if you don't provide good customer service and address issues as they arise, you won't be around very long. So, I kind of resent the attitude that a couple of posters have on this thread, that they can't trust retailers, or get good customer service or good quality tunes from shops. I take a great amount of pride in my tunes, and my hands are arthritic and beat to death at this time of year for all the work that I've put into making skis the best that they can be. So, making a blanket, negative, statement about ski shops and retailers kind of pisses me off. You can't judge an entire industry by a couple of bad customer service experiences.
 

GB_Ski

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So, making a blanket, negative, statement about ski shops and retailers kind of pisses me off. You can't judge an entire industry by a couple of bad customer service experiences.
You should be pissed off at the people in other ski shops and retailers who failed to provide the level of services that you are, not at the customers.
 

AngryAnalyst

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For what it’s worth @Mike King and @Dakine you’ve cost Augment a possible customer. I’d heard some rumors about non-delivery before but had hoped it was an outlier.

I want to be sympathetic and I understand why importing stuff from Europe is a hard business model right now. That said, your experiences are not the way to manage distribution of a premium product.
 

eok

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As a shop owner, I tune every pair of new skis that go out the door. I do it the hard way, by hand, with quality tools, and lots of blood, sweat and tears. It is very rare to find a pair of new skis that don't need some work to be flattened, and have the edge bevels reset. It is the nature of the beast. We are working with a product that is a bit organic and it changes as materials dry, cure, etc. Also, most skis are factory finished on good machinery, but in a more, efficient, production fashion with very little individual attention. It probably wouldn't be cost effective for a manufacturer to do that. It probably isn't cost effective for me to do it either, but, I do anyway and most generally people are very happy with what they buy from me. If they are not, we'll find something different, or try to fix the issue to the best of our ability. Most people that own their own business will do that kind of thing, so that they can stay in business. I have found that if you don't provide good customer service and address issues as they arise, you won't be around very long. So, I kind of resent the attitude that a couple of posters have on this thread, that they can't trust retailers, or get good customer service or good quality tunes from shops. I take a great amount of pride in my tunes, and my hands are arthritic and beat to death at this time of year for all the work that I've put into making skis the best that they can be. So, making a blanket, negative, statement about ski shops and retailers kind of pisses me off. You can't judge an entire industry by a couple of bad customer service experiences.
I guess I'm fortunate that I have a few great local shops. Over the years, my favorite shops have always been owned and operated by dedicated pros like you. In my previous posts, I should have included that the number of positive experiences I've had with ski shops far outnumber the negative experiences.
 

VickiK

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At the point they committed to sending you a new replacement ski rather than proving that you/your shop were wrong was where they should have dropped it and got that ski, properly prepped, sent to you express.

These skis were brand new and the problem identified the first time Mike skied on the skis.
Why not just replace the skis and have a happy customer?
I was intrigued by these skis but after hearing Mike’s experience, have no interest in trying them.

Yep. Sorry you went or are going through this @Mike King .
 
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