Setting up Bindings for me and my kids the next season. Shop wants $60 per pair of skis?! Do you DIY? This is the only game in town...

[pchewn]

I am not promoting or recommending you do this but here's what I do.

1. For new skis/bindings bought from a shop (rare for me) I will have the shop install/adjust/test once.
2. For most skis/bindings I buy used or mount my own bindings: No formal shop calibrated testing. (I do my own "functional" test -- uncalibrated).
3. Ongoing I test by skiing. I will re-adjust if I get new boots or have some pre-releases.

My reasoning:

1. I don't re-calibrate and test my car's airbags -- I trust the QC of the bag manufacturer to keep the sensors and trigger point within the control chart range. Similarly for bindings. I trust the manufacturer to get them close enough that I can detect a malfunction using living room functional release testing.
2. The cost (if it is indeed $60), would often times be 50% of the used-binding purchase price. Not worth it.
3. I have enough experience using, mounting, adjusting bindings for me to feel comfortable doing this.
4. I believe that most of the problems found by calibrated testing will be problems of boot/binding/ski mounting and compatibility -- i.e. functional problems. Actually finding that the binding system is set up and installed correctly, yet the indicated release value is far away from the acceptable range should be rare. (Based on my belief that the binding mfg QC is adequate to ensure this).

That's what I do. I am not recommending this for others.

 

[caliksier]

I am not promoting or recommending you do this but here's what I do.

1. For new skis/bindings bought from a shop (rare for me) I will have the shop install/adjust/test once.
2. For most skis/bindings I buy used or mount my own bindings: No formal shop calibrated testing. (I do my own "functional" test -- uncalibrated).
3. Ongoing I test by skiing. I will re-adjust if I get new boots or have some pre-releases.

My reasoning:

1. I don't re-calibrate and test my car's airbags -- I trust the QC of the bag manufacturer to keep the sensors and trigger point within the control chart range. Similarly for bindings. I trust the manufacturer to get them close enough that I can detect a malfunction using living room functional release testing.
2. The cost (if it is indeed $60), would often times be 50% of the used-binding purchase price. Not worth it.
3. I have enough experience using, mounting, adjusting bindings for me to feel comfortable doing this.
4. I believe that most of the problems found by calibrated testing will be problems of boot/binding/ski mounting and compatibility -- i.e. functional problems. Actually finding that the binding system is set up and installed correctly, yet the indicated release value is far away from the acceptable range should be rare. (Based on my belief that the binding mfg QC is adequate to ensure this).

That's what I do. I am not recommending this for others.

I appreciate this, this is where my head is going. I think you can follow common sense and feel for this for the most part. "Functional Test" - Yes..., and maybe bring the skis in for real testing and calibration check every 3 years. Also, to your point, $60 is 1/2 the cost for used bindings, exactly. I agree problems should show up just from compatibility or as someone else said, lots of salt and grime on the road from the ski rack... Just got a used Yakima sky box to help with that.

 

[pchewn]

Calibrated binding tests at ski shops in the Portland metro area are $25. Free if you purchase skis, boots, or bindings. A better deal than $60, but not enough value (for me) to go do this.

 

[James]

Just get it done in Colorado or wherever you’re skiing. You might be able to get a slight discount for 4 pair. I don’t know why you’d get anything ski related done in Oklahoma.

 

[ski otter 2]

People have to do what they feel comfortable with, but life is full of balancing acceptable risks against expensive tests/procedures of all sorts, on many levels. Common sense has to kick in, with often different results for different folks.

With the ski shops I use and shop at, have a relationship with, and friendships at, simple forward pressure & proper release testing/adjustment, etc. is free - in anticipation of many ongoing relationships growing out of this sort of thing. And the formal, bureaucratic test, it's looked down on in those shops, if the truth be told, something they'd never do for their own setups; to them, someone with experience skiing and using bindings can get a sense of what DIN they want (rather than relying on some chart, except as a starting point), and they feel that from basic on the slopes experience they can tell if a binding is coming off too easily, or not easily enough. But bottom line, it's a percentages & common sense thing, common sense applied, to them. And in dealing with all the return and warranty problems with bindings and skis, with the accidents and the warranty repairs, to them the percentages are in their favor: real problems with bindings are known first hand, for them; they know what happens often, and what happens rarely.

 

[caliksier]

People have to do what they feel comfortable with, but life is full of balancing acceptable risks against expensive tests/procedures of all sorts, on many levels. Common sense has to kick in, with often different results for different folks.

...if the truth be told, something they'd never do for their own setups; to them, someone with experience skiing and using bindings can get a sense of what DIN they want (rather than relying on some chart, except as a starting point), and they feel that from basic on the slopes experience they can tell if a binding is coming off too easily, or not easily enough. But bottom line, it's a percentages & common sense thing, common sense applied, to them...

I believe this is right, I just could not imagine real skiers out there were getting their bindings tested religiously each year. Experience is going to tell you if you have it set right.

 

[KingGrump]

Experience is going to tell you if you have it set right.

 

[caliksier]

View attachment 184059

LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!

 

[ski otter 2]

Actually, in this case, real experience comes from hundreds, even thousands, of sober hours with other techs in a high volume shop that often does the warranties and returns/repairs for a number of the top ski, binding and boot brands nationally. The volume they do is staggering, including sending out replacement and pro deal skis, bindings and boots as agent for those brands, just for starters.

 

[cantunamunch]

sure, but it doesn't roll off the tongue

 

[SBrown]

I would like to use this thread to complain about the current going rate of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a binding remount.

 

[pchewn]

I would like to use this thread to complain about the current going rate of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a binding remount.

The going rate in the Portland area is $50 to $60 for a mount/calibration check. Less if you are buying the skis, boots, or bindings at the same time....

 

[scott43]

I would like to use this thread to complain about the current going rate of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a binding remount.

Thank you! Signed, future bike and ski tech retired old guy...

 

[Mike Thomas]

And the formal, bureaucratic test, it's looked down on in those shops, if the truth be told, something they'd never do for their own setups; to them, someone with experience skiing and using bindings can get a sense of what DIN they want (rather than relying on some chart, except as a starting point), and they feel that from basic on the slopes experience they can tell if a binding is coming off too easily, or not easily enough. But bottom line, it's a percentages & common sense thing, common sense applied, to them. And in dealing with all the return and warranty problems with bindings and skis, with the accidents and the warranty repairs, to them the percentages are in their favor:

This entire 'point' is incredibly stupid and irresponsible.

This is also what I do... so, uhmm... yeah.

Pro Tip- if you're going this route, never fall slow.

One more point to the OP- that $3000 Vt Release Calibrator? Shops that do any volume at all do not use them. We us computerized robotic testers that cost well over $50k for a refurbished used machine.

 

[Tony Storaro]

Speaking only for myself -no. And I suspect you ask the majority of skiers with their own skis they won't even have heard of a torque test or been in a store which has the equipment. And I wouldn't bet that everything in a large rental fleet is rigourously release tested every season.

Absolutely!

I don‘t even know what that testing looks like. When renting ski you only get asked how much you weigh. 90 kilos? That’d be 8.5 for you sir.

 

[jwilli]

Absolutely!

I don‘t even know what that testing looks like. When renting ski you only get asked how much you weigh. 90 kilos? That’d be 8.5 for you sir.

Legit shops test and document their fleet every year. The legal liability to not do so is too great.

 

[Tony Storaro]

Legit shops test and document their fleet every year. The legal liability to not do so is too great.

Yes, it is totally different in the US it seems…

 

[fatbob]

Do wonder about the legal liability reality. Anyone have an inventory of successful cases against ski shops for injuries caused?

 

[ski otter 2]

Must be near zero, or my shop folks would know about it.

I would like to use this thread to complain about the current going rate of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a binding remount.

There are specialized drill bits and jigs. The right drill bit is printed right on many skis. Some are harder to find/buy than others, at any given time.

Closely related to this is another one where liability requirements make for a nutty, double standard situation: if you do the mount yourself, even right in front of the shop tech guys, they are not liable, so you can do what works, rather than what their liability insurance wants.

If you take a pair of skis/bindings into a shop for a remount, say, to move the mount point, or to change it up for a different boot size, you will probably be told that they cannot mount into the same holes for liability reasons. And the new holes must be distanced from the old ones.

On the other hand, the same guys can answer your questions, and show you how to do it yourself using some or all of the same screw holes - may even offer you use of the right tools - to do it yourself, even right in front of them, if you are bent on doing it yourself and won't put the liabilty on them.

These guys will also then turn around and mount their own bindings in the same mount holes, or using some of the same mount holes when useful, over and over; at some shops they take off the bindings just to tune the skis! (and then re-mount in the same dry mount holes).

As long as the holes have integrity for the screws or seem to, rather than being loose or partly stripped, back in those holes go the binding screws.

But not if you are paying them to do this for a remount in their shop. Then liability kicks in.


Note: some of the techs use Standard Elmer's school glue to hold the screws when they do this for themselves into the same holes, but most do not.
(Elmer's glue is slowly water soluble, so when the bindings get really wet and then dry, this glue re-solidifies more snugly all over again,
rather than get gradually loosened, or fractured.)

 

[Philpug]

I would like to use this thread to complain about the current going rate of ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a binding remount.

Well, I never understood why remounts are the same or less expensive that a new mount, there is a lot more entailed.