Brand New Drysuit Leaks . . . Advice?

[RogerPollock]

So on Wednesday I go out and buy a brand new Palm drysuit (and get a great deal on it to boot). I use it Thursday night at Chebacco, and it leaks. No, it’s not the gaskets or the zippers; those are just fine. It’s leaking at the hip and in the armpit on the right side. Thinking it might have been sweat, I test it tonight in the bathtub (much to the delight of my 4 and 7 year old kids, to see their father floating in the tub in his “moon suit”). It leaks again, right in the same spots. I believe it’s the seams. The retailer says to bring it back and they’ll either give me my money back (which I don’t really want, because I like the suit, and I got a good deal), or they’ll send it back to Palm (they don’t have another one in my size) – but the warranty indicates they’ll either replace or “repair” at their discretion. I mean, I’d rather have the thing replaced outright. I don’t want a “repaired” suit, which I JUST BOUGHT BRAND NEW AND ONLY USED ONCE. I want a NEW suit with no issues. Is this reasonable? Do I have any leverage here? Anybody in the club ever been through this? I’m wicked disappointed.

Help

Thanks

Roger

[Linda]

Roger, if you are still interested in the Greenland Rolling practice at Walden on Oct 24, please send me your info ASAP to capewavedancer at yahoo dot com. The list is filling up!

Thanks,

Linda

[Bill Gwynn]

Hi Roger,

You seem to be in a difficult situation. I would try to insist the retailer to get you a replacement suit. Retailers generally have resources either through their distributors or even with other retailers to get product they need. Sending it back to the manufacturer is an option, but who wants a brand new "repaired" suit. Plus the manufactrer is in England, so the turn around time could be several weeks, and you want/need a dry suit now. So, if the retailer can't give you resolution, I would get my money back and buy it somewhere else. I don't know how good of a deal you got. I just did a quick search on the net and found the Palm Stikine DrySuit for $599.

[Brian Nystrom]

Believe it or not, this is not an uncommon problem with dry suits. However, most such defects are caught by the manufacturer before the suit leaves the factory. If you look inside most dry suits, you'll find an occasional patch of seam tape that appears to be randomly placed. It's the way they patch defects in the fabric or seams, at least with Gore-Tex.

By all means return the suit, but I wouldn't be too concerned about whether it's repaired or replaced, as long as it doesn't leak.

[RogerPollock]

Good to know, Brian, but I guess it's just the principal of the thing, you know. In either case, the rep for Palm was apologetic and agreeable to replacing it with a new demo suit with tags still on it from their warehouse, otherwise I'd be waiting for a new one to come into the country while stuck with this leaky one, or I'd be waiting with nothing while the leak was fixed, so, providing the replacement doesn't leak, all's well that ends well. Whew . . .