Charge for condemning a liferaft

Minchsailor

Minchsailor

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At the end of last season I sent my 18-19 year old liferaft to Viking for a service. They quoted me (a charge a bit higher than I was expecting, but hey, it is elderly) to do the service. When I asked them to do the service ready for this season they have come back to me saying they are now condemning it as it so elderly, and they want to charge me £100 for 'condemnation charge'?

Surely, if it was beyond it's life they should not have provided me an estimate for the service in the first place?; and I am not happy at having to pay £100 to have it condemned. This charge has never been mentioned before, and it has been regularly serviced by Viking from new.
 
Not surprised.
Presumably they have looked at it and will have to dispose of it, possibly after making sure it's beyond being put back in service. Disposing of the cylinder may cost them. There may be paperwork to keep?

I've had a charge for telling me a drysuit is BER, but waived when I bought a new one from the same shop. Not Viking BTW.
 
pvb said:
Why not just get it back and dispose of it yourself?
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Presumably they'll still want to charge for the work of opening it up and inspecting it, which is not unreasonable although £100 seems a little steep.

I do think they could have handled it better from a customer perception point of view. The term "condemnation charge" doesn't sound good - why charge for something undesirable? They'd have done better to split the price into an inspection charge, payable in all cases, and a service and repacking charge not applicable to rafts which are condemned. But that's all cosmetics over the fundamental fact that they have done some work and it's not their fault that OP's raft was unsound, so they deserve to be paid for what's already taken place.

Pete
 
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prv said:
Presumably they'll still want to charge for the work of opening it up and inspecting it, which is not unreasonable although £100 seems a little steep.
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Most liferaft places will look at a raft before giving an estimate, and in my experience won't charge if the owner decides not to go ahead. In this case, they were clearly happy to service it a few months ago and gave a price for it. Deciding now to condemn it is bad business practice.
 
If I'm sailing on some other person's boat, I might be quite pleased that a safety firm is prepared to condemn liferafts that are past the age of consent.

I think it's similar with diving bottles, you pay a 'destruction charge' up front and can't have it back if it fails. Which is a shame if you've got a non-critical use lined up.
 
pvb said:
Most liferaft places will look at a raft before giving an estimate, and in my experience won't charge if the owner decides not to go ahead. In this case, they were clearly happy to service it a few months ago and gave a price for it. Deciding now to condemn it is bad business practice.
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I had been assuming they'd opened it up and found problems (delaminating seams or whatever). But it's true that the OP doesn't actually say that. If they're just rejecting it unopened based on the age on the label then I agree they shouldn't be charging for it and should have rejected it at the first opportunity.

Pete
 
lw395 said:
I think it's similar with diving bottles, you pay a 'destruction charge' up front and can't have it back if it fails. Which is a shame if you've got a non-critical use lined up.
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I think they'll give the two halves back if you ask. Andark used to use the tops of old cylinders as door-stops :)

I'm not sure what "non-critical use" you might put a complete diving cylinder to that doesn't involve holding pressure. Rolling-pin for very stiff pastry, perhaps? ;)

Pete
 
lw395 said:
I think it's similar with diving bottles, you pay a 'destruction charge' up front and can't have it back if it fails. Which is a shame if you've got a non-critical use lined up.
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I had an out of test bottle tested and no charge made prior to test. It passed but I would have been surprised if they asked me to pay post test.
 
DV Diving. A few weeks ago.

Edit: mind you, it was an aluminium bottle so maybe there was value in it.
 
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A recent email exchange with Plastimo seemed to suggest that some countries require annual servicing. They said every 3 years otherwise.
 
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