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what's the WORST piece of gear you've ever bought?

Like wot it says on the tin... what has been the biggest waste of money (to date) gear wise you've have made wrt triathlon?

didds

Comments

  • BritspinBritspin Posts: 1,655
    At the mo anything electronic...Polar HRM cost £90 to get rebatteried, new strap etc, Garmin 305 will cost £65 to get a recon after the 'mode' button failed after only 18 months use & Garmin will not agree that this is unacceptable, & now my Polar bike computer has the top line of the big numbers missing, so I am guessing another £50 or so to get that fixed.....in Polars defence both their computers have been going a long time with more regular use so I don't mind shelling out, but Garmins attitude sucks.
  • diddsdidds Posts: 655
    so, reversing the spin on it, garmin are saying that in their own opinion their highly expensive HRMs have a useful life of possibly as little as 18 months?

    That woud be a good advert for buying Suunto?polar?Timex/whatever else i would say!

    didds
  • DHB shorts. Were cheap i know, but kept slipping so i ended up with a well padded crotch but no rear padding!
  • BritspinBritspin Posts: 1,655
    Which was exactly my point when I wrote to Garmin...a button you have to press multiple times (its the MODE button...I am a triathlete so I run & bike....precisely why I bought it), has as you say a useful life of 18 months. That to me means faulty parts/poor quality parts, but Garmin say not, its a recon unit with a new 12 month guarantee, or stuck in run mode. Cheers Garmin, but you won't get any more of my cash & I will keep telling everyone how poor your service is. I can live with run mode for now.
  • JulesJules Posts: 987
    Britspin wrote:
    At the mo anything electronic...Polar HRM cost £90 to get rebatteried, new strap etc, Garmin 305 will cost £65 to get a recon after the 'mode' button failed after only 18 months use & Garmin will not agree that this is unacceptable, & now my Polar bike computer has the top line of the big numbers missing, so I am guessing another £50 or so to get that fixed.....in Polars defence both their computers have been going a long time with more regular use so I don't mind shelling out, but Garmins attitude sucks.
    I'm sure there's EU legislation that says that electronic equipment must have a two year guarantee. Some bloke was on the news recently having forced Tesco to take back his 18 month old TV.
  • BlinkybazBlinkybaz Posts: 1,144
    There is a letter on the ONE show website which you downlaod and then just fill in your details. it covers all law issues and stuff.

    I will pop off and see if I can find it.

    Power to the people!!!!!! :roll::roll:
  • BritspinBritspin Posts: 1,655
    I did mention this to them in my correspondence & they gave me a bulls**t answer..so the 'official letter' might come in handy...
  • BlinkybazBlinkybaz Posts: 1,144
    Sorry friuty one I could not find it! Maybe they took it off I am not sure.
    I spent 45 mins looking through the site. If you need any info about the One show I seem to have read it all! I might enter mastermind now! Special subject THE ONE SHOW!
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    Have you asked them if the goods were fit for purpose?

    How much did it cost? If you paid by Credit Card, sue the credit card company provided the transaction was £100.

    If not then I would suggest the fit for purpose route. Guarentee it will work.
  • A black Orca tri suit. When wet, the white bits on it turned brown??? Not on for £80 It got returned to manufacturer and the shop gave me a credit note for another, so I got a nice 2xu.
  • A Garmin Forerunner 201... Let me bore you all with the angry rant I published on Amazon (also it`s easier to copy & paste )

    It doesn't work properly in any built up area, i.e. city, where most of us live, or areas with too many trees, i.e. where we city dwellers like to go when we leave the city. Basically it leaves stretches of your running route out, but the stop watch carries on ticking. So if you're like me, and take satisfaction in turning out fast-paced runs (or what passes for fast-paced for us amateurs), the 201 will only be a source of frustration. It'll time your run perfectly, just like any stop-watch (duh!), but then leave out some of the distance you ran, so that you get a mile for mile average that yo-yos in a very suspicious way. Particularly when you've put out a steady effort. And it'll miss out bits of your course in different places on a day-by-day basis. You'll find yourself "adapting" the info the device gives you: how's that for precision? The interval training feature is even worst. You dial in some mile repeats, with a timed interval, and set off at full blast. The minutes tick by and the mile never ends! That's when you find that there are gaps in the "mile" you're running, and you're killing yourself when you've actually done the mile, and should be in your rest period. I kid you not, I wouldn't dare sell a GPS device that works 70% of the time and I'm not speaking of heavily built up areas, I run in spaces where the closest buildings are at least 60-90 feet away...

    But this is not the worst of it. I though I was getting a well made piece of equipment. I live in Brazil, so I bought it off Amazon, and a friend kindly brought it over for me from the US. In less than 1 year, it started turning on/off by itself, in a crazy dysfunctional way, rendering it totally unusable. Currently it doesn't stay on for more than 1 minute at a time. It now runs it's battery flat by itself. Even though I'd been scrupulously careful w/ it, not taking it out in the rain, and drying off the moisture & sweat after every run religiously. Some of you may say I should have used the warranty, but when you have mailing costs Brazil-US, and if the thing's fixed or replaced, 100% customs duty when it gets sent back here, you'd give up, just as I did. I'm not paying twice for a piece of gear that never worked properly in the first place.

    My conclusion: try some other model, or even brand. I'd not lay my hard-earned cash on this gizmo again.
  • joolzdjoolzd Posts: 245
    my tri bars...still sitting in spare room untouched and likely not to be! Oh and a tri suit that was too big and floppy with white bits in the wrong place.. now in the bin!!!
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