Black Diamond Carabiner Recall

warranty.bdel.com/Carabiner…

Salt Lake City, Utah (February 4, 2016) - Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd., in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), voluntarily issued a recall, subject to user inspection, of carabiners/quickdraws because of the possibility of defects in the gate that could cause the carabiner to fail or function incorrectly.

This recall concerns carabiners/quickdraws with manufacturing codes between 4350 and 6018. The complete list of carabiners, quickdraws and harness, belay and rock protection packages concerned by the recall is below.

In some carabiners, the gate rivets (in solid gate carabiners) and wire ends (in wiregate carabiners) attaching the gate to the carabiner body may not be properly manufactured, potentially resulting in the gate becoming detached.

Additionally, in some screwgate carabiners, the locking sleeve may not have been correctly assembled, resulting in a locking carabiner that does not lock properly.

No accidents have been reported; however, in the interest of customer safety, Black Diamond has decided to voluntarily issue a recall, subject to user inspection.

warranty.bdel.com/RunnerRec…

Runner recall as well.

"The recall related to the nylon runners is due to a small number found to contain a tape slice, resulting in a product that is not load bearing and will fail under standard use."

That runner recall might as well have a disclaimer stating:

"If you bought a sling that was completely cut through and then covered with masking tape - and you haven't noticed that yet - you should just quit now."

Ethan Little wrote:That runner recall might as well have a disclaimer stating: "If you bought a sling that was completely cut through and then covered with masking tape - and you haven't noticed that yet - you should just quit now."

LOL...yea.

Shocking recall notice from a company we all trust.

...and by slice they mean SPLICE* though curiously the meaning is similar. Agreed that if you didn't notice a piece of tape holding your sling together you probably ought to just quit while you're ahead.

The carabiners recall is due to the end of the rivets/end caps on the gates of carabiners, they must have been having some quality control issues. They are very easy to inspect, if it's mushroomed out it's fine if it's just the same shape as the rod it's not okay.

Black Diamond Recall: Example of Good Rivet

Black Diamond Recall: Example of a bad Rivet

DrRockso wrote: The carabiners recall is due to the end of the rivets/end caps on the gates of carabiners, they must have been having some quality control issues.

That's just for the wiregates-don't think you got through the whole notice. There are individual inspection procedures for multiple potential issues with solid gates and screw gates.

Looks like some workshop processes steps were missed - something QA should have caught.

Chris Owen wrote:Looks like some workshop processes steps were missed - something QA should have caught.

The dangers of moving production back to the USA. Im only buying Chinese produced gear.

Disclaimer: the above statement could be totally wrong and irrelevant.

This is EXACTLY why I CONTINUE to buy from Black Diamond. When shit goes wrong, they get on top of it. Petzl, DMM, and Wild Country come to mind as other companies that have been very proactive with their recall policies in the recent past. Sadly, other climbing companies, such as Fixe, have not been so responsible.

I'll keep my money going to the companies that can keep my trust, admit when they made a mistake, and rectify it.

shoo wrote:This is EXACTLY why I CONTINUE to buy from Black Diamond. When shit goes wrong, they get on top of it. Petzl, DMM, and Wild Country come to mind as other companies that have been very proactive with their recall policies in the recent past. Sadly, other climbing companies, such as Fixe, have not been so responsible. I'll keep my money going to the companies that can keep my trust, admit when they made a mistake, and rectify it.

Very good point!

I concur with Shoo. There have been no reported issues, but they're being proactive, and that will keep me coming back.

shoo wrote:This is EXACTLY why I CONTINUE to buy from Black Diamond. When shit goes wrong, they get on top of it. Petzl, DMM, and Wild Country come to mind as other companies that have been very proactive with their recall policies in the recent past. Sadly, other climbing companies, such as Fixe, have not been so responsible. I'll keep my money going to the companies that can keep my trust, admit when they made a mistake, and rectify it.

+1

shoo wrote:Petzl, DMM, and Wild Country come to mind as other companies that have been very proactive with their recall policies in the recent past.

Dont forget Metolius. In fact (though not in "recent past")...
utahclimbers.com/phpBB3/vie…

I seriously question anyone who doesn't notice this the second they pick it up. Like it was said above, you should probably quit if you didn't notice this.

none

Josh Romney wrote:I seriously question anyone who doesn't notice this the second they pick it up. Like it was said above, you should probably quit if you didn't notice this.

Tell it to BD...

Josh Romney wrote:I seriously question anyone who doesn't notice this the second they pick it up. Like it was said above, you should probably quit if you didn't notice this.

How the hell does that even make it out of the factory? Ya if you don't notice this just quit now before you hurt someone else.

shoo wrote:This is EXACTLY why I CONTINUE to buy from Black Diamond. When shit goes wrong, they get on top of it. Petzl, DMM, and Wild Country come to mind as other companies that have been very proactive with their recall policies in the recent past. Sadly, other climbing companies, such as Fixe, have not been so responsible. I'll keep my money going to the companies that can keep my trust, admit when they made a mistake, and rectify it.

Yup. Exactly.

shoo wrote:This is EXACTLY why I CONTINUE to buy from Black Diamond. When shit goes wrong, they get on top of it. Petzl, DMM, and Wild Country come to mind as other companies that have been very proactive with their recall policies in the recent past. Sadly, other climbing companies, such as Fixe, have not been so responsible. I'll keep my money going to the companies that can keep my trust, admit when they made a mistake, and rectify it.

Most companies are pretty aggressive in issuing recalls when needed. The only bad examples I can think of were CCH and their Aliens, even after their first recall, and Petzl and their crappy Zypher ropes which seemed to shared into Swiss cheese upon first use. Keep in mind that there are alter motives to issuing these recalls though. If someone got killed using a safety product which had a defect, the resulting lawsuit could kill the entire company.

This is not specific to climbing gear either. We often see auto manufacturers issue massive, sweeping recalls for the littlest of things. I remember a recall on my vehicle was issued because there was a extremely small chance a fuel line could chafe and leak. There were no reported injuries or fires with the recall. On the other hand, the same vehicle had massive problems with the high pressure fuel pump on the common rail, which had failed in over 1,000 vehicles costing about $10,000 per car to fix. No recall was ever issued for that because it's not safety related so the manufacturers dont care.

20 kN wrote: Most companies are pretty aggressive in issuing recalls when needed. The only bad examples I can think of were CCH and their Aliens, even after their first recall, and Petzl and their crappy Zypher ropes which seemed to shared into Swiss cheese upon first use.

More like String Cheese I think.

20 kN wrote: Most companies are pretty aggressive in issuing recalls when needed. The only bad examples I can think of were CCH and their Aliens, even after their first recall, and Petzl and their crappy Zypher ropes which seemed to shared into Swiss cheese upon first use.

I brought an issue to Trango's attention after I noticed that the holes where you feed the cord through on 2 brand new Big Bros were not deburred or bevelled, leaving a sharp edge to cut through the cord. They took them to their shop to be fixed (= hand filing), but apparently they didn't feel like it merited a notice or recall.