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Liquid Force Response Bar - Stay Away

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Giorgio
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Liquid Force Response Bar - Stay Away

Postby Giorgio » Sat Sep 12, 2015 9:32 pm

When LF wins the AWSI 2015 Brand of the Year Award, I think is good time to tell a real life story.
That is my 10 month-experience with the 2015 Response Bar.

The story is short and the message is to stay away from it.

The bar has some cool features and in principle should be a good buy, but the quality of the product is just not up to normal standards, not mine.

I attach some pictures to give an idea of how things went, in order:

1. I get the bar in January 2015 (it comes with the new leash)
2. In April the leash break while doing unhook, i manage to recover the kite and only a few days after the board. LF says "sorry bad luck". Picture attached. Now for whoever does unhook, you wanna share that a leash that breaks after 4 months it kind of sucks.
3. June donkey dick breaks. No big deal i did not bother asking a replacement (but have done so recently).
4. September i noticed that the grip of my bar is falling apart (see picture; picture is old and now it is worse). I ask LF (via my dealer) to get it replaced, LF answer is "we never seen it before, we cannot help".
5. September i look for comments on line to see if people have had the same problem, i get to discover that a few months before LF recalled the push-away release. LF did not bother trying to reach his customers via its dealers. The push away release indeed sucks and i'll be looking forward to get it replaced.
6. With Tte points above there is no much to discuss, but one point i make out of personal judgement and it is on the depower. The response bar moved it from the awful below the bar to above the bar. Nice. One problem i face regularly is that if the depower line if fully powered it gets stuck and it requires some serious pulling before it comes down for depower (a way around is to leave always one cm depowered to avoid the prob). When i say serious pulling, i mean that you pull to the point of unhooking yourself. Not a great piece of design.

This is where i got to in 9 months in a year where i definitely kited less than i had wished.

So if you are considering to buy the bar, just think twice and look for alternatives. Given the experience with customer support i am not sure i will pick LF again.

Cheers,

Giorgio
Attachments
image3.JPG
image3 (1).JPG
image1.JPG
image2 (1).JPG

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posty
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Re: Liquid Force Response Bar STAY AWAY

Postby posty » Sat Sep 12, 2015 11:17 pm

Wow, that does suck!

I have no problems with the grip coming off with mine but that happens to many bars.
I can live with that.
My release system was fine until recently and getting it replaced.
Only problem i had with the donkey dick is that it comes off sometimes but it doesn't break.
I never use a standard leash for unhooked but it should not break after 4 months.
What is the cost to get it replaced and keep the customer happy?
(i prefer my mystic foam hp leash anyway, have it for years!)

Anyway, this is probably exactly why the bar is redesigned and coming out soon.
Hopefully it will take out the errors because in general i really like the bar.

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Re: Liquid Force Response Bar STAY AWAY

Postby Flyboy » Sat Sep 12, 2015 11:31 pm

I have an older LQF bar. The grip started peeling away (much worse than the wear on yours) after only a couple of sessions. The bar was replaced for me by Real Kiteboarding. I have had no such problems with the replacement.

The ripped stitching on the QR mechanism is worrying - there's really no way to know if there problem with this until the QR is activated under extreme stress. It should hold up to that & if it fails it certainly should be replaced by LQF.

mdksniper
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Re: Liquid Force Response Bar STAY AWAY

Postby mdksniper » Sun Sep 13, 2015 1:24 am

They replaced my Response bar. My grip was tearing after about 5 sessions. They sent me a brand new one a few weeks ago. Needless to say, I sold the new one immediately.

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Re: Liquid Force Response Bar - Stay Away

Postby FLandOBX » Sun Sep 13, 2015 12:24 pm

Sorry to hear about this. I have several 2013-14 LF CPR bars (and a quiver of LF kites) and have had no problems with any of my LF gear. I have not used the response bar, so it's helpful to hear your feedback.

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Re: Liquid Force Response Bar - Stay Away

Postby tmcfarla » Sun Sep 13, 2015 3:40 pm

I lost a kite a couple months ago when the leash attachment on a liquid force CPR bar broke. Light wind, kite was not heavily powered or anything, I must have bumped the QR accidentally. It was a side off shore wind, never saw the kite or bad again...

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Re: Liquid Force Response Bar - Stay Away

Postby kooshball » Sun Sep 13, 2015 3:43 pm

I think the improved bar is actually a dead copy of the blade UniBar. Gone is the below the bar swivel and they are actually using the exact same chicken loop and quick release as blade probably better to save some money and just buy the blade bar

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posty
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Re: Liquid Force Response Bar - Stay Away

Postby posty » Sun Sep 13, 2015 10:30 pm

it is exactly the same response bar as the first one only with a blade chicken loop in orange!
too bad it lost the btb swivel...

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Re: Liquid Force Response Bar - Stay Away

Postby IanNJ » Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:44 am

Dude im sorry to hear about your problem. Looks like your from Denmark?

As a LF retailer I feel your pain. We had multiple issues here in the states also...The thing that interests me about this post is the way your retailer and distributer handled the situation. Here in the states we replaced many chicken loops and to be honest we even replaced a lot of bars for people that had the same problems (my first day last November using the response, I snapped the donkey dick before I got in the water). Shit, we even covered shipping costs (waiting to be reimbursed from LF). When the issues started to surface and the QR went on recall we were sending people the CPR bar to use in the mean time once we got a handle on the chicken loop issues and that was replaced they just sent back the CPR bar. As a retailer for LF this was a horrible issue that I felt was not the customers fault and here we did everything we could to make the customer happy.

If I were you I would seriously question why your retailer and distributer looked the other way. In my eyes the reason LF got brand of the year was only for customer service; a service that I have never experienced from another brand. Hopefully the LF team reads your post and helps you get this situation resolved.

Giorgio
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Re: Liquid Force Response Bar - Stay Away

Postby Giorgio » Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:01 pm

Hi all,

yes i write from Denmark.

There is an update, it seems that LF Europe wants to help but i did not hear from them directly yet.
I hope that they will make a step back and change the bar (plus get the donkey dick and QR replaced). If this happens, i will be just left only with disappointment over this so much troubles.

I'll keep the thread informed.

All in all i think that a bar that has allegedly so many issues and that needs to be re-designed on the following season should be recalled at once and people should get the new model.

Anyway, I been out on Sunday with a crap bar and had a lot fun :-)
I attach the leash above the chicken loop so if the QR goes banana i keep the kite running :-X


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