Warranty w Flysurfer - Failed Bridle Lines on Soul

[jorg]

I was middle of a jump and dropped hard due to the failure of a green bridle line on the port side. It was a scary moment. There are about 40 sessions on this Soul.
After a close investigation, I found out that the pulleys are the problem. They are chafing the lines as the inner white surface is not smooth. Opened a ticket. Let's see

Has anybody worked through their warranty claims? How is the process?

[Matteo V]

I was middle of a jump and dropped hard due to the failure of a green bridle line on the port side. It was a scary moment. There are about 40 sessions on this Soul.
After a close investigation, I found out that the pulleys are the problem. They are chafing the lines as the inner white surface is not smooth. Opened a ticket. Let's see

Has anybody worked through their warranty claims?

Just be happy that this isn't the other major foil kite manufacturer. Just from the pictures I can guarantee you they would say it was your fault. And they do have plausible deniability as to it being a issue with the bridles or pulley. I would think the greater likelihood is that the kite was being flown with those bridles inverted and they wore on each other with each depower stroke.

But maybe flysurfer will do you better than that other manufacturer and give you a second chance at this one.

Always make sure to lay out those bridles and check that they are straight before you fly the kite.

[Pump me up]

I was middle of a jump and dropped hard due to the failure of a green bridle line on the port side. It was a scary moment. Has anybody worked through their warranty claims?

Unfortunately this is a common problem with ram air kites in general and Flysurfer in particular. Ram air bridles are incredibly complex and prone to tangling, catching seaweed, breaking, and stretching (e.g. refer to the many threads on "resetting the mixer").

Because of the MANY PROBLEMS with ram air kites, ram air companies have been notorious for many years for playing hardball with warranties, e.g. viewtopic.php?t=4612

Do yourself a favour and trade-in your ram air for an inflatable kite - I promise you won't regret it.


Pumpy

[Skywalker7]

Just contact your Flysurfer dealer or Flysurfer directly. Per my experience Flysurfer handles such problems very well. The extra mixer lines(what is broke) you have it in your repair kit and it takes 10 minutes to change it, but in your case you need to change pulley as well.

[knotmyfault]

Stop flying your kite on reverse mode.....

[joriws]

Well if kite is under 12mon old there is a free repair program if pulley is broken.

Mixer lines are wear parts and are called sparepart lines on Flysurfer online shop. You should investigate those time to time. And replace before come frayed or loose coloring.

[foilholio]

Your pulleys and pulley lines are highly worn. These are wearable items, i.e. you should replace them from use. The Flysurfer pulley lines fail gracefully. The outer sheath will fail before the inner. You will notice this as a roughness or bump in the sheeting. You should stop kiting when you feel that, but it can be hard to notice for a first time.

I would suggest you rinse and check your pulleys ain't stuck after each session. If they are damaged on the sides like that, it is from wear and they can damage the pulley line very fast. You should replace them and the pulley lines when like that. You can rotate the pulley lines 180degree to get some more life from them when they first start to show wear. Otherwise making pulley lines is not hard. If you are super concerned with them breaking you can use 3mm line. I use 1.5mm line. I don't really have an issue with them breaking as I usually can still fly and ride the kite back to shore. That said if I catch them obviously about to break I will replace them, which is quite easy with the line flysurfer uses.

There are about 40 sessions on this Soul

This may or may not be right. The pulley lines last about 200hours, pulleys can be up to 400 but usually less. I would guess you have not rinsed your bar and pullies well enough.

Another thing to note though is these wear as a result of sheeting or steering. So the less or more you do that the longer or shorter they last.

[Armin Harich]

Hi Jorg.

Sorry, for your Problems.
If there should be any issue with warrenty and your dealer, contact me by PM.

Cheers, Armin

[BillyGoatGruff]

Hi Jorg.

Sorry, for your Problems.
If there should be any issue with warrenty and your dealer, contact me by PM.

Cheers, Armin

Now that's top customer service. There used to be a fair few designers/owners on the forums back in the early days, far less common now.

[Kristan]

I'd say those bridle lines are quite unreliable, because almost the same thing happened to me, but it was on Z line, so no pulleys, but outer coating broke. And it was my 5th session with Soul if I remember correct. I simply replaced it with the one that came in repair kit and had no problems ever since. The broken line is now my cat's favorite toy. But yeah, feel free to call FS for warranty.