Warranty w Flysurfer - Failed Bridle Lines on Soul

[Adventure Logs]

I think these lines get more tension and wear and tear on the Soul due to the Z bridle placement on the trailing edge. That’s also why the bar pressure is higher on the Soul but a plus side it the wing turns more actively. These lines though are very easy to inspect and to see if there’s any damage. Hell FS includes spare lines with the kite. I wished they included extra pulleys as well though.

If it’s been under 12 months, I don’t see any problem getting this warrantied even though it could have easily been prevented with a proper preflight before your session. After 12 months or if you bought used...well that’s up to the dealer.

What other kite company has one of their key designers personally respond to you and offer help? This alone shows why Flysufer > Ozone.

I’ve learned through the years to check those yellow lines and pulleys every couple sessions of wear and ease of movement. It’s easy to see damage because of the white inner line is easy to spot. Also make sure the pulley still moves freely and isn’t jammed up. These foils are significantly more complex than a LEI and do deserve a good pre/post flight inspection time to time.

[foilholio]

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.

It could be a defect, but I have a lot of time on many flysurfer kites and have never had this happen. I have had it happen on other bridles,and kites(Pansh) and it was from damage, which looks like what happened to your line. It takes surprisingly little to cut or damage a line.

[cwood]

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.

It could be a defect, but I have a lot of time on many flysurfer kites and have never had this happen. I have had it happen on other bridles,and kites(Pansh) and it was from damage, which looks like what happened to your line. It takes surprisingly little to cut or damage a line.

I have had exactly one wear through on probably 15 FS kites including 4 Souls. One break on a 11m Sonic 2, one on my 10m Soul where I noticed white core on a pre-flight inspection...quick swap with the spare part.

Note, every one of these lines on the Souls are the same length.....no difference across kite sizes so if you have a few Souls, you have lots of spare parts!

[Adventure Logs]

^^ agreed. I've had many Flysurfer foils including 4 Souls and the only time I've had trouble with the yellow pulley lines was when I was launching on a lake and it got damaged on a rock. Again super easy to spot with the color differences. I had a pulley get stuck on my Soul 15 in Thailand at the beginning of a vacation without any spares and I still put a good 50 hours on it without any problems. I kept an eye on it and was surprise how well it lasted. If you have a tendency to have the kite slide across the ground on launch or landing, it would explain how it may have been damaged.

=Jason-

[deniska]

I had a yellow line to snap on me after about 30-40 sessions ( I can look up my woo logs to get exact number) on 15m soul.
It resulted in a long swim and a taxi ride, as I ended up on a different side of a creak barefoot.. a walk would have been 2-3 hours..
Never claimed the warranty since the kite had the spares.. but it was sort of unusually fast in my book.

[Skywalker7]

I had a yellow line to snap on me after about 30-40 sessions ( I can look up my woo logs to get exact number) on 15m soul.
It resulted in a long swim and a taxi ride, as I ended up on a different side of a creak barefoot.. a walk would have been 2-3 hours..
Never claimed the warranty since the kite had the spares.. but it was sort of unusually fast in my book.

Sand could get into the pulleys and that speeds up degradation a lot. I was at Zanzibar the last year for 2 weeks and that kind of sand was wearing or jamming pulleys super fast. Both of my friends had brand new foil kites with Ronstan pulleys and both of their lines broke at the end of 2nd week. On my Soul 15 it snaped after ca 90 sessions including the 2 weeks Zanzibar and few sessions after comming back from Zanzibar. So the worst type of sand is most probably a super fine wet sand what can get into the pulleys and that kills the pulley and line combo. It is not a foil kite specific thing, as some of the tube kites has pulleys too and I also heard quite a few line broke on those ones (not to name brands here). The same Flysurfer pulleys and mixer lines what are used on grassy places and sweet water only last for hundreds of sessions or practically forever.

[jorg]

Update: it has been over 3 weeks, no answer yet. Let's see how this one folds.

I want to reply to those who think it is a normal wear-tear. I am %100 disagree. Flysurfer is a premium brand that sells premium kites. So I, as a customer expect top quality parts that would last more than 14 months. Anything less would be unacceptable. Here is the picture from our 2010 Best Waroo. Pls look at those pulleys. My wife & I abused and destroyed that kite in pieces while learning. They are still solid almost unscratched, still, look strong. Personally I believe the drums of the pulley on Souls are weak, cheap quality stuff which I'd never want to see from a premium brand.

PS: We are freshwater kiters. No salt up here

[jakemoore]

Update: it has been over 3 weeks, no answer yet. Let's see how this one folds.

I want to reply to those who think it is a normal wear-tear. I am %100 disagree. Flysurfer is a premium brand that sells premium kites. So I, as a customer expect top quality parts that would last more than 14 months. Anything less would be unacceptable. Here is the picture from our 2010 Best Waroo. Pls look at those pulleys. My wife & I abused and destroyed that kite in pieces while learning. They are still solid almost unscratched, still, look strong. Personally I believe the drums of the pulley on Souls are weak, cheap quality stuff which I'd never want to see from a premium brand.

PS: We are freshwater kiters. No salt up here

20200131_124654_resized.jpg

LOL. Have fun talking to a BMW dealer about tires. Or Ozone about their 50 hour mixer replacement.

Here is a link to buy a replacement for these wear items:

http://shop.flysurfer.com/b-pulleyline-120-cm.html
http://shop.flysurfer.com/c-pulleyleine-100-cm.html
http://shop.flysurfer.com/2x-pulleys.html

And a link to the manual - check page 17.

https://flysurfer.com/files/dlm_uploads ... ual-EN.pdf:

Having worn through pulley lines on many kites of many brands, I would replace it with a length of 2.5 mm Amsteel and the blocks/sliders of your choice and move on.

My experience with FS is in ordering replacement parts the cost is reasonable and I have them in just a few days.

[juanpasala]

Here in Colombia, Alex, the distributor has been amazing. Never had any problem with my Souls, but he was extremelly helpfull when one of my Sonic Race needed some stitches.

[Ice101]

If you want to see bad pulleys look no further than Fone. They rust within three weeks! Stopped flying bandits and swapped to soul last year due to that issue. Seemed they didn’t care. Hope the 2020 ones have been changed?
I did meet a guy in Egypt on souls while in holiday last year. He had the same problem on a couple of his souls and kept having to replace the green pulley lines. Haven’t flown my souls enough for that issue yet though myself.