What The? BOMBER IS BEING SUED!

[LeeW]

ahh, ill have to chime in my say. they're useful for swapping between hardboot snowboard and ski modules. so far, ive been looking at the threads, and looks fine to me so far. god, im nervous now. Did recieved a T-Nut package for this UPZ boots, but it wouldn't work too well with constant swapping of those two kinds of modes. Wouldnt know til i try.

[bobdea]

the toe piece comes off and can be replaced with one that will fit in ski DIN ski bindings

the UPZs do not work with burton physics "hooks" in the front, but should work with the intec style toe bail

[LeeW]

what? are you implying toss out the toe piece and t-nut the ski DIN module that i ordered for those UPZ and use 'em with bomber bindings ?

[Guest owaysys]

Drag that this happened. Joel, I hope that you're doing better, and that you are able to either slide on the snow again or find another way to smile, man. I don't know anything about the legal system, and I don't think I'd comment on that end of things anyway. I blew out of my front binding one time (not going to mention the brand, but I will say that they weren't Bombers) and went flying into the trees on the side of a run in Michigan. I was lucky to ride away from that one, but it scared hell out of me. I think that a lot of people have "near death" stories to tell, and we should all just feel lucky that "near" is as close as we have come. It'll be interesting to see how this one pans out, since alpine stuff is getting more and more scarce in the states. I just hope I don't have to start buying stuff from Japan, because that would quickly drain my bank account. On the other hand, those Yonex boards do look pretty sexy...

[bobdea]

what? are you implying toss out the toe piece and t-nut the ski DIN module that i ordered for those UPZ and use 'em with bomber bindings ?

if you mean me, no, thats not what I meant

I was refering to what Jack was saying about toe pieces

[Fleaman]

ahh, ill have to chime in my say. they're useful for swapping between hardboot snowboard and ski modules. so far, ive been looking at the threads, and looks fine to me so far. god, im nervous now. Did recieved a T-Nut package for this UPZ boots, but it wouldn't work too well with constant swapping of those two kinds of modes. Wouldnt know til i try.

why not keep the t-nuts in the boot and just get screws for both types of pads that fit the t-nuts and keep them there.

[Gleb]

I am truely sorry for Joel and like many others, I am very hesitent to post here. I cannot imagine the hardships he is going through.

To give another example of why bomber should not be sued is when you buy a car from a ford dealer, and something like an axel snaps because of a defect, you don't sue the car dealer, you sue ford. Or when the Firestone conflict with the Wilderness AT tire. (when tires were supposedly exploding on ford explorers) people didn't sue Sears or other tire distributors, they sued firestone. It really boils my blood to see something like this happen. Bomber had no intention of causing harm, as I'm sure the same thing goes for F2. I guess we'll have to see how all this pans out. One thing Fin can do is counter sue to get the money he lost back. I have only been a part of this community for a short time but, I really like everyone here and I love the sport.

sorry for the rant, I think I'm done now. Best of luck Joel and Bomber.

[Maciek]

Of course it is Joel's choice, and he is free to make it. That is obvious. However the fact that it is a very bad choice for this entire sport needs to be made known, and I think he really needs to think about what he is doing. If this goes down, Catek is next. Or anyone who sells Intec heels (Donek, Prior, YYZCanuck, etc.)

This is bad news.

It does not matter. Basically, US law is about principle: "you get hurt - someone must be guilty, but you". It is not about BOmber, Catek or any other company for that matter. It is about sanity. There is thousands of ways and opportunities to sue for money every day. It just that we do not realize all of them :D

[D-Sub]

I am truely sorry for Joel and like many others, I am very hesitent to post here. I cannot imagine the hardships he is going through.

To give another example of why bomber should not be sued is when you buy a car from a ford dealer, and something like an axel snaps because of a defect, you don't sue the car dealer, you sue ford. Or when the Firestone conflict with the Wilderness AT tire. (when tires were supposedly exploding on ford explorers) people didn't sue Sears or other tire distributors, they sued firestone. It really boils my blood to see something like this happen. Bomber had no intention of causing harm, as I'm sure the same thing goes for F2. I guess we'll have to see how all this pans out. One thing Fin can do is counter sue to get the money he lost back. I have only been a part of this community for a short time but, I really like everyone here and I love the sport.

sorry for the rant, I think I'm done now. Best of luck Joel and Bomber.

Gleb

its too late for this. The beast is already in motion, devouring everything in its path. outside sources say the Plaintiff doesnt "want" to sue bomber...sorry but BS. Directly or not...intentionally or not...whatever. The lawyers are supposed to represent the individual. Bomber should be left the hell out of this BS and the plaintiff should be able to mandate that this be the case.

read the papers...theyre available.

the sickest part is...even if the best possible outcome of "no fault" comes bombers way, it's still costing Fin thousands...I have no idea how much but it certainly hurts, all because someone somewhere had a misdirected sense of "justice"

[Gleb]

Gleb

its too late for this. The beast is already in motion, devouring everything in its path. outside sources say the Plaintiff doesnt "want" to sue bomber...sorry but BS. Directly or not...intentionally or not...whatever. The lawyers are supposed to represent the individual. Bomber should be left the hell out of this BS and the plaintiff should be able to mandate that this be the case.

read the papers...theyre available.

the sickest part is...even if the best possible outcome of "no fault" comes bombers way, it's still costing Fin thousands...I have no idea how much but it certainly hurts, all because someone somewhere had a misdirected sense of "justice"

sadly thats true. Some times laywers aren't representing the client's best interest, just their own. This is where Fin goes and counter sues for the time he lost and the laywer fees. Also, its where we come in aswell. I'm going to be buying one of the kits soon.

[NateW]

According to the court's web site, Bomber has filed a response.

http://www.sftc.org/Scripts/Magic94/mgrqispi94.dll?APPNAME=IJS&PRGNAME=ROA&ARGUMENTS=-ACGC05443225

But unfortunately the document is not available via the web site.

If anyone has a copy (electronic or otherwise), I'm sure I'm not the only one here who would like to read it.

[D-Sub]

saw that. was curious myself. hopefully itll get scanned or whatever soon

[Kimo]

Another point: someone I talked to compared this to the case where Ford was liable for Bridgestone tires delaminating on their SUVs. That comparison is invalid, because Fords were being supplied with the faulty tires as original equipment. Intec heels are not the only option on Bomber bindings. I think when the end user specifies what parts they want on their product, it shifts responsibility.

...I suppose this is a bit late and a bit of a digression to follow, but I'm just now catching up on this thread.

It is my understanding that Ford got dinged in the whole Firestone tire fiasco because of their own actions, not just the fact that they supplied their vehicles with "defective" tires. Ford had determined that the Explorer was more prone to rollover than other SUVs in its class. Their solution to this was not a redesign of the suspension, it was to recommend users (drivers) decrease the tire pressures (down to something like 22psi compared to, what?, 36psi on average in most cars) in order to get the tires to lose traction and slide out rather than hold their grip on the road and allow the vehicle to flip when the lateral acceleration in a turn exceeded the capability of the suspension's ability to maintain the vehicle's vertical orientation. Unfortunately, running tires at low psi and highway speeds puts a tremendous amount of extra wear on the tire due to increased pliability/flexing of the sidewall/tread which causes extra heat and mechanical stress (I remember reading an article from Sean Martin about shear flow and delamination/board failure and I bet that has something to do with this issue as it relates to ply separation). The additional wear and excess heat accumulation ultimately led to ply/tread failure/separation and caused drivers loss of control and ultimately, in some cases, the very rollovers that Ford was trying to prevent in the first place.

At least, that's what I remember from the 20/20-60 minutes-what ever the heck tv show did the story 3 or 4 years ago.

[skatha]

What I heard about Ford Explorers was the chassis of the car was only designed to hold about 400 lbs payload-or about 3 adults. Any more than that put too much weight on the tires designed to hold the car-hot tires=temps approach the temps used to vulcanize the rubber to the tire body, hence losing your treads and blowing out. The car is overloaded, the center of gravity is too high for the wheelbase and the car flips. Expeditions, in contrast, are designed to hold about 1700 lbs of payload(the gross vehicle weight v. the empty vehicle weight). That explains the reason why, although the Expeditions have a high center of gravity and were equipped with Firestone tires, no Expedition had the same tire issue or flipped over. Although Ford did buy me new tires in 2001 to replace the stock tires-I had already purchased some Goodyears because Firestone tires are crap.

I also pick out the Expedition because, at the time, they were built on F150 chasses and the Explorer was built on a Ranger chassis

The issue is very important for trailering and a trailer owner knows, or should know, the gross vehicular weight for the trailer and buy tires that are appropriately load rated

plus keep them at the appropriate inflation-an underinflated tire cannot hold as much weight and gets hotter faster. I learned the hard way coming from the Davis Mtns with 20 degree temps at night-I lost air/tire pressure due to the altitude and temp. I had a nasty blowout coming back into Houston and didn't have the right equipment to change a tire on my trailer. I lost a tire and wheel, plus I was changing the tire at night by flashlight with 2 screaming kids

[Jon Dahl]

As a tire guy, I can tell you this, Ford told the tire companies supplying them to jump so low, and only Firestone made the jump. They were willing to lose money to be the OE supplier, and the only way to do it is with a low cost money loser. It backfired for them. The reason for the recomended lower inflation is ride quality, period. Everyone wants their SUV to ride like a car. Factor in the fact that most people never check the tires on their vehicles, and maybe never even look at them, and you've got one big ticking time bomb. Toss in a couple hundred pounds in the back, add driving in excess of the speed limit by 10-20 mph and guess what happens? BANG! When you push the design limits on so many fronts things go wrong at an accelerated pace, and you have many failures. Eliminate the tire issue, and the Explorer isn't a bad vehicle, just not a great one. Firestone screwed up, Ford screwed up, and some of the people who had blowouts screwed up too. It's just that Ford paid for it.

[Kimo]

I did not intentionally leave out Firestone's role in the debacle I recognize they were partly responsible. I just meant to explain Ford's role in the judgement as reported by the news program on tv.