I've owned a pair of Nomics for the last 18 months. In this time, I've done two seasons in Scotland, one month in the Alps and two week-long trips to Rjukan, making a grand total of 59 individual uses. While I was up in Aviemore this year, I noticed that when I weighted the picks of the axes, they produced an unsettling creaking noise. Naturally, I consulted Lyon (who distribute Petzl in the UK) to see what they thought. They recommended I sent them off for inspection, which I did.
A month down the line, I receive a letter from Lyon, along with my tools. They agree with me that the tools do produce a pretty awful creaking noise when loaded. They claim that this is due to some movement between the shaft and the head. No, not the pick, the
head. I'd actually already assumed this to be the case, as I've heard of it happening to a number of other people's Nomics.
To cut a long and painful story short, it seems that Lyon consider a catastrophic defect like this one, caused after 59 single uses, to a pair of tools that would set someone paying retail price back an eye-watering £430, to be
normal wear and tear, and as such, have offered nothing more than a recommendation that I retire the tools with immediate effect. Now, maybe I'm crazy, but I would have thought that using a tool for its intended purpose (mainly ice climbing with a bit of modestly-graded mixed climbing, as my UKC logbook will illustrate) for a mere 18 months, shouldn't result in a catastrophic failure of parts resulting in a need for its immediate retirement. Perhaps if I was Greg Boswell, I might expect to go through a pair of tools in this time, but I'm not. The idea that a top-of-the-range piece of PPE should fail after 18 months of light, sporadic use, seems utterly ridiculous to me. Even more ridiculous is the notion that this should be considered fair wear and tear, and therefore that I should be left with nothing but a slightly more professionally worded, 'chin up son, best buy another set'.
Has anybody had a similar experience with the Nomics or other Petzl tools? Maybe I'm asking too much, but it doesn't feel like it right now. Lyon claim that mixed climbing is exclusively to blame for the accelerated wear on the tools, but I've not heard of anyone's BD or Grivel tools failing. I don't really know what I'm hoping for here, but suffice it to say that unless this does turn out to be an actual material/manufacturing defect, I won't be buying equipment from Petzl again.
Post edited at 19:20