In reply to Lamb: Called Lyon Equipment this morning to see if they had received any update from Petzl. No real update whatsoever, Petzl are aware of the issue but continue to proclaim that "it is not a safety issue" which I can appreciate, yes my pommel wont start spinning round in circles however my concern is that there is clearly some level of wear between the shaft and the insert; that is indisputable.
Petzl have said that when they received my pair of Nomics with wobbly pommels, they simply tightened the bolt up further and the wobble stopped. I made it clear when I sent the axes back in January, that when I first received the 'fixed' Nomics in September of last year the pommel did not wobble at all, neither did the insert. A few routes down the line, both the insert and pommel were wobbling, so in order to stop that I tightened the bolt up. This was the exact same story from Winter 10/11, until it got to the stage where I had the bolt tightened so much in order to stop the pommel wobbling, that the bolt was sticking out the washer on the other side of the pommel wearing away my gloves, and the plastic pommel was beginning to split from the force it was under from the bolt. I have stressed this again to Lyon and they say they will pass this on again to Petzl.
My concern is not that it is a safety issue, and I know that the pommel will not suddenly jump sizes. It is the fact that these tools have a 3 year warranty, and there is clearly wear going on between the insert and the shaft which is noticeable within the space of 6 weeks of the Winter season beginning. So my question is, what state will the insert and shaft be, come 3 years down the line? I have been told by Lyon that in all cases where there are moving parts in a piece of equipment that you can expect some level of 'play' between each piece, and that the Nomics are a special case within the current range of axes on the market in that you can change handle sizes and thus there are moving parts, therefore this 'play' is tolerable, right? I disagree with that as I have stated above. I have made these points clear again to Lyon and they are going to pass on my comments to Petzl today or tomorrow.
On another note, Lyon have been in conversation with some other user of Nomics, who claims that he experienced the same small amount of wobble in the pommels of the Nomic MK1's and that it was never an issue. I have never owned the first generation Nomics however I haven't heard of pommel wobble before in the first generation Nomics, have others heard or experienced the same pommel wobble in them?
I genuinely would like Petzl to find a resolution to the issue and I am not creating an issue for the sake of it. I am however getting the vibes that Petzl don't really want to know about it, and the comments from ice.solo about the Petzl rep I think speaks volumes. If this is the case then it is very disappointing indeed, as they do make fantastic gear. I am unsure as to what Petzl can look at further as they say they are doing, as in my eyes it is simply a haphazard fix with a clear design fault and that is it.
Hopefully Petzl will be able to respond to my comments, which I did initially send them first time round, and we can take it from there.
Will update you further in due course.