One of the most frequent question we field, and one of the most common arguments we see (mostly local dive shop owners) against somebody considering buying our regulators is servicing. The availability worldwide of parts so when you are traveling to get service if needed, the ease of service when you need it and more.

Being a new brand that is breaking new ground by eschewing the traditional dive industry model ( factory/suppliers to brand, brand to distributer who sells to the local dive shop) and being a direct to consumer brand it’s a natural question in the mind of our potential customers and an easy way to sell FUD (Fear uncertainty and doubt) If you aren’t familiar with that technique, lucky you! But here is the wikipedia entry on FUD Selling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt. Rest assured that Deep 6 doesn’t subscribe to that sales approach. Beyond finding it offensive, we don’t believe it helps us, our customers or even the dive industry in general. It also assumes that the customer is not aware enough to seek out truthful information in a period of time when information is virtually at our fingertips on a 24/7 basis. Being open and honest and sharing information allowing customers to make informed decisions is much more important to us. Here is an interesting article that examines using FUD in the current market that is pretty interesting and in many(most) ways reflects our beliefs. http://www.inc.com/eric-holtzclaw/selling-fud-redefined.html

One of the first things a new purchaser of Deep 6 regulators will notice when they receive their product is that they come with spare service kits. Those kits aren’t there to encourage you to do your first service on your own! (we’ll circle around to self servicing in a bit). Those kits are so that when you are traveling and have a issue that needs repair/servicing you can provide the parts to the local service facility. You see what the FUD sellers don’t tell you is that even with the large established brands when you are in a dive destination, even popular ones, finding a shop that carries the service kits in stock when you need it is very rare. Having the kits allows you the ability to provide the technician with them so they can hopefully service it. The nice thing about our regulators is that they are simple to service, we don’t void warranty when any trained (by any brand) repair technician services our gear for you. Send in your spare service kits when you send your reg for service and we will use them in the service and send you fresh spare service kits back!

Let’s move away from the subject of what happens when traveling and you need repairs to the more common case of regular servicing. We recommend servicing your regulator every 2 years or 200 dives, whichever comes first. Your first service is on us! That’s right, when you buy a Deep 6 Regulator from us you get to send the regulator to us and we’ll do the first service for free. We also recommend that you inspect your regulator annually or before every dive trip, we’re working on a video that we will share with you on how to inspect your regulator, because it isn’t difficult or requires any special skills.

After the first free servicing you have a few options.

Option One-You can send your regulator to us for servicing simply by buying the service online at Deep6gear.com and sending it to us. The turn around upon arrival is a guaranteed 3 business days or the service is on us! Being the brand, we’ll always have parts on hand (or again the service will be free) and who knows the regulator better? That means that most times between ground shipping(in the continental US) and service you will be out of hand for 5-10 business days. When you send us your regulator for service there is never any charge for parts (except hoses if they need replacing). All you will pay is the rate you saw when you visited our website and bought the service. Truthfully, this service option will often e quicker then when you bring your reg to the LDS (local dive shop) for service, they often need to order parts, send it out themselves and the average turn around at far too many shops is dismal. Plus, at the shop they are seeing many types of regulators and while some shops have superb technicians, many are simply OK. We are the brand, NOBODY knows our product better than we do!

Option Two- You can bring your regulator to one of our demo centers and or some select independent instructors that are close to you and have them service it. They will be happy to look after you and again, the parts (except hoses) are no charge, just labor as agreed between the demo center/instructor and you.

Option Three- You can decide to learn to service your own regulators! Our service class has been approved by TDI (www.tdisdi.com) as a specialty that you can take from our Demo centers, select independent instructors and from us at scheduled times and locations thru the year (normally around consumer shows, demo days, DEMA(the annual Industry trade show). I want to e upfront, unless you are a technical diver or have a whole big family of divers the economics of this likely won’t save you money..and certainly not time. But if you enjoy fixing things and like the feeling of accomplishment and security of doing it yourself, we understand and want to make it possible. If you take this option we will provide (for shipping costs only) a no charge service kit once every two years upon request for each stage that you have purchased. If during the service you discover issues bigger than a service kit then you’ll need to get in contact with us and we can figure out together the next step (in others words, if something breaks that is a manuf. defect it’s a Deep 6 issue, if you simply broke your stuff somehow… say “I broke it” and we’ll bend over backwards to get you and your reg back in the water.

International Customers- As time goes on we will be establishing demo centers and independent instructors in your country that will be the “go to” for servicing (and teaching the service class)so you can avoid international shipping, duty issues etc. That process isn’t overnight but if you know a great pro that you think could be the right gal or guy, reach out to them and us! We’d be happy to talk with them.

I hope this helped you understand our philosophy and approach to servicing, remember diving is actually supposed to be fun, making servicing a pain just makes it less fun. So our goal is to make servicing as painless as possible, get you diving again as quickly as possible and not cost you a fortune while doing so.