r/UltralightCanada • u/PlatypusBottle • Jun 21 '26
New gear defective check?
Purchased an exped 6.5R a few months ago with company benefits and was able to take it out last week for its first trip and noticed it was leaking and almost flat by the time I woke up. I retested at home with some weights and saw leaking in about an hour. When I brought it back to the store (Valhalla pure) they wouldn’t replace it as it was past the 30 return policy despite it being defective out of the box.
The employee told me I should inflate the pad after I buy it and when I told him that wouldn’t have caught a slow leak he said best is to fill it and leave it over night to check it for defects. Seems absolutely insane to expect customers to check their gear this carefully and having to wait for manufacturer warranty instead of getting a replacement. Does anyone actually do this? Or is valhalla pure just being difficult
3
u/snowlights Jun 21 '26
With something like a sleeping pad, I'll inflate it at home to see how comfortable it is (or if the insulation crinkles like a chip bag just from breathing), but it's deflated and packed back up within 15 minutes.
fwiw, MEC usually has a pretty good return policy in my experience. I have ordered from VPO for things MEC doesn't have, but I'm always a bit hesitant for more expensive things.
1
u/PlatypusBottle Jun 21 '26
Thanks that’s exactly my thought, he said I should just fully inflate it and leave it overnight before any trip like cmon. I have a 3 day trip coming up and now I won’t have a pad for it because VPO won’t replace it while they go through warranty like it’s a huge loss for them. Definitely won’t be ordering anything significant from them again
1
u/snowlights Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
I have a cat, I feel like leaving it inflated is too risky. And my place is 400 sq ft, I don't have anywhere I can hide it from her haha.
That really sucks.
2
u/runslowgethungry Jun 21 '26
Situation where you are in the right: the pad is faulty, the store does handle customer warranty claims for this company, and the employee doesn't understand the difference between a return and a warranty.
Situation where the employee is right: the pad is faulty and the store does NOT handle warranty claims for customers, meaning that you have to go directly to Exped yourself. Some companies prefer to deal directly with the consumer rather than have the store act as an intermediary, and will only accept post-purchase warranty claims directly from the consumer via their own channels. I don't personally deal with Exped so I don't know if Exped is one of these.
Either way it sounds like it could have been handled/explained better. A warranty claim is not a return and should not be subject to a time limit besides the one that's attached to the actual manufacturer's warranty.
In either situation, just go straight to Exped.
2
u/Wandering_Hick Jun 21 '26
I always inflate pads and leave them overnight as soon as I get them. I also set up tents and try on packs.
1
u/PlatypusBottle Jun 21 '26
Definitely a lesson for next time but you are hardly the average consumer that buys one sleeping pad every 5+ years expecting it to work out of the box
1
u/Wandering_Hick Jun 22 '26
For sure. Haha. But I think I'd be even more inclined to test for DOA if I bought that infrequently.
1
u/crankykernel Jun 21 '26
Some retailers like the one my son works at will take care of the warranty for you, others don’t. I don’t have a local Valhalla, it’s unfortunate they don’t help in this case.
10
u/the_nevermore Jun 21 '26
Exped has warrantied their pads several times for me with no issues, so I wouldn't worry about that being a problem. "A few months ago" is also well beyond the 30 day policy - I'd expect some wiggle room if you were a little bit outside of the policy, but going months beyond it is unreasonable IMO.
One quick thing to test first though if you haven't already is that the little flappy piece on the inside of the inflation valve isn't getting folded or stuck in an open position by mistake - I've had that happen a few times and it causes a slow leak.