On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 14:51:11 +0000, Andy M Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>>1.  CPSC, UWATEC AG Announce Recall of 1995 Dive Computers
>
>I am absolutely gobsmacked that anyone could still have one of this
>vintage computers, for one of two reasons:

>1) The 'battery replacement' is a new computer (at a fairly hefty price
> I might add - you cannot get the old battery so MUST buy the later
> version Air-Z at UK£102.5 plus shops handling charges)

>2) They don't seem to last too well - certainly when mine breaks again
> I will give it away & buy another Suunto !!! I don't use it in
> air :integrated mode as the transmitter is alles abgefucked & they
> want silly money to fix it (throw it away & give you a new replacement).

Andy, I think you have the doubly WRONG Uwatec computer.  The one
being recalled is the Aladin Air-X NITROX computer which sold at about
$1000 USD in 1995, and $1400 USD later, which would have made them
about 600 and 850 UK£ respectively, and not 100 UK£.


But your reaction
>I am absolutely gobsmacked that anyone could still have one of this
>vintage computers, for one of two reasons:

is valid, for the Uwatec Air-X Nitrox, for a different reason,
ESPECIALLY because:

1.  Only about 300 of them were sold in the US.

2.  Uwatec systematically replaced them by new (non-defective) ones
    (at no charge) when the computer went back for whatever reason,
    as its clandestic way of "recalling" the few produced.  That was
    why even the US National Manager of Uwatec at the time (the
    Plaintiff) had difficulty obtaining such a unit!

The REASON why those vintage (and rare) computers were still around
to have gotten FIVE people bent is ...

Submit your reason here:




> You won't catch me spending another penny on Uwatec!!!

To be fair, it depends on the Uwatec computer itself.

For YOUR Uwatec, and your reasons, you certainly don't want to buy one.

Bjorn and I (and a few others, including Kuty, I think) have (had)
the Uwatec Nitrox PRO dive computer which did not have the problems
you encountered and are (were) satisfied with them (Sue has one too,
and I bought it for her in 1998, long after the Air-X Nitrox fiasco
surfaced and finalized).  It cost only about 250 UK£.

BTW, I am sure you know that Uwatec (and Scubapro) are now both owned
by your brothers, Johnson & Johnson.  :-)))

My biggest complain about it is its "lock out" (or what Cochran
called his Cockroach computers the 'gauge mode', when you can't
even use it as a gauge <G>, for 24 hours, if you do not follow
its overly conservative deco schedules.

-- Bob.