Just a question - a mate of mine is a North fan but is now sorting out problems with valves, bladders and fins ??
Im an F-one fan and have had none of his issues boards or kites ??
His fins on 2 nuggets are trashed - and not from being run aground - lots of stress fractures ?? crap fins Im thinking ??
Is this common with the North Nugget ?? seems the fins are crap@!@
Don't ride north
But they must be doing something right , my local beach had maybe 15/18 kites up yesterday/ today
All north
1 flexifoil
1 ss rally
1 switch
It's not cost as they are up there
Performance? Not for me, apart from rebel
Colours/
I have 3 NEO north 2015 and have no issues. I will buy North gear again. Also I have never had any issue with Naish, Ozone, Slingshot, Liquid force and flysurfer kites Sometime we get lemons and it could be any brand. Or if is was used kite the previous owner didn;t look after his gear. cheers
Sorry to hear you've had a bad experience with a North Board.
We are one of the worlds biggest kiteboard manufacturers and our workmanship defects are the lowest level in the industry.
If your having issues, again your local north dealer will be more then happy to help.
Bugger...no excuses for the email, that sucks...
But livit were you being a 'cu#t'? Seems you got an axe to grind given you jumped into this stupid thread.
Worked with the north juggernaut system on warranties before, it can be slow, but they've always come through eventually.
Maybe I wasn't being a cu#T about it, who knows?
I don't think it's a grey area mate
Surfboard from the local shaper = $750
Kite surfboard from north = $1200
See when you pay nearly double the price of a normal surfboard for a "kite surfboard" you would expect it to be fit for purpose otherwise how can they justify the price difference if it isn't for the super dooper beefed up kite construction..........
warranties on the SB's are a grey area. Regardless of brand. Well they are a headache for retailers I know that much at least.
Oh and their pumps are **** too. I bought one new from Marvin here, and not blaming him, but the build quality is crap. It lasted 5months and kaput! Went back to simple yellow pumps from Anaconda and no more problems since
Bummer to hear they suck with there warranties.
I've done a fare few repairs and it looks like it might have been fixed with polyester resin, when the board is epoxy?
Tends to eat away the foam and glass layers like that.
Did you buy it new?
Go local, easy fix.
Well I'll throw in my one person experience against your one person experience. Have been all north since I started 4 years ago and kit has been brilliant as has the local dealer in Gero.
Strawpolls of 1 are just legendary
surf boards just don't seem to be made to last, like guys are happy with 2-3 years out a board while I'm sitting here thing id love a kteboard that never perished with age. Is there such a thing? I get it will be heavier but I don't really think that is a top priority with kite boards.
Hey Livit, got to go with you on this one. Poor craftsmanship is easy to cover up under a layer or two of paint and from how it looks in this pic you have scored yourself a "Monday morning" job when the Thai shaper was suffering a cracker hangover from a big night on the Singha's. Warranty from what I understand (having watched many episodes of Checkout on ABC) is not necessarily for the exact period of time that is stated. If your washing machine craps itself on day 366 of a 1 year warranty, it doesn't mean you're not covered. From what I understand you can go down the pathway of phoning the Consumer protection group but your claim needs to be within a "reasonable time" and not something that has been slapped around. This process could a pain in the @rse though and is what manufacturers rely on as people usually can't be bothered.
Got to agree with Eppo on going a local shaper if you can access one. Epoxy is a great material...cheap, strong and easy to work with (in production) but never overlook the qualities of good old fashioned glass board.
Having said that, here are some pics of my "Nugget" that I had built late last year (have posted this pics before). All glass (and lots of it) with some carbon strips over the heal areas, and being glass you can see that this is pure craftsmanship as I can see all the way through to the foam and stringers. Plus, if I damage it the repair process is easy. By the way, this Nugget didn't cost me $1300 like the mass produced versions.
I did a fin box on my 2011 Nugget and was advised by Darren to have it repaired at Katanas, which I did. (Excellent repair)
When I picked up the board, the shaper whose name escapes me, was perplexed and confused as to what seemed like
the original fin box had its flange ground off before assembling on the board. He had never seen this before and had no explanation
why they would do it. I know very little about board building but I kept the fin box out of interest.
I can't say it really bothered me being the noob I was and I flew Rebels and Evos
for my first three years. Replaced just about all the valves, depower lines every season,
Maybe I'm a bit simpletonic, but none of that really bothered me in regards to the brand.
I own a 2015 Nugget now so maybe I haven't learnt a lesson yet.
And I now fly Ozone and equally happy.….......until that leading edge opens up.
Just my experience.
That email needs to find its way across the CEOs desk.
PS Australia is the only Country in the world where you call your mates " c#nts"........and c#nts "mate".