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sditreubgk
Mar 26, 2004, 5:48 PM
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:?: According to the gear guide, Metolius, exept their tcu's
doesn't have UIAA or CE certification. Are they as safe as others??
Why they don't have the cert.???
thanks!
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bubba
Mar 26, 2004, 6:58 PM
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Perhaps Metolius can answer that for you.
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overlord
Mar 26, 2004, 7:03 PM
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jup, just email them.
maybe they dont have it now, but are in the process of getting one????
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vegastradguy
Mar 26, 2004, 7:34 PM
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could be they are waiting on recert b/c of the addition of the rangefinder.
although, perhaps they all have their CE except the smallest TCU's...i can't imagine Metolius not haveing a CE cert....
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coldclimb
Mar 26, 2004, 8:17 PM
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My metolius draw has a CE on it, but my metolius nuts don't say anything about it. Interesting. :?
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smithclimber
Mar 26, 2004, 8:31 PM
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I don't own any Metolius cams (so I can't actually go check), but I'm fairly sure that they should be CE approved (with the exception of the 2 smallest sizes).
When Patrick (drunkenmonkey) was over here visiting from England he bought the 2 smallest TCUs (gray and purple) AND even payed retail for them at the Mountain Shop in Yosemite (he could pro-deal virtually anything back in England) simply because he can't buy those two sizes (since they aren't CE approved) back in merry ole England.
As someone suggested, email Metolius and ask them directly.
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sditreubgk
Mar 29, 2004, 5:23 PM
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ok, i've e- mailed Metolius. Here's my message:
Hi guys,
I am wondering why, according to the "Gear Guide" from
climbing.com, your products(nuts, hexes,power cam) aren't UIAA
and CE approved??
I know that your 4 biggest tcu's are CE but why not your other products??
Thanks and keep up the good work!
And Here's the reply:
Hello Vince and thanks for the inquiry. The fact of it is that our cams
meet the requirements, but the cost of the certification is so
exhorbitant that we have opted not to get all sizes certified. We did
not want to have to raise the cost of our cams in the process! Please le
tus know if you have any other questions!
any comment??
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mustclimb69
Mar 29, 2004, 5:29 PM
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So they are certified but dont want to tell anyone?
just trust some office workers response...
Seems really unprofessional.
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climbia
Mar 29, 2004, 5:30 PM
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Sounds logical. I own some powercams and never had a problem, yet. hehe. If they meet the standard who care about the ce.
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vegastradguy
Mar 29, 2004, 5:54 PM
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sounds foolish. i'm shocked that Metolius would not get their gear certified....i'm sure its bomber, but come on....other folks keep their cam prices down (except BD, of course) and have CE cert....that's a lame excuse....
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buckyllama
Mar 29, 2004, 6:26 PM
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Or maybe it's legit.
Their primary market is in North America, where no CE cert is required, and their cost/benefit analysis suggested that it wasn't to their financial benefit to pay for the cert on all models. Not that uncommon really. If you are interested in their quality and testing programs, they'd probably be quite happy to explain them in detail to you.
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jimdavis
Mar 29, 2004, 8:20 PM
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Metolius products are bomber. They're cams have more holding power than any other cam on the market cause of their smaller cam angle. Their safe-tech harness is redicilious in it's ratings. And all of their gear is as beefy as it gets.
If there's any company who's ratings are conservative...it's Metolius.
Hold some of their wired gear next to some BD sometime and see which "looks" stronger. Their slings on their cams are huge too.
I trust em completly.
Metolius = bomber.
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bandycoot
Mar 29, 2004, 8:27 PM
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Ditto that. I've fallen on Metolius gear a lot since that is what I started with (and still use, just not exclusively). My 200lb friend took a 20+' fall onto the 00 tcu and it held just fine. I actually stopped carrying their nuts for non-knobby climbs because they are sooo heavy due to their beefyness! If their gear was sub par they would be sued and out of the business by now. Don't be paranoid!
Josh
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vegastradguy
Mar 29, 2004, 8:32 PM
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i should clarify my statement above. first, i trust Metolius gear. I own it and use it without hesitation. They make bomber stuff, and i'm not questioning it. i'd climb above anything Metolius makes...in fact, theres companies out there that are CE cert that I trust less than Metolius.
my point is that i think its lame on Metolius' part not to get their gear certified when everyone else does. saying it costs too much is a lame excuse at best. other companies have CE cert and keep their costs down...why can't Metolius?
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coylec
Mar 29, 2004, 8:35 PM
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From the information presented thus far, it appears that Metolius has choosen not to have all their sizes certified. This implies, at least in my mind, that certification must be done for each piece seperately. That is to say, they must have a new process to certify the Fat Cam 8 (Purple), seperate from the certification process for the Fat Cam 7 or 9.
While I know NOTHING about CE/UIAA certification procedures, I will make an uneducated guess in assuming its more complex than sending them a cam in a box. They probably require technical data that is going to be specific to each piece. That papertrail is going to be a lot of work, more than their 45 employees can handle in addition to their work.
Metolius is a company I trust. I have no doubts that each piece of gear would pass the certification procedure. As climbers, we are partially responsible for this situation: we demand high performance, low cost gear. This appears to be a way to cut costs without sacrificing quality or strength.
How much are you willing to pay for the comfort of certification? I don't know the distributed cost, but is it worth $5.00 a cam? What about $10? I don't know the answer to this question.
coylec
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coldclimb
Mar 30, 2004, 3:50 AM
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I'll still buy metolius. The explanation is enough for me. I could care less if they have the stamp, as long as they're strong enough.
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betaben
Apr 2, 2004, 8:44 PM
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I had sent an email to Metolious before the erlier respnonse was posted. Although it's pretty much the same response, I decided to post any ways.
I think there is good reasoning behind their stance. I work in engineering and understand that most certifications are just a way to make money for many organizations. this does'nt mean it's not a good thing it just means that in many case's it's just unneccessary. The TCU's are certified, so you have to take that as a standard for thier manufacturing and inspection process's.
Ben
Reponse from MetouliusIn reply to: Hi again Ben - I spoke with the owner of the company, and indeed, his response to the question was the same as my response previously to another contributor to the rockclimbing.com board: the issue is cost. The reality of the situation is, our cams meet/exceed the standards but the problem lies in the monetary consideration of having them tested. It is extremely expensive to have products certified and it is not a one-time charge. It is an annual charge that is applied to each individual unit involved. The basic cost of testing well exceeds the revenues generated from export sales (again, this is a European standard and is not a requirement for sales of products in the U.S.). We do sell a fair number of our TCUs in Europe, and have therefore gotten certification on these units, but as for the Power or Fat Cams, the U.S. is the only market in which we sell any volume. Coincidentally, it is also the only market which does not require CE certification! To sum up, we choose to obtain the certifications that benefit the consumer based on cost analysis. Hope this answers the question and let me know if there's anything else! Michelle Metolius Climbing Safer by design The only market which we sell any volume of hangers in is the US, coincidentally, it is the only market which does not require CE certification! |
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the_antoon
Apr 2, 2004, 9:28 PM
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When you get a reply from Metolius post it on here...I'm curious.
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the_antoon
Apr 2, 2004, 9:30 PM
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Ok then...
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sixter
Apr 2, 2004, 10:16 PM
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This discussion reminds me of the situation we had when I was working in the aftermarket automotive exhaust products industry. By Califorina smog law, any product that is part of the emissions system from the catalytic converter forward has to be certified and given an exemption code. So the process was, get a customer car, or a car from a dealer, make the prototype headers, test them on the chassis dyno, then get a customer car for a week or more, provide the customer with a rental car, take it to a test facility for a baseline test, then bring it back and install the headers, drive the car back up to the test facility, then they run a battery of tests to see if the headers cause an increase in emissions. You can see how this quickly adds up to a very large chunk of change. All this to certify the headers for one state, California. When I looked at the R&D list there were a lot of things that were being considered, but would never go into production because the cost vs the demand was so great that it wasn't worth the investment of the company into producing a product. This cost of testing is why some automotive products are listed as 49 state legal, or for off-road use only. So, Metolious statement makes perfect sense, what they don't have a demand in Europe for, they don't certify.
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mrme
Apr 2, 2004, 10:56 PM
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In reply to: i should clarify my statement above. first, i trust Metolius gear. I own it and use it without hesitation. They make bomber stuff, and i'm not questioning it. i'd climb above anything Metolius makes...in fact, theres companies out there that are CE cert that I trust less than Metolius. my point is that i think its lame on Metolius' part not to get their gear certified when everyone else does. saying it costs too much is a lame excuse at best. other companies have CE cert and keep their costs down...why can't Metolius?
but as they said ce certification cost money. so they prefer to make more bomber gear 'that they can still sell' than to waste there money on a peice of paper. if they bought that peice of paper they would either have to raise there prices or put out a less quality peice of gear.
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brundige
Apr 5, 2004, 11:22 PM
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It's true it cost a buttload of cash to get certfied
you have to have the cert. though to sell it in most of the EU
i lived in germany for six months and the guys were always complaing about how they couldnt get half the gear we have .
only plus is rock shoes are dirt cheap .got three pairs for a little over 100
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rokshoxbkr19
Apr 5, 2004, 11:37 PM
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Hmmm, Rock Empire Cams can afford CE certification but not Metolious Cams. I don't know what to think about that one.
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epic_ed
Apr 5, 2004, 11:58 PM
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It's ridiculous to say they can't afford to pay for the certification. They've made a business decision not to do so with the smaller cams because there isn't a large enough market in Europe for these items to justify the cost. That niche is already filled by a variety of other European cam manufacturers and competing for that market share by paying for the certification just doesn't make good financial sense. I don't understand what is so hard to accept about this strategy -- it's a business decision based on simple economics.
Ed
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wlderdude
Apr 7, 2004, 3:54 AM
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Uh, Rock Empire makes their cams and sells most of them in EUROPE! where CE certification is MANDATORY! They sell boatloads of cams and can spread the cost over many, many units.
The itty bitty TCU's are more of a specailty item that does not see lots of inventory turn over to spread certification costs out on.
Yeah, it makes sence. If anyone else wasn't certified, I might be concerned, but not not Metolius. They make some of the most overdesigned gear on the market.
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