MSA M7XT Air pack issues

[Guest]

The college that I teach firefighting at purchased 30 MSA air packs in September.  We bought the M7XT model, with 4500 PSI.

 

2 small volunteer departments near us also bought these, for a total of 30 between them, also being received in September.   All these packs are in service.

 

We have had a number of issues at the college with these.  We have had 7 Bypass knobs turn gritty and jam, not being able to open or close any longer.  We had 1 strap completely lose its stitching and come apart at one end, and had 2 others with regulator issues.  The straps twist very easy and get jammed or twisted around on a daily basis.  Our packs here are used a lot and are used quite hard.

 

I checked with the smaller departments near us and neither has had any issues. at least up until the time I spoke with them.

 

What also concerns me, is the department that I work full time with, has 500 packs on order, and I am fearful that we might be getting a whole lot of problems.

 

Does anyone here have any experience with these packs or know of departments that have them?  What are the issues, if any, and are they similar to ours?

 

I would appreciate any and all comments on these packs. When speaking with the manufacturer's representative, they said they have no other issues such as these that they are aware of.  Perhaps it is just a bad batch of a particular part, and there will be a recall to fix. 

 

[GA_Dave]

The big question is: What is your manufacturer's representative going to do about the problem?  Things happen, products have issues.  How those issues are dealt with is very important. 

[Guest]

The big question is: What is your manufacturer's representative going to do about the problem?  Things happen, products have issues.  How those issues are dealt with is very important. 

At this time, they are looking into it, so we'll have to wait and see.

[npfd801]

While our MSAs are ten years old now (Firehawks, not M series), we've been treated very well by our MSA vendor that we use to service the packs and anything that could possibly be under warranty was treated as such.  I'd give them a chance to do you right. If the local sales rep through your dealer doesn't, find out who the MSA regional guy is and bend his ear.

 

And before anyone starts the Scott vs. MSA thing, I'm good friends with a sales rep that does Scott, and his van always has a few Scott packs that are going in to the shop for repair work. Some departments are just harder than others on the stuff and will break anything.

[Guest]

We have a resolve on our main issue, the bypass problem.  MSA is replacing all of our regulators as they have determined that there was a machining problem with a component on a number of packs. Don't know how many others this will affect, but I am sure there are others.  Happy to see a positive resolution to this!