Broken Duke base plate (not center screw)

[clarklewis]

07/08 duke's mounted professionally on 193 prior overlords (118 under foot):

duke's were good for about 20 days, then became progressively sloppier with fore/aft and lateral play (worn plastic rails between binding and base plate, plus wear around center screws), then started getting easy releases from the heels, even at DIN 14 which is ridiculous. i'm 190 lbs and ski hard, but my 916's hold tight every time at DIN 12. then nasty slop developed in the heels.

then finally while high-speed carving on a groomer (maybe 50 days on them), the base plate just broke, the binding derailled off the base plate (see photo) and released my boot, and i sat on my freshly sharpened ski edge, nearly tearing myself a new one!

they're being warrantied. i hope the 08/09 version is better. what a pile of garbage!

[Chowda]

Ouch!
Marker should warranty the binding, but I think they will claim owner abuse on the ass.

[harpo-the-skier]

Did you do much touring on them? Mine where fine for about 10 days, but after two days of touring they developed fore/aft play, so I warrantied them, and then sold the new ones I got. Marker Warranty sucks, BTW.

[clarklewis]

probably 20 days touring, 30 days on hill.
hard to say whether the touring caused accelerated wear - they just got steadily worse with time.
apparently the plastic has been improved on the newer base plates, but not sure if they've changed the heels (hope so). we'll see.
not sure what else to use - don't like naxo's or fritschi's (++ lateral flex), especially on wide skis, and no touring boot would drive these skis properly with dynafit's (because of the boot, not the binding).

still waiting for truly burly touring boots and bindings...

[Flexon Phil]

Marker Bindings always were a pain in the ass.

[beaterdit]

Jeez that's scary man.

Lots of broken Duke threads lately.

Got a brand new pair sitting here waiting for me to do something with them but I think I might just sell them.

[jondrums]

that should not have happened!

It sounds like the heel releases and slop in the heels could have been a forward pressure issue?

[Kski]

...and no touring boot would drive these skis properly with dynafit's (because of the boot, not the binding).

still waiting for truly burly touring boots and bindings...

Look into the Dynafit Zzues boot and possibly the BD Factor. Then mount-em up with Dynafits of course.

[clarklewis]

It sounds like the heel releases and slop in the heels could have been a forward pressure issue?

i had them checked and double-checked by experienced tech's a few times - forward pressure was set correctly.

BD factors + dynafits = interesting idea. could be a good compromise.