A tale of two Synmats

GEAR & EQUIPMENT

A tale of two Synmats

Friday 10 August 2018

In September 2017 I wrote about the failure of my Exped Synmat UL 9 while walking the Isle of Wight Coast Path.

I had purchased the Synmat sleeping mat back in 2014 just after my partner, Susan, had purchased one because I was so impressed with the one that she had bought and wanted the same thing.

At the time I wrote the article I had been pleasantly surprised by the customer service provided by Amazon who contacted the UK distributor for Exped and between them they arranged for a credit which I used to purchase the newer version of the same product.

Now, here we are in July 2018 and my partners Exped Synmat UL 9 sleeping mat has developed exactly the same problem.

However, when we contacted the retailer that she had purchased hers from, Ultralight Outdoor Gear, we received an email back saying that they would not be able to send the items back to Exped for a credit.

Undeterred, we contacted Lyon directly and explained the situation and pointed out that we had received a credit for the one purchased through Amazon.

Lyon replied apologising for issues that we had had with the Exped products and went on to explain “We have had some isolated instances of this happening as a consequence of moisture entering the mat, which then results in a baffle failure through a process of hydrolysis. Given that the item is two years outside of the warranty period, we would be unable to help you out in this instance.”

So, there you have it, it is our fault for allowing moisture to enter the mat. Really? How does that happen then?

We have always used the snozzle bag to inflate the mats and they have never been exposed to rain or water directly.

I would also argue that you could hardly consider two Synmats purchased from two separate retailers suffering identical failures as ‘isolated’. To me, that sounds more like a “faulty batch” and I have heard many more similar instances since posting the first article. Some of which had successful outcomes from Lyon and some of which did not.

So, what are we to learn from all this? Well, if nothing else, we had a much better response when the retailer concerned was the online retailing giant Amazon as opposed to the small, independent and specialist retailer Ultralight Outdoor Gear so is it that we should steer clear of indpendant retailers in future because they don’t seem to have enough influence on the distributors or manufacturers?

If so, then that is a very sad lesson indeed.

David Welch – View Profile

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