Ok folks, it looks official. I just got a email from Paul Fish (the pres and owner of mgear.com) stating that he tested 9 new aliens from his stock and 3 failed below their rated strength.

Its all over Rockclimbing.com in the gear forum.


Graham

Presumably these are all 2005 dated units?

edit - OK, I read the letter...all are from 2005 production (date is on trigger bars)

Yikes, sounds like there might be a serious quality control issue with recently manufactured aliens. I recently replaced my green alien, I think I'll sub it with a blue TCU for a while until more develops (but still use all of the others that I've been falling on for years). Stay tuned for a major recall.

Just logged in to post this myself.since it gained some credibiity.

Anyway prepare for at least a spell of unavailabilty.

If you want to dump your aliens, PM me

Only Aliens I bought in 2005 were offsets. Does anyone know if this affects offsets?

From the rc.com thread

"We took nine units of various sizes and date stamps dating back to the earliest we had in stock which is 0605 for pull testing. Of the nine Aliens tested, three brazes failed and the cable pulled out at below the CCH-stated max strength for that size. The failures were from different sizes and date stamps, and included both Hybrid and regular Aliens. "

You have to have a lot of free time to keep up with this one over there. I have read a lot, but not all. I am pretty sure that the real problem is QC in general - and so far no one really knows how far back. People assume it is just only "very new" units but I am not convinced, and no one is assured (from what I have read) of when the problems began.

The real concern is the lack of information, and I believe that it because CCH doesn't really have any, or any QC program, or customer service, or web site deveopment, or the capability to fill their orders...it's a shame.

The more severe QC problem seems to be the strength of the braze/solder of the cable to the stem. I would be concerned that this would affect all Aliens. Again there is little to go on at this time.

PS What size is an orange Alien? - Aliens have already vanished from the REI and mgear web sites - the only two I checked.

The orange alien is one size up from the red (...it goes to eleven...), it's about the same size as a .75 green camalot.

I just got a call from Rock & Snow. Very proactive of them. They said that between the cam lobes there's a thing that looks like a thermometer, like a bulb with a shaft, and at the center of the bulb on the defective ones there's a punch mark, like a dimple, very small.

I don't have an Alien here at work to check it out on so my description may be a little screwy. I was jotting down notes quickly. R&S also said you could bring yours in for inspection. However, it doesn't sound like there's a unified plan for replacement at this point. They said I could send them in to CCH myself or bring them to R&S, which I think is what I'll do because I trust them more than CCH. But how long it'll take to get replacements is anyone's guess.

He also said the problem was caused by "outsourcing." Well, we all knew outsourcing was evil.