How to contact black diamond about safety of their Solution Guide harness?

Anyone know how to contact Black Diamond about a safety issue with their harnesses? I emailed bdmo@bdel.com 5 days ago and got no response.

I do think this is a potentially serious issue that may be affecting other harnesses of the same type other than mine.

The issue is that the auto-double-back mechanism is very stiff and can slip. In normal use it only slips about an inch or so (just from me climbing / rappelling). But if the waist belt were to snag a carabiner, branch, horn etc, it could fail completely and instantly (here is a video to demonstrate: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WyUMHhjA77hskMHF8 ). Other harnesses I tried didn't fail in this manner so I believe it isn't just a "that is too unlikely to matter" thing.

Have you tried calling their customer service?

Just tried this on my Arc'teryx harness. Same thing happened, though I did have to pull at w particular angle.

Allen Sanderson wrote: Have you tried calling their customer service?

That's way too obvious. 

I've noticed a serious safety problem with BD harnesses as well.

If I use my hands to loosen the harness, the harness loosens. This could happen if I entered a state of psychosis while rappelling. 

Who should I contact to get these harnesses recalled? 

Darren Smith wrote: I do think this is a potentially serious issue that may be affecting other harnesses of the same type other than mine.

The issue is that the auto-double-back mechanism is very stiff and can slip. In normal use it only slips about an inch or so (just from me climbing / rappelling). But if the waist belt were to snag a carabiner, branch, horn etc, it could fail completely and instantly. Other harnesses I tried didn't fail in this manner so I believe it isn't just a "that is too unlikely to matter" thing.

Both of the harnesses I have with me (pretzel Sitta and Adjama) also exhibit this behavior. 

If you have the auto-buckle and you load the metal bit at the right angle, I am pretty sure you will always un-"lock" it. In practice (when the rope is weighted), it takes a lot more than you show in your video to make it come undone (and thus seems like a non-issue).

I'd be interested to see you do the same test while hanging in the harness. I am happy to be proven wrong but it mainly seems like you are just hitting the buckle bits in a way equivalent to loosening the harness normally. I will be looking out for further testing. I think this is essentially what some of the other commenters were getting at but let me know if this explanation didn't make sense.

Isn’t that how you are able to take it off?

Darren Smith wrote: Anyone know how to contact Black Diamond about a safety issue with their harnesses? I emailed bdmo@bdel.com 5 days ago and got no response.

I do think this is a potentially serious issue that may be affecting other harnesses of the same type other than mine.

The issue is that the auto-double-back mechanism is very stiff and can slip. In normal use it only slips about an inch or so (just from me climbing / rappelling). But if the waist belt were to snag a carabiner, branch, horn etc, it could fail completely and instantly (here is a video to demonstrate: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WyUMHhjA77hskMHF8 ). Other harnesses I tried didn't fail in this manner so I believe it isn't just a "that is too unlikely to matter" thing.

Pro tip - hook your biner to the harness tie in points and then try pulling on it. You’re welcome!

So I had a harness with speed adjust actually loosen in a fall in a squeeze chimney, the thing is that as soon as the rope came tight the harness locked the buckle again. It would take a very weird situation to keep the angle of pull right for long enough to take the harness completely off. Mine loosened maybe 6in at the waist and still caught me fine.

Been said before but maybe if you don’t want a buckle to come undone quickly like that, don’t buy a harness where one of its features is that the buckles come undone quickly like that. 

Anybody have the number for Rock and Resole?

Why do you care? #YouDoYouBoo

Tie an overhand knot in the tail.

Don't worry Darren I'm sure they're  justpassing your email around the office and getting a good laugh before they respond. 

Josh B and Aidan Raviv, would you mind posting a vid of another harness doing this? I tried 4 other harnesses and couldn't get any to slip this way even slightly.

Also for what it's worth I hung from the belay loop and it would still slip easily in this scenarior. (I think it would still be unsafe even if it did hold in this case though).

Sounds like that's not the right harness for you.  I wouldn't worry about contacting BD, they designed the buckle to open this way.