Bought a used Kirby Morgan clone, almost cost me a dive

I mean, everyone I work with up here in Anacortes swears by buying the Chinese knockoff helmets to save $4,000 or so for inland work. So I grabbed one for around $1,100 and ran it for two months. Then during a hull inspection last week, the exhaust valve stuck open and I took on water through the neck seal. Had to surface slow and call it, spent $300 on OEM parts to fix it. I get the budget thing, but has anyone else had a clone failure that made you regret skipping the real deal?

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juliagonzalez4d ago

Man, that exhaust valve issue is no joke. I work with four guys who run the clones and two of them had valve problems in the first six months, one flooded his helmet during a simple dock job. Saving four grand sounds great until you're spitting water through a neck seal at 30 feet. There's a reason the real ones cost what they do.

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