You are probably looking about £25 for a service, personally I would
just get new as you really have to wonder why someone would be selling
an octopus without the rest of the reg

Pete
diving 'at' melbourne 'dot' me 'dot' uk

About ?20 or ?25 for a service I guess but I wouldn't buy second hand - you
don't know where it's been :-)

Alun Harford

You should be able to get a Beaver SPG for about 40 quid and an R190
octo for about 80. You may be able to get these for less at LIDS or
if you ask your LDS nicely :-)

I would say its worth getting the octo from the same manufacturer as the
first/second stage but its not so important for the SPG. I have a Suunto
SPG on my Mk25/S600 and a Beaver SPG on my Mk16/S190 pong reg. Both have
been fine so far.

Nick

£50 for a second-hand pressure gauge? Not on your life.

£50 for a second-hand second stage? I wouldn't - by the time you've
serviced it, you're very close to the new price. If you can get him down
to £30, it might be worth thinking about...

Vic.

Scuba Pro, in the U.S., warantees, i.e. pays for, all parts for life as long
as you get annual service.  Annual service is a requirement in every
warantee I know of and a recommendation that most divers at least try to
follow.  You may or may not save enough to make a new regulator a better
purchase than a used one.  I've never even considered having a guage
serviced and make a point of buying computers that allow the user to change
batteries, the most common service they get.

My suggestions:
1. Check the service prices at a local dive shop.  That's where your service
will be done anyway.  Be sure to understand how much is parts and how much
is labor.  Ask about the warantee to ensure what you get is the same as what
I get.
2. Buy whatever, under the circumstances, makes sense.  I normally buy new,
but I can afford to humor my own preferences.  I bought used regulators when
money was a bit tighter.  I still have them and they still work fine.  I've
yet to retire a regulator except to sell it to somebody who, like me, finds
the cost of used to be more reasonable than the cost of new.
3. Whichever you buy, insist that the regulator be serviced before you
accept it.  That's a responsibility I always place on the seller.  At least
that way, I know I'm getting a working product for my money and am
reasonably assured it will continue working for a while.

Lee

Richard,
      I have a brand new R190 Octopus I'm looking to sell. I got this with
a Pony package and I've decided to replace it with a R390 to match my main
octopus. It's brand new, never been in the water and I haven't even filled
in the warrany card yet. Make me a offer.

thanks
Dan Greenway
danatdgreenwaydotcodotuk

I took my 2nd hand regs along to Pete Church in Nottingham
(www.divequip.co.uk) who tested them and gave an honest appraisal
whether they needed a service or not rather than the 'of course they
do, sir' from most LDS.  They didn't- the TX40 I got had only been
recently done (you can tell by the condition of the inlet filter)  and
the 2nd hand Jetstream looked, in his opinion, pretty much unused.

But as with anything 2nd hand, you are taking a risk when buying from
soneone unknown- in my case I was lucky but the regs were cheap so not
too much of a risk plus I can get them looked at for free....

Anyhoo, I blather on.  Pete's cost for reg servicing is 18.50 plus
parts which work out at 12.50 for an Apeks 1st stage and 5.25 for the
2nd stage. I would have thought S/pro stuff would be around these
prices too.

I would also say that 50 quid is pricey for an Octo- you can get new
for not a huge amount more.  You should be looking at 20 or 30.

Woz.