Burton W48 Review Or the Burton Warranty Test

The noise was unmistakable: my high back had just snapped a post. Quickly picking myself up from the ground I realized my size XXL ass had landed weird on my high back and snapped it into a few more pieces than required. Turns out that after four days in Utah of taking some really weird falls and hauling ass down the hills the way to finish up my trip was breaking a binder in the most rookie way possible. I slipped and fell on it. Adding insult to injury was a chairlift chair was looming down on me. I quickly popped to my feet and said to the Josh "Yep, something broke." Sure enough my left Burton Co2 suffered a fate most likely reserved for team riders and Brighton locals who actually put bindings through their paces: a break.

With little else to do I kept riding through the day and to be honest I felt a little looser cruising through trees, the park and whatever else The Josh directed me towards. Chalk one up for not caring I guess. I wasn't too concerned with another pair of Co2's at home but I thought: "even better, I'll just W48 it. Burton will take care of me." Sure enough I got home the next day and was dialing up the kind folks in Vermont to see when and where I could ship my fractured highback. Curiously I looked over the Burton website for what i could expect before hopping on the phone. It seems Burton has changed their tune as to how long and under what conditions you can return something for W48.

Covered: Binding Baseplate Lifetime Warranty
We're so confident in our baseplate materials and designs, beginning with the 2005 product line, we are offering a lifetime baseplate warranty against structural defects. So, if you crack or break your baseplate during riding, we'll replace it for life.

***SI baseplates are not included in this lifetime warranty***

• Breakage and/or cracking of any parts, not due to misuse, abuse, neglect, impact, or the use of resins and/or solvents.

Immediately I thought no problem I am square and a new high back is coming my way. So I quickly hopped on the phone. The rider services rep on the other end then informed me... oh that binding is over a year old and therefor not covered. My response was simple ... "Huh?" I Must have missed it. So back I tread to the Burton website and clicked about W48:

Burton Snowboards warrants all products sold by Burton to be free of defects in material or workmanship for a period of one (1) year from the date of purchase unless otherwise specified on the product.

Dagger through the thought of my new highback! The rider services rep then went on to tell me a new C02 highback purchased was $100 plus shipping. Double dagger through the heart of my new highback!! Now, the easy thing to do would be to bash Burton but I'm going to give them one more try with the W48 perhaps they'll take pity on me. In the event they don't there's a spare pair of C02's I can mount up. But this got me thinking ... maybe it's time to move on. Sure enough there's a box of something new waiting in the gear locker to test out. Union Forces, it's time to come on out and play. Anybody want to buy 1 1/2 Co2's?