Full Tilt Konflict after one year

Boy they were tight at first. After heat molding the liners and a custom insole they felt better, though I need to pop some more space for my heels malleanus. Depending on a the day, the boots may feel really tight and I need to open the buckles in lifts to get some blood circulation. But while skiing they are really good.

Here are my gripes after one year and about 40 skiing days.

The heel plastic seems to get some bad looking hits from my Salomon S914 bindings (and the same ones branded as Atomic bindings). And from my Alpine Treckers. A friends eight year old Kneissl boots have harder looking black plastic base which has not suffered like mine. Perhaps the Kneissl ones have some black paint or hardener on top which helps.

From the first days, this sucked. The lower buckle likes to gather snow and ice. When walking in soft snow and the buckle is not too tight, it may open and get filled with snow. And then it does not hold anymore. It sort of slips off every time and stays loose. But after a year of swearing I took a closer look at the problem. Ice and snow in that little hole push the metal thing and loosen the adjustment. Get rid of the ice and snow from the hole with something sharp like key, and the buckle works a gain. No reason to go indoors and melt the boot. I so wish Full Tilt had a FAQ or Howto on their web page. I bet this is a known issue.

After 40 skiing days, both boots suffered a broken spring on the middle buckle. There looks to be some rust so perhaps the spring is just poor quality metal.

After the spring busted, my left middle buckle broke off completely. I have no idea how or when that happened. Perhaps I hit a tree branch with buckle open, though I pretty sure it was tight when I rushed to the woods. But skiing wasn't too hard without the buckle. The boot was a tiny bit softer and the heel moved maybe a few millimeters more, but throwing backflips and skiing hard packed snow in the woods was not a problem.

When looking for new boots I read a few web forums about Full Tilts so I knew about the bad buckle, but I can live with them.