Thank God! I thought it was just me.

After three weeks use the mesh came away from the inner layer on my right knee and is letting in water.

I'm almost afraid to bring another suit back at this stage is this would be my fourth but I think when temps warm up a bit that's what I'll be doing.

have the 6ml f bomb too, not impressed, cant move in the thing, as for c skins, usually theyre pretty much last seasons xcels but a bit cheaper, were awful when they first came out but really seem to have got their act together and are making some good stuff now

In fairness C skin's were crap when they first came on the market
but in the last few season's they have really steped up to the mark my last two suit's were C skin's wired and i've had no problem's

it's funny, i think the 6/4 F-bomb is a very stretchy suit for it's thickness.. though i am quite a big guy, maybe it'd be a bit restrictive on a smaller body?

my only complaint with it is the ripping of the cuffs and the sometimes rapido rise in heat as soon as you start paddling hard... have to keep pulling the hood off to vent and back on again repeatedly! maybe that's why the toggle fell off...

i think it's a suit designed to keep you toasty when you're not physically doing anything in the water... as soon as you start moving the sauna kicks in!
not that i'm complaining mind...

I find the same with the last two that I have had. Toggle fell off on both, easy to replace, but why dont ripcurl put a decent toggle onto to start with, its like they have tried to reinvent the wheel with the one that they do put on.

It is a very warm suit.

Well I have the 5/4/3 back zip so no problem with a toggle

ARG !?
Fooookin ragin!
My lovely new Xcel wetsuit that I bought just before Christmas had the stitch of one of the stitched seams on the chest unravel and wrap around my leg during a surf on the suits 4th/5th use. Fair enought I thought, $hit happens.
Brought it back to where I bought it and I knew before I went in that the suit would be sent back to the U.K. to be repaired. I was told it'd take 2 weeks.
Now here I am 7 WEEKS later just off the phone with the surf shop where I got it and STILL NO SIGN OF IT?!!?!?

WTF.

It's not f#@king rocket science.... and I'm sure they are pumping out new suits in gig time. Whats the feckin hold up?

'next week hopefully' is what I was told.

So now I have another weekend where the surf is looking tasty and I've to venture out, AGAIN, in my tatty, full of holes, old winter suit. Which cuts my water time in half as I'm freezing in no time.

Xcel. YOU SUCK.
1 previously happy customer pi$$ed off and spitting in your direction.
/end rant.

Read back, I ended up waiting 4 months. You start off nice and end up having to be a real grumpy before anything happens.

Why the hell is it so hard to find a 'good' wetsuit?
wah !
I have always had an O'Neill but find the knees go too quick.
Thought Xcel was super warm, fitted well, but the repair process sucks.
By the sounds of MPBs experience I'll get it back when winter is over, which defeats the purpose of buying the damn thing.

ugh

PM sent.

The knees went on my xcel as well.

The repaired knees are on the way out as well!.

I'm going to make my own suit for next winter out of stainless steel.

some of the companies do not do repairs in house.
so your wetsuit is probably floating around in the done or to be done pile until they are all finished and posted back together

Snugg do the xcel repairs and are based in Cornwall.

My suit spent most of its repair duration in Lahinch.

I reckon its planned obsolescence - everyone knows what the problems are with each of the top-end wetsuits but the manufacturers do nothing to address it. The length of the repair times probably discourages customers from sending them back and means that more suits are bought. O'Neill, Xcel (Billabong) and RipCurl all know that their suits last roughly the same length of time so it's a cartel of sorts when none of them makes an effort to resolve the issues.

the best ones ever were the salomons, i had one and 2 of the lads had em too, all 3 went in the same place, which was pretty embarassing in raglan when my arse was hanging out the back

Krusty, that retailer is obliged to exchange that suit for you if the turn around time on the repair has gone over a specific time, put the pressure on them if your not happy about it, your contract of sale is with the shop so its their problem if xcels after sales is rubbish not yours.