"Don't Buy!" - Review of Scarpa Tornado Pro Alpine Touring Ski Boot

The only good thing about the boots was the comfort, but that also had its drawbacks as my foot felt like it never was secure enough and felt like I was floating inside too much which threw me off my balance more often than not (the ankle strap is a poor design, I prefer the four buckle design). The boots literally fell apart on me also. I bought them at the end of the 2005/2006 season, and at the start of the next season I started having problems. I consider myself a hard skier...meaning I charge the hard lines and demand a lot from my equipment, but I also only weight about 170 lbs! But the first good fall I had resulted in completely blowing out the ankle strap. When I fell the buckle of the ankle strap must have caught a part of the hardpack snow and yanked the buckle completely out of two layers of thin plastic on the outside of the boot. I blamed this on the poor design of the ankle strap as it seems to stick out way too far from the boot. Then I had to wait for more than a month and a half for the manufacturer (who is based in SLC) to get the boot back to the shop I bought it at. I called the shop many times and they in turn called Scarpa, but to no avail as they seemed to take their sweet time...obivously not important to Scarpa to have repeat customers. Anyhow, I finally got the boot and not a week later the canting screw seemed to just fall out and was lost, so I went back to the shop so they can go through the same mess all over again. They finally received the replacement, and not a week later that fell out of the boot also. Needless to say...I'll never buy another Scarpa product again, and I did the smart thing and after one year of disaster I bought a set of reliable Garmont's....something I should have done in the first place.
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