VMod Bottle Broken and Strange Flecks :(

[Kemosabe]

Hi all.
Ive had my VMod since the beginning of October (ordered 9/25/12). love it. works great (with the 1.5ohm attys). until yesterday. i was having trouble getting juice into the atty. i would tilt the device like nmormal, but i wouldnt get that slight gurgle that lets you know theres enough jucie for a nice draw. the bottle was not air tight and it wouldnt squonk properly.

well, i did some investigation and there is a hole in my bottle. more of a crack, really. right aroud the neck where the threaded part meets the bottle body. this is obviously unacceptable, and i tried to order more bottles but they are still out. i tried getting more bottles when i first ordered it, and they still are not up on the site. does anoyone know where else to get these bottles (VMod 2.0, not the XL)? Or perhaps someone may have some inside knowldege on when theyll be up for sale. i do plan on contacting Vapage, but i wanted to hear some results from you all too. has this happened to you? it seems like a very short amount of time for a bottle to break. i wasnt using excessive force, just squeezing it normally.

my other issue is the tiny flecks im seeing in my juice bottle. tiny black flecks have settled to the bottom and its troubling. im worried that its dangerous to vape. what are they and where are they coming from? has this happended to any of you? my guess is tha tthey are harmless and they are possibly atty gunk that managed to work its way down into the bottle, but im not sure. not sur eif its dangerous to vape or if its possibly damagin my unit to have them in there.

any help/feedback would be grately appreciated.

 

[Angi2299]

I contacted Vapage the beginning of October about bottles (4.5 ml) and the 2.0 ohm atties. They projected both products would not be available until the middle of November. Your Vmod has a 6 month warranty (?) I think. Contact Vapage about the bottle, I would think it would be warrantied. Over on the the Vmod thread, someone else mentioned a similar problem with their bottle and I think Vapage warrantied replacement.

 

[mikeymack]

There are vendors that resell vapage products you can order a bottle threw them. I think CCV was one. The specks in your bottle are mostly gunk from your atty just wash out the bottle maybe soak your atty to clean it

 

[Kemosabe]

thanks guys. i appreciate the replies. i did find the vmod 2.0 bottles out of stock on dragonfly and preferred vapor, and a few other sites with the vmod XL bottles. no luck, but i do appreciate the help. i guess ive just gotta wait it out
maybe i can MacGuyver something in the meantime..

i contacted vapage, but havent heard anything yet. i hope that if this is covered under warranty, theyd have some "warranty bottles" stashed away for such an occasion, but im not holding out hope. they must have these bottles as each starter kit has em, but who knows if theyd be willing to borrow a bottle from a starter kit for me until their shipment comes in.
it is toubling however that a bottle would break in just 5 weeks worth of use. i really hope i dont need a new bottle every few weeks, that would be ridiculous.

and i also appreciate the feedback on the flecks. i thought they were atty gunk, and its comforting to hear that thats what you think they are too.

 

[Angi2299]

Hey Kemosabe. I don't know when you tried to contact them, but they have always been very slow to respond to my requests. First attempted contact I tried to get shipping confirmation # and they never responded...... Second contact sent a request for info on the bottles and atties and it took 48 hours to get a one sentence reply. I love my Vmod 2.0 and want to order the XL, but I am not sure I want to continue doing business with them. Which makes me so mad, because I LOVE my Vmod, just don't care much for Vapage CS.

 

[Kemosabe]

Hey Kemosabe. I don't know when you tried to contact them, but they have always been very slow to respond to my requests. First attempted contact I tried to get shipping confirmation # and they never responded...... Second contact sent a request for info on the bottles and atties and it took 48 hours to get a one sentence reply. I love my Vmod 2.0 and want to order the XL, but I am not sure I want to continue doing business with them. Which makes me so mad, because I LOVE my Vmod, just don't care much for Vapage CS.

that is truly sad. i too had to email them separately to get my tracking # ( ) why in the world wouldnt they just have that automatically sent out is beyond me. my email to them today wasnt too long ago, so i wont expect a response soon i guess im hoping on a quick warranty replacement, but im prepared for the same response you got. but i really hope the warranty factor lights a fire. if not, on the bright side- mid november is next week, so maybe just maybe i wont have to wait long.

 

[Angi2299]

Well, they never sent my tracking #. The initial ship confirmation e-mail said I could ask for one, they just never sent it along. Also, this business with having product out of stock for such long periods is another issue separate from the CS issues. It is really sad, because the product is great! If they could keep product in stock and be semi-responsive they would have a lifelong customer. As it stands now, I am beginning to look into other bottom feeders.

 

[Kemosabe]

its too bad that such a simple thing like ordering more than enough bottles eludes the vapage folks. but who knows, maybe their supplier is the one having the problem. either way, its gone on for WAY too long and i really hope they fix this problem and make it so it never happens again. the bottles probably cost vapage pennies to purchase. if it were my company, id go ahead and have millions of the things on hand as the markup and profit is astronomical. they are probably charging 100x what the cost of the bottle is, conservatively speaking.

 

[Angi2299]

Like I mentioned earlier, another ECFer had a similar problem awhile back and I seem to remember Vapage took care of it. Can't remember if they sent a bottle or what. I hope all turns out well for you.

 

[Kemosabe]

Like I mentioned earlier, another ECFer had a similar problem awhile back and I seem to remember Vapage took care of it. Can't remember if they sent a bottle or what. I hope all turns out well for you.

thank you. this gives me great hope. im stalking my email inbox desparetely for an incoming vapage reply.

 

[Billy Baroo]

thank you. this gives me great hope. im stalking my email inbox desparetely for an incoming vapage reply.

Had the exact same problem. They quoted me a time frame and it would pass. This has happened on three occasions now. Another ECF user turned me onto Dragonfly a couple of days ago. I was able to order 2 bottles.

I am NOT a fan of Vapage. I love the Vmod. Go figure.

I wouldn't hold your breath. I just purchased a Reo Grand. Should be here in a couple of days. I refuse to be held hostage by a manufacturer.

 

[Kemosabe]

welp, i got my reply- several in fact. had a nice lil chat. it wasnt the response i was looking for, but hey at least they replied. they said that the bottles were not designed to last more than a month, two months tops.

can you believe that? they actually have a flaw that is PART OF THEIR DESIGN. this confounds me. so you have a product that is DESIGNED to fail in X amount of time. WOW. they have taken propriatery to a whole new level.

however, i shouldnt over-react. im not hearing too many reports of broken bottles, so im holding out hope that my first bottle broke prematurely and that my next bottle will last much longer. nevertheless, i plan to order more bottles when theyre in stock. i am certainly over a barrell, but its not gonna break the bank to spend a few bucks on bottles :/

 

[Angi2299]

welp, i got my reply- several in fact. had a nice lil chat. it wasnt the response i was looking for, but hey at least they replied. they said that the bottles were not designed to last more than a month, two months tops.

can you believe that? they actually have a flaw that is PART OF THEIR DESIGN. this confounds me. so you have a product that is DESIGNED to fail in X amount of time. WOW. they have taken propriatery to a whole new level.

however, i shouldnt over-react. im not hearing too many reports of broken bottles, so im holding out hope that my first bottle broke prematurely and that my next bottle will last much longer. nevertheless, i plan to order more bottles when theyre in stock. i am certainly over a barrell, but its not gonna break the bank to spend a few bucks on bottles :/

If that is true, it pretty much solves my dilemma about whether to get the XL or another bottom feeder. That is some pretty cruddy logic...."We designed it to fail and we FAILED to keep the replacement in stock"

Looks like I will be exploring other options.

Gosh darn, but I do love this thing

 

[axolotly]

Same thing here, Kemosabe. From my posts on the main VMOD thread:

I'm right there with you, buddy.

They told me they would have them in a week well over a month ago. Really ticked me off since the ones that came with my kit broke really quickly. This was due to the bottle not butting up against the plastic chasis, and even the slightest squishysquoinky put pressure on where the threads met the bottle. Someone earlier posted that they put a velcro backing on theirs to prevent this. A buddy pointed me here: Vapage VMOD 2.0 Bottle 4ml Pack (2-pack). And guess what? These bottles DO .... up to the plastic chasis. I'm guessing a different revision? Anyhow, stocked up and able to use my expensive VMOD with absolutely no help or care from Vapage. Why couldn't they refer me to a Dragonfly instead of giving me ridiculous answers like "use the notify button"?

I love my VMOD, but don't care at all for the company at this point. Really disappointing.

Check out Dragonfly and get back to using your VMOD!

Someone replied with:

I'm not sure why are you guys having these bottle problem.. I had more problems with the chasis cracking but they were replaced by Vapage right away. I'm still using the same bottle from my first set of VMOD XL. I guess I took a different approach by putting an o-ring on the bottle neck and putting a lining of tennis grip tape with double sided tape to pad the bottle against the chasis preventing the neck to bend and cause a crack.

My reply was then this:

If I had known the way the device was designed would break the bottles, I would have done something similar. I just took it out of the box and used it like I would any other product.

I wasn't even upset about the bottles breaking. I was upset about Vapage telling me the bottles would be in stock in a week and then over a month passes and they aren't in. I was upset that I spent a significant amount of money on something rendered useless with no recourse. I was upset that they sold plenty of stock to another company to resell and would not tell me about it. They would rather me have their product sit on a shelf and have an upset customer. I see no pride or good business sense in that.

 

[Kemosabe]

wow wow wow. so this IS a widespread problem. dang it. i was hoping i was in the minority here, but i guess not. luckily i have tennis tape, extra o-rings and the like. i dont see how an o-ring on the exterior of the bottle will prevent anyhting though...any idea what the logic is on that modification? if im understanding correctly, the velcro/tennis tape idea is to make sure the entire bottle is flush with the chassis? as of now, the bottom portion of my bottle is flush with the chassis, but not the top. i take it that i should have some support on the top portion to prevent stress, correct?

but darn it man, i really dont like having to jimmy rig my expensive mod. looks like i will have to though. i cant be buying bottles every few weeks. especially when they are not available to buy! i do beleive that the bottles will be in next week however. the vapage rep told me they just got a shipment of attys today, and sure enough- the 2.0s ar enow available (in addition to the 2.5s that were already in stock. im holding out hoope that the 1.5 attys and the VMod 2.0 4.5ml bottles will indeed be up next week.

 

[muzichead]

Not sure about a wide spread problem with the neck breaking on the bottle, but I know I had a problem with the bottle itself created stress cracks, (looks more like wear marks), from pressing too hard on it and it would press against the shell and create what looks like stress cracks. The bottle hasn't failed at all. I was the one that put the velcro behind the bottle and it instantly took care of the problem for me. Here is the pic I put in the other thread. Very simple cheap fix for it.... You can actually see the wear marks in the pic... I have only read maybe 2 or 3 times where the actual neck broke so not sure like I mentioned about a widespread problem...

 

[steve1974]

i got stress marks on my bottle aswell however it hasnt ever leaked. Im still on my first bottle and ive had this for about 2 weeks. When i purchased it i ordered 4 extra bottles just in case. I already modded it with the kick and use this as my primary vaporiser so it gets alot of use. I'll add some rubber padding to the side where the bottle hits the plastic just to re-inforce it a bit more.

 

[axolotly]

From everything I've been reading, it seems that the neck of the bottle leaking at the base where the threaded section meets it is a VMOD 2.0 issue (the smaller bottles).

 

[Kemosabe]

Not sure about a wide spread problem with the neck breaking on the bottle, but I know I had a problem with the bottle itself created stress cracks, (looks more like wear marks), from pressing too hard on it and it would press against the shell and create what looks like stress cracks. The bottle hasn't failed at all. I was the one that put the velcro behind the bottle and it instantly took care of the problem for me. Here is the pic I put in the other thread. Very simple cheap fix for it.... You can actually see the wear marks in the pic... I have only read maybe 2 or 3 times where the actual neck broke so not sure like I mentioned about a widespread problem...

View attachment 149464

oh, i didnt realize those were stress marks. i thought they were scrapes from the bottle scraping the sharp edge of the metal sleeve upon squonking.
but regardless, i like your velcro fix. i will do something similar. thanks for posting.

 

[Billy Baroo]

Well I threw Vapage under the bus.....I should be the one to announce that they have small bottles back in stock! I will never run out of Vmod bottles ever again.