That being said I find it odd that you had a leak, were re packed, and then blew the seal completely. Just reading here, it sounds like the repack may have been faulty as I would have expected it to simply leak again. The damage on the piston must be pretty substantial, as all re packs I have ever done, I checked the piston for marks to sand down as I did not want my brand new repack to meet the same fate as the old seal.
No your usage should not be held accountable for any damage to the piston. If the elevator was left in the down position for those first 4 years, and someone cleared the head of debri, it should have worked straight away. If the elevator was left up, there is the possibility of rust developing on the piston due to moisture in the air. 4 years of it would be substantial enough to damage your seals.
Hope this helps, and if you are in doubt, get a few bids from competing companies for the repair. You may be surprised by someone else's assessment. Good Luck.
All was good for about 2 months-oil consumption was very reduced and the pit remained dry. Then a service call revealed oil all over the pit and first floor sill. The elevator had pumped all of it's oil into the pit. After the car was hoisted out of the pit, the culprit was a blown packing. It had fractured in a line around the circumference of the packing. It was determined, after consulting with Texacone, that it was a faulty packing, and unrelated to the earlier jack issues. Another packing was installed, and for well over a year the unit has been trouble free.
As long as your service provider takes appropriate action to correct any issues, this shouldn't become a long term issue. In our case, we were willing to stand behind the product and correct any issues, with the ultimate goal of making the customer happy through whatever means necessary.
Good luck.
Also if a piston has been ground done what does it look like? My piston looks like it has a pattern on it, like ripples/waves, my tech says that is what grinding looks like. When I compare that to my other piston in the elevator, the other piston doesn't have that wave/ripple pattern. Can grinding alone cause such oil leakage problems? If a piston was ground down, was Otis supposed to tell me at the time of install?
I will see if I can figure out how to post a picture of the seal....
Thanks
Just curious why you didn't call Otis to re-pack it? If anything they know the unit the best. These jacks are usually not leakers and are very easy to check the piston for scratches and are one of the easiest to repack.
Also, 10 years for a packing, running or not, is well past its typical lifespan.
Alignment typically is a rather simple process, where was the piston for the first 10 years? Brilliant idea is to put it right back where you found it. I usually mark the platen hat, take measurements, etc. to ensure I have replaced the darn thing where it has lived very happily for a decade.
Again this issue may not have been with the provider, or the packing, or may have been one of them, or both. The spot on the seal looks very suspicious to me in that the slight arc visible looks like a very small radius in comparison to the over all seal radius. Seems to me that if the alignment of the piston was bad, that you would have had an elongated seal (oval) and not a roughly 1 1/2" spot. This could have been done by foreign debri, piss poor install of packing that caused damage, or a bad spot on the piston or joint if the piston is sectional (not sure they even have sectional twin posts, just a thought).
If I had to guess, I would say the piston has damage, horizontal, that is "eating" that section of the packing. The repair contractor should have addressed this issue at the time of the repack. It's like changing brake pads on a car, and not making sure the calipers are in working order, all you do is burn though another set of pads....