uglymoney wrote:

There is no compelling reason to have an expert check a brand new pair
of bindings

It's perfectly possible to know where and how to use the forward
pressure indicator on your new bindings (although it still surprises me
how many people don't even know it exists) so I won't argue that point.

However, while the binding DIN indicator is supposed to directly
translate to a torque (it is of course the release torque that's
important, not the DIN reading) sometimes there's a manufacturing error
or merely a tolerance error that slips by the quality control. A small,
but real risk even with new bindings. With experience twisting or
levering out can tell you if there's a gross error but the torque and
DIN reading may still be off a lessor but still important difference.

For used bindings this becomes a major problem, for the mismatch between
DIN and torque can grow with time. One of the ways a binding can fail in
the shop is is the mismatch between DIN reading and torque becomes out
of tolerance (shop rats that I've good relations with have sometimes
officially paperwork failed a binding for this, then proceeded to set
the binding purely by torque readings - they're willing to do so since
they know me and my ski history.) Basically what this says is that
setting used bindings to a supposed torque by setting the DIN indicator
doesn't always get you what you expect.

A few years back someone published a table of binding DIN readings
versus actual torque for numerous aging bindings for all manufacturers
and numerous models. Interestingly there was a strong correlation to
manufacturer - Marker kept within tolerance by far the best. Since all
the current designs postdate that study there's no real reason to
mention which manufacturer's bindings diverged the most (and even the
Marker data is out of date.) Suffice to say their was (and I suspect
still is) in how bindings age AND for all the DIN reading drifted with
age. Another good reason to test older bindings.