Got an interesting reply from Tech design team of LS2 uk
kindly go through the emails they sent me.I had sent the email which you received from Sharp and this is what LS2 Uk has to say

Dear Sir
Maybe I can clear this for you
The FF351 is the FF350 you see with four stars, we made a small change to the visor system and the comfort lining was updated so our factory had to give it a new model number for the sake of production clarification.
No changes were made to the shell or the construction of the helmet so the 4 stars should still apply in this case.
So the FF350 you see on the sharp website is the FF351
Hope this clears the matter up for you.
Regards
Gavin

Gavin McCaffery
SALES DIRECTOR
LS2 Helmets - Tech Design Team UK
Land Line: +44 (0)1670 856342
Fax:+44 (0)1670 855770
Mob O7703 180456
Skype gavmacls22

Dear Gavin,

Thank you for your reply.The Sharp website mentions a weight of 1600 gms for The FF 350 and the FF 351 is lighter at 1300+/-50 gms.As you have mentioned there is no change made to the shell or the structure of the helmet,is it just because of changing the visor mechanism and comfort lining that the helmet is lighter by approx 300 gms?Could you confirm the same?

Regards,

Vikas



Hi Vikas
As with all helmets there is a variation in weight , if you cover 6 sizes with two shells.
If you look at ff350 and ff351 they are identical ,
The sharp test here is used as a marketing ploy and not a safety standard, the test results can vary, 2 stars today could be 4 tomorrow.
EC2205 is the only safety standard required by law and all helmets must have that.

Thanks Gavin

Interesting indeed!

In their earlier reply to you via Facebook, they said "The old FF 350 was bulkier and weighed approx 300 gms more.The current model is compact in look and is much lighter at approx 1300 +/-50 gms". They also said it "had received 4 star Sharp ratings."

Now they say " the 4 stars should still apply in this case" !!

Obviously this means the helmet did not get its SHARP rating yet, right?

Yet the FF351 which my colleague bought in the pic below shows a 4 star rating from SHARP! The other picture also clearly mentions it is a FF351. Now when cornered with proof from SHARP, the Sales Director dismisses it saying its a "marketing ploy"! That IMO is downright sneaky and does not reflect well on the reputation of the company!

Incidentally, he also says the weight variation can happen when there are two shell sizes, yet the official LS2 website clearly says the FF351 has only one shell, so that's also a falsehood.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]115123[/ATTACH]

I am not debating the ECE or safety standard of this model. I too have used an LS2 at one time and thought they made decent helmets. I also trust that you would have done your own due diligence yourself, since you have been pro-active in communicating with the company. In fact this line of thought only arose from my doubt which I shared with you about the SHARP rating.

However, the fact that the company itself seems to be making blatantly false claims makes me wonder what else they will give the go by in the name of a "marketing ploy" .

Adding to this bold part, if its DOT certified, that means it has been tested according to there standards!! Whereas Vega that is in India (VEGA HELMETS | Vega Helmet Online | Vega Helmet Price | Online Helmets | Helmets India | Helmets Online India) is under the name of some Ashish Bhandari from Belgaum and Vega that is outside India (VegaHelmet - Home) belongs to Yuping Chen for Soaring Helmet Corp and obviously both of these two are different companies.

Now coming to Vega who is selling with DOT stickers : DOT is helmet standard for US. I never knew Vega is being sold and tested in US. Is Vega India kidding with us?


I do appreciate Prince's effort, but some how I am also not convinced with what Laxmi Automobile's explanation on stickers, weight, Vega association etc.

Firstly, a thumbs-up to Prince for the effort.

[MENTION=6917]vishwas[/MENTION] - I had pointed out this disparity over a year ago and had even written a letter to SHARP and gotten a reply, which I posted on the forum.


In that mail they had clearly mentioned that they had never even tested the FF351, which is the most popular model sold in India, while one the other hand the company claimed and sold it as 4-Star rated. Since last year, this model has actually been tested by SHARP and been awarded 1-Star, the lowest rating possible. Yet as you have pointed out, the distributor himself continues to sell the helmet with the 4-Star rating sticker on it. Feel free to draw your own conclusions.


Now some other issues.


1. Embossing the certification costs more. FALSE. The certification on a helmet is applied the same way the graphics are done. There cannot be an extra cost.
2. Prices cannot be standardised. FALSE. All genuine imported goods sold through authorised distribution must have standard costs and MRP as per law. Why is there no printed price list anywhere for this brand?
3. Western countries have higher standards. FALSE. The ECE/DOT standard if truly applied will ensure similar construction quality throughout the world.
4. International standards are illegal in India. FALSE . If it were, helmets would be a restricted item like tyres and would not be allowed to be imported. The police forces of different towns, cities and states take different views on this because there is no real clarity as to how to ensure the public uses at least a minimum standard product. Hence the simplest way would be to enforce the ISImark. Expecting a beat constable or even an inspector to understand international certifications are a stretch of the imagination, which is why we sometimes face harassment, though I have never personally faced it.


Now on a different note and being associated with the industry, I can shed some light on how the fakes/low end specs enter the market. Genuine ECE/DOT LS2 are really good quality products. I had one myself which I picked up about 5 years ago in Germany (ECE rated) near the famous Nurburgring race-track and I can testify to its build quality. Now unfortunately, LS2 does make lower spec helmets for the third world market which does not insist on regulations/certifications. The ones that go to the EU or North America are properly labelled, as per law. The helmets made for the third world market does not get embossed/laminated certification, since if by some fluke one of these helmets found their way to the US/EU and was picked up for testing, it would fail, and the company would be liable for hefty penalties, legal action and/or black-listed. Hence if the helmet merely had a sticker, it could be argued that it was a fake and therefore not a company product. In such a case, the authorities would find it difficult to pin liability on the company. This unfortunately is a common trade practice even with other brands, due to varying market conditions and conflicting laws of the origin and destination country. It also unfortunately helps the fakers.


The best way to identify a properly certified helmet is therefore with a laminated/embossed certification label and purchased only through the company authorised distribution channel. Another important thing to ascertain is if the company is actually present through an authorised distributor or not. If there is no authorised sales channel, the legitimacy of the product is highly unlikely. For example, who is bringing in Sparx?

AG: We actually do not have much control over the selling price of helemts sold by resellers because, depending on market condition and/or stock availability, reselling shops sometimes offer discounts or may even charge more. however this price variation should only be few hundred rupees and not more, unless somebody is doing stock clearance sale.

That is surprising, since other local manufacturers have an MRP given to which most retailers adhere.

• First is-- fake helmets manufactured in India, similar to 200-400 rupees helmets sold on road side and somebody puts an LS2 sticker. these ultra cheap and ultra low cost fakes should be easy to identify. however, i have not seen any such ultra cheap and ultra low cost duplicate LS2 till date in india.

Agreed, recently I've only seen the more expensive LS2's but with poor quality for the amount.

• Second, and most important - Good quality fakes that appear to be of almost equal in quality to original LS2 sold through official channel. PLz note that -- there are different LS2 helmets manufactured for different markets (read countries) according to different safety standards. LS2 sold in india by us are manufactured specially for South Asia or Indian Market and are ECE certified, however, there is one more quality of LS2 helmets being manufactured for local sale in china, these are original LS2 but it does not meet DOT, ECE or any other international standards and are cheap and meant for local china sales only i.e. cheap helmets for local domestic sale. some indian shop owners, purchase these helmets from local china market and import to india and sell here as LS2. Please not that although these are not fake but original LS2, hence quality levels is acceptable, however these are not for sale in india officially and are non ECE certified.

If they're non ECE certified, why do they have ECE markings stickered on, same as the 'original' ones? So called Originals will also have a sticker while the 'dubious' imports also have the same ECE certified sticker!


Second, the helmets sold in western countries like europe and USA are made differently with higher safety standards like DOT etc since according to market, ppl there have no problem in purchasing costly helmets, these helmets are also much heavier than Indian LS2 since they meet or exceed higher standard of safety. also profit margin is much higher in those countries.

Here's the contradiction, how can a particular helmet be much heavier (or much lighter) if it's made to a certain standard? If it is made to ECE standards, there should be NO difference in the quality, finish and weight of an ECE labelled helmet sold here, or in Europe. Likewise, if there is a DOT certified helmet, even if it is sold in India, it will have to meet/exceed the DOT standard, and not be inferior in any way, regardless of cost.

AG: In my opinion, it is not a big issue and does not make much of a difference, as long as the helmet is original, besides printing or embossing is costly, which in turn will increase the selling price further. however, we are now in talks with manufacturer and future helmets may have LS2 branding on all parts like even strap etc will come with LS2 label.

Even i am not convinced about the explanation given for stickers, however they had nothing to do with ls2 joint venture with vega which happened earlier and regarding weight it should be obvious that if you want to make a helmet with higher safety standard without increasing the cost too much, then weight will increase, otherwise you need to go for costly materials.

There is no problem with weight increase, the problem as shown by the FF350/351 debacle is that the weight has decreased from 1650gms to 1350gms, the company says the shell is the same! Taking a look at the SHARP site, we find that the FF350 cost 110 GBP and had 4 star rating, while the 'same' FF351 cost 39GBP and had a 1 star rating.

Regarding price i am neutral, while we as a customer would want a uniform MRP printed on packing box or website, selling the product at MRP is another thing. Tell me how many times we pay extra for chilled cold drink bottle or chilled mineral water bottle even though mrp is printed on bottles. So i would not argue too much on price issue.

Products can be sold at LESS than MRP, but not more, that's what MRP is for, maximum retail price. We can't really compare a 3000 odd rupee helmet to a 10 or 20 rupee soft drink. Nowadays hotels/restaurants mark the soft drinks as 'aerated water' to fleece the customer, that was after some legal action against them. You still have many places, mostly out of town that do not give products at MRP but higher, but it's understandable that a village shop or a highway shop has greater costs in transporting the goods and hence might charge a higher markup.

Regarding certification, although i have clarified earlier also, will do it once again coz i think you took it another way. Its not that a dot certification standard is different in US and India. What he said is that a helemt sold in US or europe may have a different certification as compared to the helmet sold in india, meaning while indian helmet may be ECE certified the other one sold in other countries may be DOT certified.

Even i am not convinced about the explanation given for stickers, however they had nothing to do with ls2 joint venture with vega which happened earlier and regarding weight it should be obvious that if you want to make a helmet with higher safety standard without increasing the cost too much, then weight will increase, otherwise you need to go for costly materials.

Regarding price i am neutral, while we as a customer would want a uniform MRP printed on packing box or website, selling the product at MRP is another thing. Tell me how many times we pay extra for chilled cold drink bottle or chilled mineral water bottle even though mrp is printed on bottles. So i would not argue too much on price issue.

Regarding certification, although i have clarified earlier also, will do it once again coz i think you took it another way. Its not that a dot certification standard is different in US and India. What he said is that a helemt sold in US or europe may have a different certification as compared to the helmet sold in india, meaning while indian helmet may be ECE certified the other one sold in other countries may be DOT certified.

Yes indian helmet has ECE certification and europian ones too but what if it has additional certifications like DOT, snell, sharp etc.then do you think the quality of helmet will be different.

Even with same certification, quality can vary. Two different helmets manufactured by different companies confirming to same certification can have different quality levels based on cost/price. Do you agree? Then why cant a company produce different quality helmets for different markets even with same certification.

Even i am not convinced about the explanation given for stickers, however they had nothing to do with ls2 joint venture with vega which happened earlier and regarding weight it should be obvious that if you want to make a helmet with higher safety standard without increasing the cost too much, then weight will increase, otherwise you need to go for costly materials.



Regarding printing the certification i agree that it should not cost too much

Regarding price i am neutral, while we as a customer would want a uniform MRP printed on packing box or website, selling the product at MRP is another thing. Tell me how many times we pay extra for chilled cold drink bottle or chilled mineral water bottle even though mrp is printed on bottles. So i would not argue too much on price issue.

Regarding certification, although i have clarified earlier also, will do it once again coz i think you took it another way. Its not that a dot certification standard is different in US and India. What he said is that a helemt sold in US or europe may have a different certification as compared to the helmet sold in india, meaning while indian helmet may be ECE certified the other one sold in other countries may be DOT certified.




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Even i am not convinced about the explanation given for stickers, however they had nothing to do with ls2 joint venture with vega which happened earlier and regarding weight it should be obvious that if you want to make a helmet with higher safety standard without increasing the cost too much, then weight will increase, otherwise you need to go for costly materials.



Regarding printing the certification i agree that it should not cost too much

Regarding price i am neutral, while we as a customer would want a uniform MRP printed on packing box or website, selling the product at MRP is another thing. Tell me how many times we pay extra for chilled cold drink bottle or chilled mineral water bottle even though mrp is printed on bottles. So i would not argue too much on price issue.

Regarding certification, although i have clarified earlier also, will do it once again coz i think you took it another way. Its not that a dot certification standard is different in US and India. What he said is that a helemt sold in US or europe may have a different certification as compared to the helmet sold in india, meaning while indian helmet may be ECE certified the other one sold in other countries may be DOT certified.




Sent from my A210 using Tapatalk 2

very interesting discussions,
thanks for bringing this up.



Agreed, sharp purchases off-the-shelf helmets and conducts tests on them. I'll just share the link to the ff351. Any helmet that adheres to a particular standard has to meet that standard worldwide, there can't be a different standard.



Standards cannot be different for a country. They are meant for a particular region, i.e snell m2010, dot, ece etc. However, any helmet sold in that region has to pass those tests. Therefore a dot marked helmet in our country has to meet the dot certification worldwide. We don't have softer heads



what about the vega embossed isi ls2's? Vega manufactured them for ls2, that's a known fact. I don't know what caused the split, but you can see vega copying most of ls2 designs in their axor series nowadays.



Sol here, gmax there in the us have dot embossed, yet we get sol at a lower price point than the us market, so that cost argument doesn't hold water.
Again, vega manufactured isi marked ls2 helmets here.

Now, to add to this discussion, i'd like to bring to the attention of our members about earlier efforts by various members to bring awareness about ls2.


you can see they (ls2 guys) mentioned about the weight and the sharp rating in the conversation.
@sunnyside_up! posted here http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/universa...tml#post986052 about the sharp rating



ls2 then replies to @lasky


they also mentioned that the weight difference in the helmet was due to the visor and liner change!


Conclusion :


keep in mind that the ff351 was not tested by sharp at the time, now it is, apparently.
Take a look at the rating off the shelf. sharp helmets - ls2 ff351 . One star.

I've also mentioned here earlier, that the ls2's i see here nowadays are very flimsy looking, and even the shell finish is uneven. However, voices are drowned out in the clamour for ls2.
It's up to an individual to do their research, all the information is out there. It's their head after all. If you blindly trust in a brand so much, you should be aware it's your head you're risking. Frankly, the company doesn't seem to have their act together, with such conflicting replies from all fronts.

Also why isn`t thh mt helmets or sol helmets listed on sharp uk govt website,can it be true that they haven`t even received a single star safety rating?

@Prince thank you for bringing us the ls2 story out in the open,really shocking,such a reputed brand is calling safety sharp govt scheme a marketing ploy????
Have few questions for anil gupta,if you can pass it on to him,it would be nice.

How can a reputed brand give the ff 351 helmet the 4 star rating even though the tests weren`t carried out?

Why is there no mrp on ls2 products,isn`t it mandatory?
When can we expect the mrp to be printed on the products we buy?

Regarding anil gupta`s dot vs ece remarks,its true the dot helmets are heavier than their ece counterparts
like mt and sol both are dot approved and are heavier,so does that mean the ls2 which he is importing is only ece approved and not dot approved?

The carbon fibre ls2 ff 396 weighs 1350 gms as per the label and as per ls2 website,but in real the weight is approx 1150-1200 gms,how can this be justified?

Is ls2 a fake company in itself,whether india or anywhere else in the world?

Also why isn`t thh mt helmets or sol helmets listed on sharp uk govt website,can it be true that they haven`t even received a single star safety rating?

sharp must have picked up a fake ls2 ff 351 off the shelf,