NEW Eames lounge shockmount failure fears  

I suggest you
call Herman Miller's customer service line for consumers. My experiences whenever I have called them were honest and straight up. If there's some quality issue with the current shockmounts, they'll tell you and explain what -if anything- you should do.
800-646-4400

Thanks Barry
The rep was nice. She said they do get them a certain amount - but not a lot. That's still disturbing. She said not to plop down on it, etc. But the way this thing is designed you must put your weight on the arms to get out. Now, I have to decide if I really want a 4K chair with such a design flaw.
Really disappointing.
For those of you that have new lounges ... do you regular hear a creak when you sit or apply pressure? Is a certain amount of this normal?
Now every time I sit in it I feel like I am in a dunking booth - knowing eventually the seat will give, but not knowing when. Tomorrow? 50 years from now?
I gave up my LCW bc it was too hard to get out of. I gave up my Eames sofa because it was uncomfortable. I am starting to get annoyed with our resident geniuses.

.
I hear you Whitspike, I too asked the same question in that previous thread.
It seems I have spent all this time saving up to buy a lounge chair and as soon as I finaly get one everyone on DA says it has a design flaw, and one day I will end up being ejected backwards [through the picture window that happens to be just behind my chair]into the garden.
I now approach my chair in a different manner than before these scare stories began, I sit down very gingerly and my ears become ultra keen to any creaking sounds.
My chair is only 5 years old and yes its a creaker,but the sounds are coming from the headrest rather than the shockmounts.
I have sat in a fair few of these chairs that are well over 20 years old and still going strong, maybe there is little to worry about.

Mine was made
in 2001. It is very comfortable and doesn't creak or anything. My husband who is 6'1" and weighs 200 lbs. falls asleep in it practically every night. It feels as solid as can be. I actually encourage him to sit/lay/use it because I want the leather to age as it still looks brand new. Put me down as one vote for "Yes, buy the durned thing".

Not a new problem
I wouldn't be too worried about it. It's not a new problem, shockmounts have been giving way since the chair debuted. However, with the internet, Google, and forums like this it's easy for anyone with a lemon shockmount to post a horror story complete with pictures. Get a few of those stories together and it feels like your chair is going to implode momentarily.
But that small - if public- number of failures is a tiny fraction of the chairs in existence. The last number I read was 100,000+ chairs made between 1956 and 2004 (published in Eames Lounge Exhibition Catalog) with 2700 made in 2004. For clarity lets average that at 2000/year, of which 3/year fail. Thats 0.15%. Even if 1% of the chairs fail that is only 20 chairs/year.
Some common sense and a little bit of upkeep will make sure your chair lasts long enough to hand it down to Whitespike Jr. Make sure people sit on the chair properly and once or twice a year take the arms off the chair and sit in it and observe the mounts. If anything looks like it's lifting you know its time to have them re-glued.
(the chair at work is from 2006 and I've seen some hefty clients sit in it.)

C'mon!
Now you are afraid to sit in your 670? Would you be afraid to drive a Mercedes and leave it in the garage because you worry that one day the transmission might fail? Do you know how many Eames lounge chairs have served faithfully for years without any problem? Thousands.
If you take proper care and use common sense the chair should give you years of enjoyment. If for some reason the shockmount should fail, big deal. Glue it back on and continue to enjoy it. It's very rare for the failure to result in the kind of damage documented in poach's thread. Over the years I have had more than a dozen of the 670/ 671 most of them vintage. In that time, I had one that had a shockmount failure. It was re-glued and went right back into service. I have always had a 670/671 set in my home and have never been concerned about sitting in it... and I'm big. In fact, that is my only criticism of the chair. The scale is just a bit small for someone of my height.
Once again, the one point I get from all of this discussion is you are better off buying vintage. If a nice chair has held up for decades, chances are it will be fine for the coming decades. If you are really that worried, sell it to someone who will enjoy it and get a Plycraft knock-off. Those suckers are BOLTED together. No chance that it will come apart.
If you have a nice Eames chair, take care of it and enjoy it. Oil the wood, condition the leather, don't park it in the sun or directly over a heat register. I think that how the chair is treated is the primary reason for why it has trouble or not.
If I were to nit pick every detail of every piece of modern design in my home and got rid of everything that has some minor issue or drawback, I may well end up sitting on the floor in an empty house.
Please people, relax!

Paranoia
Relax, pour yourself a single malt, sit down, and enjoy the chair. Don't let a few horror stories drive you from your throne.
Shock mount failure on new chairs is rare.
I've owned 3 of these chairs. A ridiculous number of my friends own them - both new and vintage. I've repaired several of them (most recently and notoriously, my own), but I've NEVER seen a failure on a chair less than 25 years old. I'm sure it happens. Several people are killed every year by lightning strikes, too. I don't waste a lot of time worrying about that, either.
Even when the shock mounts do fail, it's rarely sudden, and there are usually warning signs. You hear creaking (more than usual), and the back feels a bit loose. If you slide your fingers under the arm, you can feel the edge of the bad shock mount slide against the wood as you push down on the back. The angle of the back may look a bit too reclined.
If your chair is recent production, your fears are probably misplaced. If it's older, be vigilant to the warning signs, or you can always replace the mounts pre-emptively.

Transmission failures? Lightning strikes? Seriously?
I think yous are stretching it, at the very least, in your attempts to rationalize what is a very disturbing design flaw. It's understandable to a certain extent as we all share an acute admiration for Father Charles. But this isn't the first of his I've experienced first hand. My life is complicated enough. I don't have time to tighten DKR screws periodically. And even if my calendar were completely open, I wouldn't want to spend it worrying about such things, much less pay through the nose to have to. I am simply interested in good design that functions first and foremost. Sadly the more of it I see, the less midcentury modern design actually delivers.

Lunchbox, I don't want to...
Lunchbox, I don't want to discount your experience, but the fact is that you're a single data point. There is no epidemic of early shock mount failures. Your experience is unfortunate, but anomalous.

...and when I was planning to get some
decent mid-century furniture (starting 4 years ago), I decided against the 670 Lounge chair not because of it being fragile, but because 1) it was almost too iconic and 2) I didn't want a lounge chair that swivels. What did I get? I bought a vintage Grasshopper chair and ottoman and has it repaired and recovered and it's perfect.
Perhaps I made the right decision!

I dunno, poach...
Herman Miller admitted to a number of newer shock failures to me when I called them to discuss it afterward. That was eye opening for me.

I went to detach the arms on...
I went to detach the arms on my lounge chair, and there are these squarish, almost allen head screws holding them on. And unfortunately all but one seem to be stripped. I am guessing this is the way to get the arms off? It's just under the arm on the outside of the shell...
I want to check the shock mounts, bc they do a certain amount of creaking. But if these are stripped what is a boy to do?

When people post stories of shockmounts failing--
We get to see the gory photographs, but we're not privy to whether or not their chair was treated roughly over the years (especially if it's secondhand).
Some people are particularly rough on furniture, which may accelerate these problems.

Mine creak all the time-no worries
I do not think creaking is a sign of impending shock mount failure.I have sat and shifted in my Eames chair after it was repaired with the strongest epoxy and it is solid as a rock.I think the creaks come from the swivel base,anyhow,and those never fail.Relax and enjoy.I would not be worried about a 6 year old Eames chair failing.