Mountain Biking - RS Dart 3 Lockout

I am new to these forums, so if this has been posted here B4, please bear with me. BTW, from what I've seen, it's a great place to be. Thanks.

I have been looking to get a inexpensive 29er MTB to tool around on. At present, I am in no position to spend big $$$ on a bike. So a few of the Bikes I have been looking at, most notably the Diamondback Overdirve, have the RockShox Dart 3 Fork.
The lock out doesnt't seem to work at all on these bikes. But I have them in other LBS on different models that they do. Can anyone offer any insight as to why this may be? Is there an adjustment that some of the Shops are not donig?
The trail I ride on is five miles from my house and my Bud I ride with refuses to drive there. So I thought this would be a good feature to have.

maybe the store's bike has a busted lockout if its not as good as other ones u've felt, rs dart lockouts have been bad on reliability lately but if you get a lemon ur lbs will warrenty it so i wouldn't worry too much (hard to find a cheaper 29er fork so unless u wanna spend more...)

The other thing is the dart lockout isn't really a lockout, more like a stiffiner it makes the fork compress much slower but isn't a true lockout, its kinda like a crappy version of the fox propedal (yesyes i know thats a rear shock)

I'd steer clear of the bikes that already have broken lockout. When I got my bike (with a dart 3), the lockout worked; having said that, probably 200 miles or so later, it stopped working.

^thats funny normally i'd aggree, but maybe having them replace it before you even ride it will reduce the risk of further failures, the shop may even have spare cartriges and just hasn't had time to fix it yet, where i work we had rock shox send us a bunch of dart cartriges for 26 and 29" forks, they just come f-ed that often...

Wow,this thread should be called "Notes from the short bus".

There was a problem with an o-ring in a number of dart models. It is very easy to fix and will take care of your lockout issues. Just bring it back to the shop you where you bought it and it should be covered under warranty.

There was a problem with an o-ring in a number of dart models. It is very easy to fix and will take care of your lockout issues. Just bring it back to the shop you where you bought it and it should be covered under warranty.

He hasn't purchased it yet, genious. Please refer to post #5.

The note was to people who already owned a Dart and who were knocking its reliability. It's a quick fix from a shop's perspective and would leave the OP with a decent entry-level fork for the money.
Thanks for the heads-up though.
:-j