Replace or repair my vinyl liner?

About 10-12 linear feet of the liner of my 24' AG came loose from the bead 2 weeks ago, and I lost about 12-15" of water when the liner sagged below the winter water level. Some of the sand base right along the base of the wall got washed out as well. The liner is not torn. I had a well-recommended pool contractor look at it this week. He seemed to think that the freeze/thaw cycle might have caused the liner to pop out of the bead, and that the liner was installed w/o wedges to keep it properly in place.

He gave me 2 options moving forward:

1) I drain the pool, he fixes the sand base and reattached the liner with wedges. No guarantees, as he claims the liner has shrunk since it detatched and may pop again, causing the same problem. The liner is 2 years old, in good shape otherwise. My cost for the above: $200

2) I drain the pool, he fixes the sand base, and installs a new liner (24' x 52") with wedges. The liner has a 25-yr warranty (why not make it 1000 years??!!) and he guarantees his labor for 2 years as well. My cost for this: $800


This is all new to me...any advice on how to proceed appreciated.

thx

That is a hard one, the numbers don't make a lot of sense either. What you are saying is that the cost for the new liner plus installation is only worth roughly $650? (subtract out the $200 for repair and pop in the old liner).

I had a liner pull out over the winter two years ago, it was about 6 years old at the time. I had no damage, as I don't have a sand base. My base is a mix of concrete and vermiculite that has about half the density of concrete and is semiporus. Anyhow, I took a hose and put it behind the liner to lift it up some more and then carefully used a hair dryer at the water line to soften the liner and gently stretched it to allow me to pop it back into the track. I refilled the pool and used my main pool pump to suck the water out through the drywell / sump under the pool. It has been fine ever since.