Well I contacted the vendor I purchased the pool liner from and sent them the pics they needed. It is obvious that there is about 3 inches extra material on the one side and there is 2 extra inches on the other side. It continues in an arc around both sides and tapers off to where it is basically perfect.

I am waiting to hear back from them, so hopefully they can do something here. Their website states all liners are made in North America from virgin vinyl, yet the box I received said it was made in China and had a Chinese QC sticker on the front and back sides of the liner itself.

I am hoping something can be worked out, but it is obvious that the liner is defectively manufactured.

For the meantime I was going to be damned if my kids aren't going to have at least a few dips in the pool this year, so I ended up pulling the liner down mid-way to tighten up the top section, got the returns and skimmer cut in, finished off the piping and fired up the pump and heater...

I need to refresh on the chemical startup stuff for a full size pool and will probably get a few socks with CYA hung tonight as well as some chlorine added. I will pickup a HTH 6-way test kit tomorrow on the quick and order a proper test kit for next spring. We have darn near perfect water out of the tap here, so I have very little adjustments to make outside of adding chlorine and CYA.

I still need to get the upper rails and upper covers and lower cuffs mounted, but the kids should be able to swim tomorrow for a bit. Since their entire summer was "stolen" by delays in the pool and patio project, it is the least I can do to bust my hump getting things "usable" for them. The kids understand, but the guilt was just killing me. They all try really hard at everything (a few of them have autistic spectrum disorders) and I just want them to have some sort of "highlight" as a bright point for this summer.