From Shawn:
While riding with my girlfriend in Arcadia RI. She grabbed a ¼” stick in her wheel and pulled it out. No biggie right? 5 minutes later she’s complaining that her bike “feels squishy in the back” I take a look.. & under the chainstay protector I find this..
Attempted a warranty.. nope. Sorry.. FANTASTIC!
What's the deal with Trek these days, they used to be so good with their warranties. Now I'm getting a lot of email with horror stories of Trek not standing behind their bikes.
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16 comments:
Why would that be a warranty issue?
You wouldn't see this kind of failure with steel!
Ride Steel!
Ride whatever you want but don't ride again carbon frames.. How safe can a material be if it brakes from a 1/4" stick grabbed in the wheel? It is supposed that a bike's frame must hold a minimum of shocks, even if these come from improper use, accident, heavy load of anything.. I would have sued the company for putting in danger the rider's life.
Trek has a lifetime warranty policy. It covers manufacturer's defects, which is not the situation here. I'm guessing the emails you got were from people who were mad that they crashed their bikes and couldn't get a free replacement.
I doubt any company, not just Trek, would warranty a frame like that.
In my opinion, there is no warranty for an object going into your wheel and damaging your equipment. Sorry for you. Now get a Colombus or Reynolds steel frame. Also a titanium frame is a lifetime (almost) investment.
Is this Chevy? Hi, I purchased a Corvette last week and accidentally backed it into a retention wall. So..... I wanted to know when I can bring it in for warranty. What? That isn't covered under warranty? Are you kidding? What kind of company are you?????
Take responsibility for your own actions!
You wanted and chose a light, high performance bike at a reasonable price. That is exactly what you got. Lighter, stronger, less expensive: you can have any two. You made your choice. With choices come tradeoffs. Typical of all of us, we see a great opportunity and pursue it without research. About 3 minutes into a google search on carbon bikes and you would have known the limitations were very real. http://www.trekbikes.com/faq/questions.php?questionid=96
The following excerpt took all of 30 seconds to find on their site:
Carbon fiber is stronger that steel or aluminum, but behaves differently when it is overloaded in an accident or impact. An overloaded metal part will bend or deform, showing evidence of the load (Figure 1). A carbon fiber part that is overloaded will not bend or deform, so a damaged carbon part may look normal after the same impact that bent the metal part. When the sum of the forces finally exceeds the strength limit of the carbon fiber, the carbon fiber part still does not bend—it breaks (Figure 2).
NO, I do NOT work for Trek.
When was the last time Trek sold a 9800? Maybe you meant "only 10 years old", not "10 rides old". If you just broke a 9800 your not the first owner, therefore no warranty. By yourself a new bike and Trek WILL warrant it.
This was my gf's frame.. A few things: 1: I've seen stranger things warrantied, esp to those in the industry. You should see what the rep's warranty just to keep customers happy & on their bikes. This was a already a warranty frame to replace an old GF procaliber OCLV that came unbonded on the seatstay yoke. She rode that for years without difficulty or tube failure. 3: My point/gripe is more like Steel is Real's comment... "wouldn't see this kind of failure with steel". With this frame in particular it was a Poor design.. poor fatigue life... I've never had any cycling product fail in such a short period of time & I have a 20yr database & have broken a lot of things and have never seen such an insignificant incident cause a tube failure. Seriously, oops.. a small stick in my wheel = broken chainstay? 2: "Jeff" this frame was actually an 2008 elite 9.8 & yes it was 10 rides old...
If you (or your gf) wanted th duability of steel, then I guess you shouldn't have purchased a carbon fiber mountain bike. It's like a good friend of mine used to say: If you want a pizza, get a pizza.
I have proudly cracked:
- MTB steel frame at seatpost lug near the seat post, no bending seat post (the only warranty I asked).
- cinelli road aluminum handlebar (found because of sound and strange moving). Didn't asked warranty, it's stress related.
- numerous aluminum rims, steel DT 14g spokes. All stress fatigue, and I didn't ask a warranty.
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I don't ask a warranty if I hit a pothole that destroyed my rim, destroyed my hubs, chain, cog, etc.
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I would not really trust carbon even if my centaur rear derailleur have a carbon plate and my fork Kinesis-Easton have lower legs in carbon.
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Guys, choose two between: price, weight and solidity!!!
It has nothing to do with fatigue life. It has everything to do with ultimate strength and the mode in which carbon composites fail (snap!).
Lesson learned: don't buy a carbon frame ever again. (sigh) Too bad Trek can't build a bike that is meant for normal riding anymore. Gosh, remember the 80's? There are still Trek bikes from the 80's out there on the street.
Dear Trek Engineer,
So I was riding a long and because of the oscillating frequency of my bladed spoke, a worm hole opened up, a stick came out of it and lodged its self in my chainstay which made it break.
I think you should look into this serious matter before Marlene and her Lawyer try and produce a clue out of that same wormhole.
Thank you.
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