Friday, May 7, 2010

Trek 9800 OCLV, only 10 rides old


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.

24 comments:

Axel said...

Why would that be a warranty issue?

Steel Is Real! said...

You wouldn't see this kind of failure with steel!

Lugged and Proud said...

Ride Steel!

Marlene said...

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.

Anonymous said...

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.

Anonymous said...

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.

Anonymous said...

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?????

Anonymous said...

Take responsibility for your own actions!

Anonymous said...

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.

Unknown said...

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.

Anonymous said...

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...

Axel said...

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.

Anonymous said...

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.
-------
I don't ask a warranty if I hit a pothole that destroyed my rim, destroyed my hubs, chain, cog, etc.
----
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.
----
Guys, choose two between: price, weight and solidity!!!

Nate said...

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!).

Anonymous said...

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.

Anonymous said...

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.

Anonymous said...

I love Trek CF. I've had my Trek OCLV 9800 carbon fiber bike since it hit the store on day one. I ride it in a very hilly area 35 miles a week. I've also done a few fairly hard (not crazy) jumps when I was younger. To this very day, it performs like a champ and I love this bike. CF is good at several things (such as screaming up hills while you leave your friends behind -I'm 55 & leave 25 year olds in my dust). It is not good at taking hits with lateral pressures (down tube etc). Read the manual where it clearly states if you damage CF in certain ways, it weakens the integrity of the material and the bike becomes lethal to the rider. Ride it as designed, and it will last for decades.

Anonymous said...

Here ya go...
Will a Carbon-Fiber bike last?
2/26/10 Update- The article below was written back in 1996, 14 years ago. It's still relevant, but since then we've seen the super-light ultra-performance carbon frame move into moderate price levels. It no longer defines the extreme high end. That's good news, but carries a warning. You cannot build a 2.5 pound carbon frame as strong as a 3.5 pound frame. The tube walls are thinner, and when even the highest-quality-possible construction (as found on Trek's OCLV product), the can still easily damaged by forces not normally encountered when riding. Blows to the side of a tube, for example, will likely cause them to crack.

Normal riding isn't an issue; the modern Trek OCLV will likely outlast frames made of any other material. But making them so light, so comfortable, so efficient... there is a trade-off in durability when abused or crashed. We recommend a very thorough inspection of crashed frames of any material, but carbon even more so, because it's difficult finding under-the-surface damage. Riding a frame that has been crashed could cause unexpected failure down the road. Please, if you have any doubts, bring such a bike in for inspection. We cannot guarantee that it's perfect, but we may be able to find an indication of trouble that others missed.

http://www.chainreaction.com/carblife.htm

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Unknown said...

To claim for warranty issue not tough for your riding but to get compensation, it's seems to hard get it. Hybrid Bike vs Cruiser

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John Stewart said...

Old carbon Trek.Old guy riding it.Currently setting it up to bikepack.2nd owner.Consider myself lucky to upgrade around carbon fibre.$thousands...maybe in the next world.At 73,thank you Trek.