Rohloff had to go back to Germany to have some work done. They've sent me a letter but I have no idea what it is saying. Have tried Google Translate but it doesn't recognise a lot of the words. Can anyone help? Please?

Fany = Fancy! Whoops

We would like to ask you not to return any non-disc-wheels with oil leaking problems during the summer season.

Please inform the customer that leaking oil does not damage the hub, in fact we guarantee that hubs run perfectly well and without causing any damage for more than 1 year or more than 5000 km. We recommend an oil change after that period but mainly to fill up on oil, not because the old oil would cause any damage.

In fact, oil leaks tend to 'mend' themselves after some time. We ask for your understanding that during the Summer seasons, we only have time to service really serious faults on the hubs to keep our turnaround times short.

Please check on your hub whether all housing screws (8) and axles screws (5 or 6 depending on type) are present and tight, and whether the oil changing set screw is tight. Please let us know if the hub leaks on the cog side. In that case we'll send you a screw with a solid sealing-gel around that should seal the leak.

In case of DB hubs… (do you have one for a tandem? probably not, so I skip that bit).

For non-disk hubs that may still be leaking by autumn/winter, we will of course offer our services, as always quick and mostly free of charge 🙂

Hope that helps a bit
Sven

So, what was the reason it had to go back? Just oil leak or something more serious?

The gist of this is that during the riding season they are too busy doing essential repairs on hubs to take on warrenty work on hubs with oil leaks.
Basically their hubs are garrantied to run with residual oil for a year or 5oookm.
havn't quite got why this applies only to disk hubs without oiling nipples and not others….(presume thats what a Scheibenbremserohloffnaben means….I LOVE this language!!)

Sorry, pipped to the post by somoene with a much better grasp of technical german.

Thanks for the replies. It didn't go back for anything to do with an oil leak so I'm not sure what that letter is all about. In fact it had the oil changed a month or so ago and I had to take a lot of 'old' oil out.

The reason it went back was for worn bearings (again). It has happened before, and they replaced them. The wheel becomes loose in the frame and you can waggle it side to side. The last sent did about a year and went in exactly the same fashion as before. Still rideable but annoying and apparently you can't change them at home as dependent upon which bearing it is you might have to dismantle and rebuild the planetary gearing system.

It is my feeling that the 29er wheel the hub is built into provides the extra lateral leverage to cause premature wear on the bearings. I mentioned this to them but they haven't said anything about it by the looks of it.

Moans aside they collected the wheel and did the work for free which is nice of them. Turnaround was 10 days but that was largely due to the air chaos, would have had it back within a week otherwise.

I presume that letter is something standard they stick in when returning hubs then

I guess they still fix leaking disc hubs in summer due to dangers of disc + oil = no brakes 🙂

The bearings are pretty big in a Rohloff – I'd be surprised if being built in a 29er wheel made any difference (the difference in size to a 26" wheel really isn't very large). What sort of mileage does it do and in what sort of conditions?

I know SFB gave up on Rohloff after finding it didn't work on his submarine but I've been running them for about 5 years now without ever having to have a set of bearings replaced.

The exact mileage I am unsure above but somewhere between 5 – 10 hrs a week riding on average all year round. No bog trotting but plenty of mud.

As far as I aware from the technical drawing there are bearings other than those in the hub shell, which are indeed quite large. There are 'driver' bearings on the axle as well as needle bearings in the gear mech itself. I have read about other people have had to have the driver bearings replaced. I think this is what I had changed last time, don't know exactly what they have done this time as they don't seem to like to give that information up freely.

The wheel size thing might have something in it. Even when the hub was serviced before I could make it move laterally in the frame a little by grabbing the wheel and forcing by hand. Tried on someone elses 26er and it was much more difficult to do.

Blimey, my rohloff's 10 years old and I've never had a problem.

Mr H I envy you. Not sure if I have a 'problem' or whether I'm just wearing stuff out. Not complaining about the hub as I think they are great but it is a bit annoying that they can't/won't do work anywhere other than Germany as if you have to pay it is the best part of £100 to send a whole wheel back (as they recommend you do)