Carbon Fiber repairs… worth it?

So I had a bit of a tumble on my roadie last month, unfortunately the person behind me then fell onto my seatstay cracking it 3/4 of the way around. Safe to say, I sought out a replacement frame asap rather than worrying about a repair job. My LBS helped me out hugely with a replacement frame at a really good price, but now I’ve got this (once expensive) piece of carbon beauty sat in my garage gathering spiders.

Is it worth getting it repaired and trying to sell the frame to recuperate some of the costs of the replacement frame, or just sell it ‘as is’ for someone else to repair? I know there are companies out there that do it, but whether I’d trust it or not I don’t know.

Just in case anyone’s curious, it’s from a Merida Scultura CF 904

I’d say so. The carbon repairs I’ve seen have been perfect, and a seatstay should be very easy to do. I’d say repair it and keep it – as there will likely be a number of people put off becuase of it’s history.

I’d probably repair it.

I’d go with the second option and sell it as being for “spares/repairs” Maybe get a quote(s) to go with it:

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But do you really want the potential Headache of dealing with a buyer who tries it on if there’s a problem down the line (there seem to have been a couple of threads like this of late)…

After having payed out to get it fixed would you be making much more than the repair cost?
Flogging it as a broken frame for repair actually does away with some of the risk to yo as a seller IMO, you can’t be accused of knowingly selling something a bit dodgy…

Or fix it and keep it as a posher winter bike?

To clarify, I’d fix it myself. If it was a broken down tube, etc I might be a bit more wary, but a broken seat stay is pretty simple (at least from the OP’s description)

Yeah I’m one of those “problem down the line” posts unfortunately (as a seller, not a buyer). I think I’m currently leaning towards selling it as spares or repair. Had an idea of building it up as a superlight singlespeed (think I’m becoming 1x obsessed…) but then the mrs put a stop to that one pretty sharpish! We’ve now run out of garage space!

How much do you think it’d be worth as spares/repair vs repaired to sell? The whole bike RRP is £1500 with mostly 105 spec.

Wanna buy a frame nemesis haha…

I have two road bikes already so not really unless it’s big and you want to sell it to me really cheap since it’ll have no resale value 😉

Well it’s a M/L frame, I’m 5’9″ and I’m RIGHT at the bottom of the height guidelines for that size. I also know my LBS has a matching set of forks for it too lol.

Far too small 😉

I’ll Give you £50…

just had mine repaired by CBS (moira) fantastic job. definitely worth doing. had it repainted and lacquered, it now looks like I got a new frame!

Was talking to a guy recently who’d had a carbon frame repaired possibly by these guys:

http://www.carbonbikerepair.co.uk/

We struggled to spot the repair, it was so good. Anyone who thinks carbon is an irreparable material doesn’t know what they are talking about.

Nobody has suggested carbon is “irreparable” we’re just saying you probably wouldn’t want the headaches that go with selling a repaired composite bike frame.

I think the 2nd hand market is seeing a bit of a filter through from the last couple of years, the “New-golfers” who Biggins inspired to take up the bicycling have moved on from buying low-mid end new bikes, to Mid-High end used…
However they all seem to expect similar levels of hand holding and pristine kit for peanuts, would you really want to be flogging them a repaired CF Frame?

OP I’ll up my offer to £75 seeing as I’ve got the kit in my Garage to repair it and I’m 5’10″… I know, I’m being generous, but that’s just me…

Nobody has suggested carbon is “irreparable” we’re just saying you probably wouldn’t want the headaches that go with selling a repaired composite bike frame.

A lot of people do think that a small scratch = trashed frame though. Which is great, as it means there could be some real bargains to be had. The guy I spoke to bought a top-end TT frame off ebay for about £100, and had it repaired for less than that, giving him a ca. £2,000+ frame for less than £200. The rest of it was pristine, so it must have been a pretty new frame.

OP I’ll up my offer to £75 seeing as I’ve got the kit in my Garage to repair it and I’m 5’10″… I know, I’m being generous, but that’s just me

You know what, you’ve got yourself a deal sir! Have you got an email address and I can ping some pics across to you?

P.S. I’m not sure onto what point this turns into a classified haha

You know what, you’ve got yourself a deal sir! Have you got an email address and I can ping some pics across to you?

Address temporarily back in profile… Sir…

Got it cheers, will get some pics when I’m home and ping them across to you

A cleverly disguised “what’s it worth?” Thread 😉

Ta Muchly…. off home now so I shall reply later…

My sons Canyon frame was repaired at Fibrelyte in Stokesley by its previous owner, he was very upfront about the repair and gave every opportunity to inspect it to see if we had any reservations. We spent minutes poring over the frame and couldn’t spot the repair at all it was that good. A Engineering boffin mate of mine knows them – he works next door to them and they work closely together..he reckons the repair is probably stronger than the original seat tube! We got a £1500 frame for £400 – if the price is right it’ll sell easy.

A cleverly disguised “what’s it worth?” Thread

haha I swear that wasn’t the original intention… happy accident!