I was at Llandegla today and was perusing their Meta 5.5.2. I noticed the way the shock mounted up was completely different. The upper mount was a bracket on the seat tube as opposed to the top tube on my 5.5.2. Their bike had a serial of 135**, my bike is 147**. They are both '09 bikes.

Coincidently, there was a chap in there with a seat tube mounted variant complaining of a frame crack…

Is it common to vary a design in one year to such an extent?

It's a different frame mounting for Small/Medium and for Large/Extra Large

Commencal have had a lot of cracked frames if you go by internet traffic about it.

Doh! That would be it then.

Yeah, plenty of horror stories about crackage, not seen any about catastrophic failure. At 70kg, I'd be pretty disappointed to crack a frame. We shall see.

The cracking is worrying, mines been okay so far tho 🙂

Did chat to a guy who had a Meta 5 on another site who cracked his on a
2 foot drop
Have heard They are trying to find another frame maker and maybe thats why
there selling them off with large discounts.

Have heard They are trying to find another frame maker and maybe thats why
there selling them off with large discounts.

Is that info from a seller or hearsay from the Internet?

I've only seen one cracked, and what I will say is that it was on the seat tube side of the weld that meets the top tube, looking from abaove. Photos on the Commencal owners site also show a similar failure. The guy I saw with the cracked, large 5.5.2 was really tall with the seatpost very extended.

Rearwards flex from the seatpost seems like the only propbable cause for that kind of failure.

Worth asking / looking on commencal owners club forum.
Owners club
There are a few reports of cracked welds (not cracked tubes).

As already posted, the mounts are different depending on frame size, S/M frames are different to L/XL.

I think the seat post diameters are different too.

My Meta is a 2008 and has very small hair line marks that look like cracks on the welds of the shock linkage metalwork that is welded to the downtube

I've just discovered a serious crack on my 2009 Meta 5.5 VIP.

The crack goes all the way through the frame – not good. I'll update once I've been through the warranty process, although looking at this post from Commencal, cracks in early frames are fairly common. http://www.commencalownersclub.com/index.php/topic,4957.0.html

Dont worry pearmund many of those returned. They are now replacing the broken frames with the updated 2010 version for what i have read on the Commencal owners web site.
So no probs replacing yours.

hooray at last a picture of a cracked commencal not just stories

pearmund – do you ride with alot of seat post out?

Frame update – since sending the frame back for Warranty, Madison (the importer) have been dragging their feet. In two weeks nothing has happened with Madison being truly unhelpful. Sadly this story is typical to most people going through a warranty issue with Madison and Commencal. I'll keep you updated

I have got cracked shock welds on my meta. Not exactly happy about it to be honest. It is an 06 frame though and has been well abused. But still gutting. Probably won't get another meta unless i can get the carbon one.

@ pearmund. There have been a few of these on the Owners Club site. It's been taking a few weeks to get them replaced but in some part that has been due to them waiting for the 2010 frames to come in. I wouldn't just wait. Give Madison / your lbs a ring every other day or so & keep pestering them. You should soon be the owner of a shiny new 2010 model. 🙂

Some things to note about the new frames – the small & med now have a larger seat tube size (same as L & XL). The dropouts have a different mount as well – you might want to question Madison / lbs about how they tackle that.

My brother got fed up with madisons lack of help,asked shop
for his money back and bought something else!

I have a Super 4 which has a very similar seattube mounted shock bracket which does not appear to have cracked but has mysteriously shed all its paint for no obvious reason. I hope a this doesn't mean a crack will follow!I have been thinking about buying another frame and transferring everything across but this is only 9mths old. Mind you the new Pace 204 looks tasty…..