Looking at getting some sid Teams maybe from Merlin for my new Anthem X build. A few years ago I bought some rebas sl's from Merlin, great forks and a great bargain at the time. However they have had the serial number filed off before I got them, why do they do this? Just wondered what the pitfalls of doing this would be, i.e. warrantee, servicing etc. I had an oil leak on the rebas but merlin sorted it no problem. Is this something that they do with all oem forks? Not too fussed about the lack of packaging of oem stuff if it saves a few quid, but not something that is going to cause problems later if you see what I mean.

merlin used to offer exactly the same warranty on imports as normal forks – fixed at their cost rather than the official importer.

dunno bout servicing?

Regardless of were the fork is sourced you have a contract with the supplier in that the goods they supply are covered by a 1 year warranty minimum. So if they break Merlin should fix them by whatever means – weather that be getting Sram to fix them or doing it themselves they still have to honor the warranty.

Serial number filled off though ? You sure…. Last 5 Rockshox forks ive had the serial number was a sticker…

I bought Reba Race SLs from Merlin around a year ago now. The forks were grey-import and had the serial number ground off the rear of the crown.

No mention at the time, in the add on their website, for the product, that they were grey-import….

So when I discovered what it was exactly that I had been sold, I was surprized and disappointed with Merlin to have sold a fork, that from my point of view, wasn't what I was lead to think it was.

Apparently the Reba Race SLs were not intended to be sold in the U.K. as a stand-alone after market fork. At least, thats what I was told.

Then, with the forks shot, but still having a few months remaining of their one year warranty on them. I was faced with the prospect of either sending them to Merlin, whos main business doesn't appear to be servicing suspension components AND who would have a vested interest in repairing the forks as cheaply as possible….

Alternatively, I could "take it on the chin" and just send the forks off to servicing/repair specialists, whom I'd trust to do a proper job, using pukka replacement parts, etc.

I chose to send my forks to TF Tuned. I no longer trusted Merlin, after not even realising what it was they had sold me (grey-import forks).

Ok, the money I spent/saved, originally buying the forks from Merlin, was spent servicing/repairing them within 1 year of purchase, so you could argue that buying from Merlin was, in the end, a false economy.

But, TF Tuned were very good and I had every confidence that my forks were repaired to the correct spec and standard.

I had never employed TF tuned before, but would recommend them now.

However, I would not buy from Merlin, on the basis that I can't trust what I might be getting from them.

Solo, thanks, I had heard that TFT wouldn't touch the forks as they have had the serial number removed but now I know otherwise. Just been searching around and I have found a few places selling the sid teams for only a few quid more than Merlins price, at least then I'll now what I'm getting,

Ace_sparky – will you though? Quite a few places sell oem forks, and it's not the end of the world. Solo sent them to TFT out of choice rather tha because he had to. merlin's after-sales service has actually got a pretty good reputation. It could always be useful to drop them an email asking about these things?

I also doubt it's merlin or other retailers who remove the serial number (if anyone does)- it's probably just as likely to be the company supplying the retailer.

Sus forks arent exactly rocket science, if i'd been in solo's position I'd probaby have striped, cleaned and rebuilt them myself to see if ti fixed it.

You can hardly hold it against Merlin if you never gave them the chance to rectify the problem. Unless they were employing blind monkeys with a track record of incompetance i'd trust them with my forks as much as anyone else.

As for the OEM Vs aftermarket fork debate, the OEM ones are just buiilt to a different spec, so manufacturers could chose a steel steerer to save cash and add better damping. Or in the case of the Pikes supplied with the pitch pro, its a alloy steerer off the expensive model on a cheeper fork to save weight.

Still built in the same factory, still passes through the same QC, just won't have a serial number.

I no longer trusted Merlin, after not even realising what it was they had sold me (grey-import forks).

I don't know what point you are trying to make nor what it could be.

I think it all comes down to you pay your money you take your chance, if you want fancy packaging and warranty then put you hand in your pocket and pay £500 instead of £250

For me getting a pair of forks at around 40% less than retail is a bargain, OEM or not.

I suspect any RS fork that you see at that price are going to be OEM, be interested if you find some that are not.

I have just had my Reba SL's returned from Merlin. The lockout wasn't working. They sent them to the importers to deal with under warranty. No issues at all and they even upgraded them while they sorted them out.

I suspect any RS fork that you see at that price are going to be OEM, be interested if you find some that are not.

RS Reba Teams from Bike Outlet last week. Boxed, non-OEM. £305 vs an RRP of £579

You sure ?

Reba Teams are listed as being travel adjust 80\100\120 on the RS website, those ones are listed as 100mm only ?

If you they are the full spec its a damn fine price !!

Yes, full spec. Clearly marked on the bottom of the box as All Travel and adjustable to 80mm/100mm/120mm. The 09 Rebas with the All Travel come set at 100mm, although the Maxle light version is 120mm out of the box but can go down to 80mm.

Fitted them on Saturday and they really are the mutts nuts. Unbelievably good fork and staggering improvement over the Toras they replaced.

Ok, it was pretty late when I wrote my post and I was tired.

Bascially, I feel that Merlin were less than open, honest about the fork I bought from them. As I tried to point out, the website add didn't inform me that the forks were actually Grey-Imports, purchased by Merlin, from the factory RS had their forks made at.

It has been explained to me that such grey-imports are produced by the factory itself and sold onto whomever wants to buy them.
Then of course your warranty is with your supplier/retailer, etc.

But Merlin didn't explain any of this, had I have known, I wouldn't have purchased said fork. Witholding information, affected my purchasing decision…

As for reliability, people saying that there is not difference. Thats not my experience.

At least 10 months before purchasing the SLs from Merlin, I negotiated a very good price on proper, after market, RS Reba Race Team forks from another U.K. bike shop. They came in their original RS packaging, with shock-pump, manual, eveyrthing.

These forks have daily use from a heavier rider, for what must be around 2 years now, and they're still flippin fantastic, no reliability issues whatsoever.

So I believe that there is a difference between grey-imports and the items specifically intended by the OEM for after market sale.

Solo.

Solo – grey imports are legitimate products from a different country of origin, not "sold out the back of the factory" – they're just sold say from the factory to the legitimate RS distributor in Bulgaria, who then flogs them to the UK for resale. I presume they grind off the serial to stop them tracking which other worldly distributor is flogging them on when they shouldnt (most companies have different prices and rules for different countries and so dont like selling between them). The forks were undoubtedly exactly the same as the fork you would have received had you been able to buy one in the UK, but for less cash. Sus forks are simple to maintain and repair, there is no reason to send it back to the manufacturer for repairs, hence it makes absolutely zero difference to the end user except for the lower price.

basically someone like Giant for example builds 80,000 bikes but orders 90,000 forks. These leftovers get flogged on through various channels and end up being sold by people like merlin. the fork is "usually" the same, but no guarentees.

The serial has been removed because the bike factory doesnt want to be identified as the ones selling them to merlin outside of their contract…

TB.

Thats sounds entirely plausible.

CK. Please read the posts. I'm not saying that the forks aint legit, they are obviously RockShox. Other contributers here may have raised that particular point, to which I would repsonded with… my comparison between the Reba SLs (falied within one year) and my Reba Race-Teams (still going strong) and my own opinion. However, I do hope that people may draw their own conclusions.

Also, I'm just passing on, to whomever wants to know. Just what my experience was. What I subsequently was told by people in the business, and my overall opinion.

You can't argue with the fact that I am telling you, had I have know the SLs were G/Is, I would have reconsidered my purchase.

It was because of this lack of info from the retailer, I then came to mistrust Merlin.

Thats it, no arguement.

Go buy forks from Merlin, good luck, I hope it works out for you. But I aint buying from them again.

Solo.

merlin sell a lot of oem and grey product, bargains but problems crop up with warranty. i wouldn't buy from them again after some fork issues where the distributor told me they wouldn't touch them as they were 'grey'

why do you need to worry about the distributor?

if they are in warranty then merlin will fix any issues

if they are out of warranty, you send them to TF Tuned, or fix them yourself (just like you probably would if they were non-OEM)

I got some cheap Fox vanillas from CRC – I assumed they'd be grey import tbh – you have to ask yourself these questions when stuff is that cheap compared to RRP. This didn't bother me.

Merlin have sold cheap Rebas for a few years now – again, I assumed they'd be grey import.

Blinded by the bargain..?

I bought recons from Merlin last that were not OEM and they've been fine.

It is hardly unreasonable to expect a retailer to be honest with their descriptions of the product they are selling. Some OEM products are significantly inferior to the proper item, flogging such items while advertising them as the proper products seems like it would be borderline illegal.

Great.

Seriously, good for you, whatever works.

We've all been here long enough to realise that whenever such a subject crops-up. There will be contributers who have experienced "both sides of the coin".

However. If an item is a grey import, then I believe the retailer should decalre this and leave it up to the purchaser to decide.

From some of the posts here, it would seem that in the case of suspension forks at least, there are those who are happy and experienced enough to consider buying G/Is knowing that they can and will repair the fork themselves, should it fail, etc. I've no problem with that.

I'm not bitter about what happened, I just know I won't give certain retailers a 2nd chance. And I posted my experience.

😕

Solo.

I really think solo is making a mountain out of a mole hill. Solo will have found at that the forks weren't the fully boxed he was hoping for when they arrived. In which case, he should have sent them back. Merlin describes the products exactly and if there is a change to spec. then they mention it.

Nothing else solo is saying makes much sense to me. If they stopped working, then you need to send them back to Merlin. This is not different if the forks are OEM or grey imports or legit and no different from any bike shop. Your port of call with warranties is where you purchased the items from and many distributes don't like to talk directly with customers.

Instead, he chose to send them to TFtuned, which is often a good idea as the forks get tinkered with and come back nice and tuned for your weight and what you think your style is like. Nothing to do with OEM, warranties or anything.

TB you are bang on, a lot of grey stuff is OE bike manufacturer overstock. They buy 5000 Marz forks for Bike X at a massive discount, and then half way thru the year Rockshox become the brand-to-have. Bike manufacturer dumps all their overstock on mail order monsters who then sell them on cheap. The fork manufacturers dont like it, but they drive it buy supplying manufacturers at such a huge discount (or charging so much for retail-market forks, depending on which way you look at it).

I bought some PACE forks from Merlin years ago (as in about 1995). They were substantially cheaper than retail, but had a massive stamp on the steerer saying "warranty void if sold separately". Like the OP I felt a bit had-over by Merlin; if theyd declared them as being unwarrantied OE prior to my purchase I may still have made the purchase, but would have made an informed decision. As I still have the forks I can't complain too much…

Solo,
do you feel cheated because you weren't supplied what you THOUGHT you'd paid for, or because you weren't supplied what you THOUGHT you'd paid for, gone along with it, THEN had a bad experience, THEN decided the guys who'd flogged you the bits couldn't be trusted?
distance selling regs meant you could have returned them straight away, without having to explain yourself or anything.
i'm. afraid your data sample of '1 pair of forks, retail, last for years', vs. '1 pair of forks, oem, failed early', isn't really statistically valid…

Through the years there have been massive differences between some OEM/after-market forks. Steel instead of alu steerers often get fitted to OEM forks to reduce costs, but add nearly a lb to the fork weight. In the case of Manitou the OEM forks are manufactured in Taiwan where as the after-market forks are made in the US. Last year Manitou had a lot of problems with their OEM forks where as the after-market ones were great and received glowing reviews.

It wouldn't kill a retailer to state that a product is OEM and then let their customers decide whether it's a bargain or not.

Agreed . Had a recent experience where I bid and won some forks on ebay and then found out they were OEM model. Refused to pay as hadn't been advertised as such and the retailer had no choice but to sell to someone else.

Bought some Reba SL's off Merlin last year and they are great / as advertised. As the price seemed too good to be true when compared to the other types of Reba they were selling (team/race) and as you "can't" buy after market SL's in this country I phoned them up. They explained the spec/differences to the others (minimal) and I bought the forks.

Circa 2005 I bought some very cheap Dukes off CRC and they did have a steel steerer rather than alloy and weren't as reliable as a 2001 model I'd used. But for the price I was happy – weren't advertised as OEM but I knew at that price they were either OEM / grey import / end of batch.

The Reba SL is OEM only isn't it? Its just that merlin buy the sort of quantities that bike manufacturers do
If you actually go on the rockshox website all the differences between forks are listed. I think the only difference between the Reba SL and the next one up is that the floodgate adjustment requires an allen key instead of a hand dial

Loads of other retailers sell Reba SLs too

"so you could argue that buying from Merlin was, in the end, a false economy"
You could have sent them to merlin for free and see what the result was? They may well send them to the same people anyway

"the website add didn't inform me that the forks were actually Grey-Imports, purchased by Merlin, from the factory RS had their forks made at"
How have you come to the conclusion that this is the case?

"I believe that there is a difference between grey-imports and the items specifically intended by the OEM for after market sale"
Based on your widely monitored case study of all but 2 forks ridden by 2 riders whose riding style (And setup? and use of the lockout?) are completely different?

"Some OEM products are significantly inferior to the proper item, flogging such items while advertising them as the proper products seems like it would be borderline illegal"
Have Merlin ever done this?
Reba SL vs. Team/Race
Revelation/Pike 409 vs. 426/454
etc ..
Look them up on the Manufacturers website, Rockshox in particular lists all the differences

If they fail within the warranty period, send 'em back to the place you bought 'em. I can't see what people are failing to understand here? Stop moaning, take action.

READ THE **** POSTS !!!!.

I know I could have sent the forks back under warranty, Sherlock !.

To a shop that didn't advertise the forks as G/Is in the first place… !!. Call me cynical/suspicious, but I thought better of it.

So, I decided to send them to TF-Tuned instead, off my own back. IT IS MY CHOICE and I admit that !!!. I waived my rights under warranty to have the Pros sort the fork instead. When I considered the cost to me to have sent them back to Merlin, it made better sense to me to send them to TFT !.

I AM NOT MOANING !, I was merely imparting my experience with a paricular fork I purchased from Merlin.
"I'm not bitter about what happened, I just know I won't give certain retailers a 2nd chance. And I posted my experience."

I didn't start this thread, I was repsonding to it !. 🙄

READ THE F'ing THREAD.

TD especially. I don't need warranty/conusmer advice from you. I wasn't complaining about the warranty. READ the Thread 🙄

Del, At the time I bought the forks, I didn't even know about over-stock and Grey Imports, it hadn't crossed my mind and I didn't realise that the SLs were not a U.K. after market fork. Clear enough for you ?. I didn't think too hard about why something is discounted, lots of bike stuff is WAY over priced and has massive margins !. Why don't retailer then advertise their stuff as G/I ?…

James, you obviously haven't read a thing on here, 🙄

TW, same for you, read the thread.

Idiots that jump in without reading the intire thread.

My thanks to TB for their post 🙂
It made sense of other things I had heard, since my experience with these forks.

Solo

Calm down!

As far as I can see in your posts, at no point did merlin mislead you, you knew you were buying SL's, you knew the spec of the SL model, if you'd wanted race/team/WC's thats what youd have bought, but you wanted SL's at that price so bough SL's at that price.

You cast aspersions over merlins returns/warenty/serviceing with absolutely no evidence. At best thats going to anoy them, at worst is slanderous/liablous (you'd need a lawyer to tell you which it is on a forum because i've no idea).

Most of the manufacturers busines is in OEM sales, do you realy believe the QC is going to be lower, is there some disgrntled employee spiting in your dampers whilst the OEM forks are handbuilt by virgins personaly tutored by lord Tim of the Flooks? Think about it, an aftermarket fork fails, one disgruntled mtb'er buys marzocchi next time. Bust OEM forks, a manufacturer buys 10,000 marzocchi's next time. Would it realy make sense to cut costs in QC here?

I have had reba race's for about 5 years. Had 1 service and still going strong.

If you want a cheap bargain, buy from Merlin, if you want the fancy box, pump and manual at your lbs.

Comparing the forks is not really accurate, unless both forks have been identically ridden on identical bikes. Some forks last forever, some you need to servive every year/2years.

I actually quite like these little OEM bargains.

I wanted 15QR Foxs, but they force you to buy the full on RLC, I've never felt the need for lockout or compression damping on my foxes (my weight doesn't really cause forks to dive). So the fact that I could pick up an OEM model basic R but with 15QR was exactly what I wanted…

If you do your research it's not hard to tell if something is proper aftermarket or not.

I have read the thread. You appear to be slagging off a retailer unfairly in my mind and I said as such. Obviously you disagree. Other people can read the thread and make their own minds up.

If you have a strong opinion on something, then don't go wetting your pants when others post disagreeing opinions. The fact remains, you could have returned the forks when you first received them and you chose not to.

While I don't think Merlin are brilliant for selling such forks, I find the area more grey (excuse the pun) than you are making out.

Just for reference i have got 2 pairs of Merlin 2009 RS Reba SL's at home, both WITH[/b] serial numbers intact on the fork crown.

I purchased my Revs from Merlin, yep no serial no but ive had no issues.

The forks have been serviced by TFT – no issues, merlin have been superb with the backup customer service, i didn't get the Pop-Loc and i didn't notice for a few months as i didn't need the forks, so i didn't check. After a call and an email i got the pop-loc. They recently sent me a travel adjust spacer which i admitted i had lost, free of charge in the post! I doubt my LBS would of given me the same level of customer service.

The forks where exactly what they described on the website, a bargain and they do exactly what i need.