I was about to buy some Fox Vanilla 32s, but a recent post about the stanchions wearing out and what looks like a ridiculous maintenance routine have freaked me out. Which forks last the longest with the least maintenance? Not massively fussed about budget- if they last long enough, you get your money back…

none

type in any brand you will get a couple of positives & a lot of negatives right across the board.

personally my magura wotans have been brilliant .

If you are buying new then for 2010 marzocchi seem to have got back to their old renowned fit and forget quality. Maguras and '10 dt swiss have 1 year service intervals.

New 2010 marzocchis or 07 and earlier marzocchis

How can you comment new 2010 marzocchis will last, a bit early to presume isn't it?

maintenance routine on Fox is no more onerous than on RS. Infact, where Fox says lube the seals every 25 hours, RS actually stipulate every ride, although where the Fox descript clearly says to lift the seals to do this, the RS descript is less precise. not looke up zocchi, manitou or Magura but I doubt they're too different

I've had fox, RS and 'zocchi forks at different times and they've all been fine, I've never suffered stantion wear on any and I've not been careful with ride-by-ride maintenance.

Given the number of people reporting problems (they can't all be panic stricken teenagers), there clearly seems to be a stantion wear issue on some forks, not only Fox, but 2010 revs too if forum posts are taken as a guide, but I am wondering if there's some regional variation going on (the wrong sort of mud perhaps, to paraphrase my fave British Rail excuse 😉 )

How can you comment new 2010 marzocchis will last, a bit early to presume isn't it?

Yeh probably, but i dont think you have to service them every 15 hours to keep your warrenty

open bath 'zocchis

IMO the main issue is when forks only have a few ml of lub in the bottom of the stanchions the top bush can run dry and then picks up on the stanchion ruining it.

Open bath forks have half a pint of oil sloshing about so everything stays well lubed

I've just taken apart a pair of very well used Fox 2002 Vanillas. After clearing the sludge from the fork legs, they seems absolutely fine inside and still work like new. Also have some 2005 Floats and some 2006 Floats and some 2006 Van 36s. All happy as Larry. Bombers were fantastic last time I bought some but that was 1998. I gave up on Manitou back with the Mach 4 and the Mach 5. Even when they weren't working as a water pump they always seemed to be very twangy but that was a long time ago. Maybe they've improved. I've also not been near Rock Shox since I saw a pair of Judy XLs where the metal bushes had stripped the anodising off the legs but that was also a long time ago. Probably before the '98 bombers that were fitted. If I was replacing forks tomorrow, I'd spec Fox or maybe look at Rock Shox. I'd love Marzocchi to make a come back and build them like they used to but I'd like to see it happen before I give them any of my money.

IMO the main issue is when forks only have a few ml of lub in the bottom of the stanchions the top bush can run dry and then picks up on the stanchion ruining it.

Open bath forks have half a pint of oil sloshing about so everything stays well lubed
Lack of oil is what directly causes the problem, but poor sealing is what starts the problem. Maguras use a similar low vol lubing system, but as they use a better sealing system their official service interval is 1 year. I wonder in wotan seals will fit in a 36? Marzocchis use high quality seals, hence few problems…but ive seem a few older 05/06 marz forks where the black anodising is wearing through and has a greenish tint to it.

Minimal service intervals Sir? “
Fit and Forget” reliability Sir?
You want a rigid fork!
Not quite so plush as 32s or Reba’s though…

I have to concur with TJ, modern bells and whistle features seem to mean current forks are lubricated with cuckoo spit and wishful thinking, not sure why people are surprised when they have to post them back to Mojo every 20 minutes…

I've never done any work to my 2008 Revelations other than the odd squirt of chain lube once a month and they work just fine.*

* Were I to compare their feel to a brand new pair I might disagree, but there's nothing obviously wrong at least.

Open bath Marzocchis, I have 2 pairs from 2002 still going strong.

stantion wear issue on some forks, not only Fox, but 2010 revs too

wheres the posts complaining about wear on 2010 revelations!? am interested as i've ordered some.

My '06 rebas are still going strong with plenty of filthy use and only a couple of strip downs over the years.

That said, open bath zokes (preferably coil sprung) are the way to go for the ultimate in longevity. Which means really old ones, or brand new 2010 ones (which will hopefully be up to the old standard).

i fitted some 2010 revs in october, they seem to be ok.

I lube the toobs after each use and remove the lowers and clean and replace the oil every week. Apart from that i just wipe the whole thing with an antistatic cloth each morning.
So far no real problems as i say, expect that the oil leaks out a little bit and both air chambers lose pressure over a week

I will report back in the summer when i have ridden them.

remove the lowers and clean and replace the oil every week

Every week!

Do mine once a year max (and I never 'lube the toob' 8O). As I said, still good after 3.5 years.

what model numbers are the decent old marz forks. just when searching around they all seem to be dodgy 55 or 66 models. im after a set with 20mm bolt that can run at 140mm and coil pref but air will be ok too
ta

Apart from increasing weight, would adding extra oil in the lowers have any adverse effects?

Kona Project 2s I have nad them nearly 20years.. never once had to service/strip down or lubricate them..
in fact they have been totally maintenance free!

only thing I have done is a respray and that was a cosmetic issue due to my inability to ride a bike and crashing them!

rockplough – I did this with the knackered set of foxes I have – put 150 ml in instead of 15 ml.

You might get a bit of ramp up as you are reducing the airspace and if you put enough in you could get hydraulic lock or blow seals but so long as you are careful it should be no issue.

Put the extra oil in , assemble without the springs or with zero air and cycle them a few times

I also put a bit more in my pikes and will do in the rockshoxs I have – but only 20 ml extra

i re-anodise and machine new uppers every 5 hours and replace any oil with freshly extracted from oil-field groundnut olive fork oil every 1 hour and create new bioengineered semi-intelligent autonmous grey seals for my forks every 5 minutes.

i've not had any problems with excessive wear.

what model numbers are the decent old marz forks. just when searching around they all seem to be dodgy 55 or 66 models. im after a set with 20mm bolt that can run at 140mm and coil pref but air will be ok too
ta

05/06/07 Z1's

Look at the past forks on the marzocchi site for one that fits your needs.

cheers fella

For 2010 DT Swiss forks have a 200 hour service interval 😯 I am looking forward to getting mine and when I have managed 200 hours of riding I will let you know my findings. Might be a while at the current rate of a couple of hours a month.

my magura menja's were shite, absolutely unreliable. My old Marzocchi AM1's were excellent and my 09 revs have been faultless so far.

I'm surprised that Mark Datz hasn't been on to suggest putting sum duk down fethers in wiv the oil

lefty
needle bearings run on replacable strips (about every 2 years).Reset bearings every 5-10 hrs takes 6 mins including re-greasing.They realy do last forever ….if you dont powerwash

My experience;

Manitou very good
Pace Useless
Magura Only had a year so too early to judge
RST Seals now shot, but they are 12 years old!

Marzzochi is a funny one, very reliable, took 4 years before they needed any new bits but Windwave were absolutely useless at getting spares, gave up after 3 months and bought the Pace off fleabay. Put me off them for life.

lefty
needle bearings run on replacable strips (about every 2 years).Reset bearings every 5-10 hrs takes 6 mins including re-greasing.They realy do last forever ….if you dont powerwash

Both stiffer and lighter than most, if not all, forks out there. I think it would take some getting used to to look down and see half a fork!

Which forks last the longest with the least maintenance?

Rigid?

I think it would take some getting used to to look down and see half a fork!

I thought that, but tried one on a friend's bike and honestly didn't notice it. Too busy looking where I was going.

My Maverick forks(2 year old) seem pretty maintainance free so far oil change and a blown seal which I just pushed back on and seems to be fine,Just bought a 24mm ck hub for them so I hope the last a while!

Rich

If you fancy a fork, go on the manufacturers site and check the service intervals.

Some of them (in theory) would have to be stripped and serviced 2/3 way through a 24 hour race.

pikes. I've had mine for about three years, only had to change the seals and oils myself, though the bushes are starting to fade a bit now.

1500 mile on 09 reba's and apart from having to add a bit of red rum to cover the air seal to stop losing pressure and oil on the seals after cleaning nothing else…

07 marzocchi or older, pref the coil ones though, would avoid any of the ata ones

08 55's……junk. Collapsed on me just last year.

Replaced them with new 'old stock' 06 vintage 'zocchi 66 RC2x from Winstanleys. 150mm. Absolutely faultless.

i was looking at some of those daddyfool but the a to c is 20mm to long even in 150mm mode ;-(

"07 marzocchi or older"

That should probably be reprased as most 07 marzocchi or older, or perhaps anything with ata
'07 XC700SLs had ata, I think '06 Marathons had ata too
I think '08 was the terrible year for marzocchi, I think they seemed to have sorted ata for '09 and were fixing '08 models with '09 internals in the end
If you want to avoid 55's though, as well as Z1s, I think the 'all mountain' models are supposed to alright as well

One thing that seemed to emerge from that fox failures survey that ended up virtually everyone saying they hadn't had any, was that the stantion problems were almost entirely down to muck off type bike cleaners

I think Vans use open bath damping, or at least the 36 Vans do, so perhaps should get away with not sticking to the 15hour service intervals