I’m thinking about a second have set of 140mm Fox for a 26er hardtail, previously I’ve only ever owned Rockshox mainly down to the cost of the Fox. Consequently I know very little about Fox forks

I’ll be buying second hand, so the age of the fork will be 2010 to 2014 most likely. But I’ve heard on the grapevine that Fox had a bad patch with their damping system. Is this true , if so what should I look to avoid / what version should I look to buy?

Cheers

Just add to that that I’ve just seen a pair of Fox 32 Factory Fork in the classifieds for a good price . Are these any good?

Don’t believe too much about of what you read on the internet about bad fox damping. I have some 2009, 2013, 2014 and 2016 fox forks and there inst a bad set amongst them. If you do want to believe the hype then 2014 onwards are supposedly the ones to go for.
Edit: I forgot to add that all mine are factory which are the better of the range.

I preferred the 2012 RLC forks to any of the newer CTD ones. Not sure if that was the damper or the air spring though. To be fair, the newer ones are pretty good too it was just the early CTD that I really didn’t like. But each to their own. I dare say somebody loved those.

Had a few sets of Evolution Fox products. All have been horrible, Terrible dampers in them

I wouldn’t go above 120mm on the 32’s they are not that stiff in the longer versions.

I never got on with the ~2013 Float 32 CTD (non adjust). I found the fork was too linear and would dive far too easily when taking mid sized bumps and braking.

The CTD version I tried only had three settings for low speed compression. Descend was too open and divey with no support and trail was too stiff. I also found the chassis a bit too flexible even with a 15mm axle, it didn’t track as well as a RS Rev through rough corners.

I never got to try the CTD adjust system which gave you 5 compression settings in the Trail mode. Maybe this could have a better compression tune than the standard one? I believe my comments are very typical of the feedback many other riders felt about Fox forks at the time.

If you like a linear fork then I think the 2012 – 2014 Fox forks would be fine otherwise you might want to get a new model with revised air spring and dampers or factoring in price of getting it custom tuned.

That age of fox forks I wouldn’t bother. They will either have knackered sanctions or the newer ones will be divey and linear.

You can do better for your money TBH.

The ones to avoid are the earlier versions of the O/C (Open Cartridge) damper on the Evolution models, particularly the 2013 which was the launch year and had a design/manufacturing fault which meant they turned into a pogo stick! Although they stopped short of a recall (presumably to avoid admitting fault and therefore opening themselves to litigation in the US) Fox will still replace a 2013 O/C cartridge no questions asked.

The predecessor to the O/C cartridge called Open Bath (O/B), and the high end FIT cartridge are all fine.

I had a set of 2013 32s, they were pretty awful tbh. Ridiculously divey unless you ran high pressures at which point they were blunted and unresponsive. As I understand it, it’s not a componentry thing- the damper hardware itself is fine, it’s the base tune. So that can be fixed, at a cost.

(my take on it is that they looked at the way fork travel is increasing on mince tanks and decided to build every fork for fat accountants who think the definition of hard riding is to use all your fork travel, even if you did it by riding over a twig. It ruined that bike though, so rather than spend money sorting them, i fitted some other forks I had that weren’t kneecapped)

As I understand it, it’s not a componentry thing- the damper hardware itself is fine, it’s the base tune.

Whether you like the ‘tune’ of the O/C damper or not is another matter, but the fact is that the original 2013 damper had a basic fault. Under certain circumstances the plastic bottom would blow off the damper cartridge – like if you had it in ‘climb’ and landed heavily. The interim fix applied to late 2013/early 2014 O/C cartridges was to have four holes drilled in the cartridge wall to relieve the pressure – and dump all your damper oil in the lowers! The proper fix applied from late 2014 onwards was re-design of the plastic bits to make them stronger and addition of a blow-off valve.

Hence my advice to the OP to avoid the 2013 O/C dampers.

Ah, our posts sort of landed on top of each other- mine were FIT, maybe should have said that.

I also had a set of 2013 CTD 140mm 32s. I really didn’t get on with them and would agree with what’s been said above. They kept blowing through their travel in most settings if I remember correctly and that was after putting more float fluid in as recommended by mojo. I’ve since read that 2014 onwards is much better, wish I’d known that at the time!

Although you haven’t mentioned a budget you should have the luxury of been able to avoid performance and evolution series ones and be solely looking at Factory series ones.

If you can I’d try and avoid the flexi 32s and aim for some less flexi 34s, even if you have to reduce the travel internally yourself to your required 140mm. Although if you’ve looking for a straight steerer this will rule out 34s.

I’d be picking some Floats, the Talas ones always seem to be a compromise on performance to me.

Most importantly make sure you find a pair that have been looked after and since you’re buying second hand I’d be keeping a bit of money aside to get them serviced.

You should be able to find some 26″ 2013 Factory Floats with a FIT cartridge for around £200, a bit more for some in exceptional condition. Older forks for less.