After some advice –
I had frame fail, a very definite crack, and there was a question over the warranty period.
After a couple of calls, the distributor was great and got the frame repaired, altho the actual warranty period was never finally agreed upon (I am sure it was 5 years, they claimed 3yrs, and it failed after 4.5 yrs)
The repair was done last year, and I’ve ridden the bike less than 500km, and there is now a very definite crack straight across the repair weld.

So, its now definitely outside of the warranty period (whatever that actually was) and the repair has failed – the repair was very clearly no good.

Where do I stand?
I’ve not contacted the distributor yet, but was hoping on some advice – my concern is that they may claim the repair was performed outside the warranty and therefore a good will gesture and its essentially tough luck if it failed.
In my counter argument, that the repair was within the warranty period, and wasnt actually an effective repair, hinges upon the validity of the actual warranty (which I have tried (and failed) to verify as 5yrs)

Any thoughts?

Well, depends on the manufacturer, but they could argue the repair didn’t reset the warranty – the frame is now outside warranty.

Unless they are feeling very generous I’d reckon no. You had a frame it lasted the warranty period (as they thought) they got it to 5 years (what you thought) and thats the end of it.

Hmm…..even if the repair they performed was very clearly not good enough?
Can you get away with performing a warranty repair thats just about good enough to last, or should it return the item to as new status?

Well the only way to find out is to call them up and show them the bike.
That was just my opinion, you had 5 years out of the bike. Do you have anything that says you had a 5 year warranty?

What would you do if somebody brought it to your business (ie your bottom line)

It’s disappointing that the repair failed so soon but no one ‘resets’ the warranty on anything post repair (even if they’d provided a replacement frame the warranty would have expired 5 years after your original purchase).

Neither here nor there to your warranty concerns, but if it’s an aluminium frame it was always going to crack again. Repairing aluminium frames just doesn’t work, there is quite a bit of heat treatment done to new alu frames which can’t be re-done and any repairs don’t get that so they are always very prone to cracking.

mayan – Member
Hmm…..even if the repair they performed was very clearly not good enough?
should it return the item to as new status?

So that you can get another 5 years under warranty? – no chance, I would imagine. it’s a different kettle of fish to something like a dropper post, where you might well get a 6 month warranty on new internals, but a repaired aluminium frame (what alloy, BTW?) will always be something of an unknown quantity so I can’t see any manufacturer giving a warranty under those conditions.
If they’d genuinely felt that warranty was justified then surely it would have been easier to just replace the frame?

Thanks for the thoughts, seems to be general agreement that I’d be relying on the good will of the manufacturer / distributor. I’ll give them a ring and see where we go from here…..

And just for info, its not aluminium, its titanium and the crack is around the bottom of the chainstay where it meets the dropout. The repair was a small weld straight over the top of the crack, and now the new weld has a crack running straight down the middle of it..

So, what titanium hardtail frame for 26″ wheels and a straight 1 1/8″ steerer fork??!!!

Talk to Enigma – they did a repair on a Ti frame for me – they have a standard fee that covers most repairs.

Sounds familiar

[url=https://flic.kr/p/9QcaG6]P6040250[/url] by T*inbred, on Flickr

I took mine to a local ti yacht parts manufacturer who put a weld over the crack in his lunch break for £30. If you can do similar, it might get you a fix for little cost and avoid all the hassle of going back to the supplier – which sounds like it would be a non-starter anyway.

Mine been great for a few years now since the fix, good luck with yours.

+1 for out of warranty and +1 for just finding a local welder to fix it. Save yourself a lot of hassle.

Repair doesn’t reset warranty but it should be an adequate repair and if it’s rebroken in 500km then it strikes me that either the repair wasn’t up to scratch, or the frame was unrepairable- in which case it’s not a new fault out of warranty, it’s the old fault recurring which should have been fixed within warranty and wasn’t. No?

Though there’s still the question of whether it was really in warranty or not last time.

Yeah, that was my line of reasoning…the repair didnt actually repair anything….just covered up the problem for a while.
And by performing the repair is there an element of admitting a fault and thus being responsible for performing the repair properly?

I think the open question over the warranty period will be the crux of the matter, and I’ll be replying on good will.

I will phone them and speak to them nicely!