Hi everyone,

I'm hoping for a bit of sensible fair advice on what to do next with a purchase that hasn't quite lived up to expectations.

In brief, I purchased some wheels advertised on a time limited "special offer" by a largish online bike shop. The wheels had about 30% off the usual price (so £750 after the discount) and as I fancied some new lighter hoops for my road bike I gave them a go without much further thought.

The Mavic R-SYS Premium wheels I purchased are pretty high end in the Mavic range and are advertised for heavy / race use and with that, I expected them to be of pretty high quality / reliability – I've had loads of Mavic wheels over the years and have never had a problem with them before.

Unfortunately when in use, the front wheel (which has carbon spokes), creaks and clicks alarmingly – even during light use. The noise appears to emanate from the spokes on both side of the wheel and sounds too much like the noise things make before they break for my liking / sanity. When I'm standing on the pedals and climbing, the wheel noises are very loud to the extent that I've wondered if the wheel is about to immediately fail. When out riding recently another cyclist caught up with me at some lights and cheerily told me they are "suicide wheels" based on the experiences of his riding mates.

My subsequent cursory search on-line was somewhat alarming in that I found that Mavic actually recalled the first version of these wheels due to catastrophic failures that caused fairly serious injuries to the riders using them. Mavic subsequently released a second version which also appears to have attracted more than a few complaints from people who've purchased the revised design of wheel that I've got. Their complaints included creaking spokes, breaking spokes, wheels failing without warning etc.

In terms of what I've done – the wheels aren't user serviceable. I raised my concerns with the retailer who initially ignored my email. I then contacted them again to be advised that the creaking was probably due to interference between the dropout and the axle and that I should grease the contact area. Despite my cynicism at this advice I tried it and somewhat predictably found it made no difference. I've also tried the wheel in a different road bike and the front wheel from the other bike in my usual bike and have found my Mavic wheel creaks and clicks on both bikes and the other wheel doesn't creak or click on either bike which would seem to clearly point to the issue being with the wheel. I've told the retailer this but they have yet to acknowlege the issue or respond.

My expectation is that £750 wheels should give the impression that they are about to fail. Other purchasers who have returned the wheel to Mavic have had the wheels returned with the same fault as Mavic don't have a fix.

What can I reasonably expect the retailer to do about my wheels? Is it a case of grin and bear it?

Ring the shop up and explain situation -thats what I did with Merlin Cycles and they were very good.

I think you'd need to determine whether or not creaking is a fault or a characteristic

And stop riding on them.

I don't see the issue here. Have the wheels failed? are they faulty in any way? Or do they just creak?

http://www.roadbikereview.com/cat/wheels/wheelsets/mavic-inc/PRD_408606_2490crx.aspx

Quote:
"In order to coax good speed out of these wheels I have had to back the bearing tension off and this results in the front wheel creaking like mad when under load on hill climbs. This has been the case from brand new."

But the trouble you've got, is that in your head they are going to fail (probably front) and put you down the road – sell them and buy something with a good track record.

Do these wheels have a rider weight limit?

Ring the shop up and explain situation -thats what I did with Merlin Cycles and they were very good.

I reckon the OP bought them off Merlin!

Tried contacting Mavic?

Fight hard for a refund, wheels shouldn't creak, and it seems plenty have achieved a refund.

Thanks for the comments so far.

A couple of additional points – I've already tried backing the bearing tension off but the noise is definitely coming from the spokes.

The issue is that in some cases, the spoke creaking has preceeded the wheel collapsing with injuries to the rider. The only way to find out if the creaking on my wheels is the sign of something more serious is to carry on riding them and prepare for smashed teeth if they do fail.

It's probably also worth mentioning the retailer isn't Merlin who I've always had great service from.

have only read of ONE report of a post-recall wheel failing catastrophically, ONE – just think how many R-SYS's there are out there – probably a better fail rate than std wheels….. (I have no basis for my last comment BTW)

Personally, I'd just ebay them if I wasn't happy riding them. I can't see how I'd be able to trust the bike.

any follow up on this? Did you mange to warranty the wheels? or.. err, ebay them?