Have used HG73 (SLX) chains for years without issues however the last 3 or 4 I’ve had from various sources including CRC have come with unbranded quick links. I always thought that shimano never shipped chains with these as I have traditionally junked the supplied pin and fitted a KMC quick link. Whereas previous chains (supplied without quicklinks)have lasted 6 months or more the recently purchased ones have lasted weeks and the last one stretched to 0.75 worn over 4 rides, about 60 miles!

Has anyone else experienced this, are there fake products out there or has the quality of manufacturing dropped?

Ok that’s wierd but a few ideas:
– Are you changing Cassette and chain or just chain? A cassette should be changed at the same time as the chain.
– Is your chain wear tool bent giving a false indication of wear?
– Are the conditions you’re riding in extremely bad? Do you use

Sorry if the next bit is a bit condesending sounding, a chain doesn’t actually stretch. It wears at the rollers on every link giving the effect of stretch. The distance from pivot centre to pivot centre remins the same. If the system is not meshing properly it will cause premature wear, eg the Cassette and /or chainwheel worn

I don’t know of fake stuff but it’s possibility I suppose. Change Supplier before doing a cassette & chain change and the problem persists LBS for a better diagnosis.

A cassette should be changed at the same time as the chain.

Nonsense.

I always change them together as I use them until they are both knackered .About to change my touring bike ones after nearly 10 years of constant use .It`s only going to cost about £22 for a 9 speed sram set up from Chain Reaction

A worn cassette wears a new chain much more quickly.

Measure it properly, with a ruler. My old Park chain checker used to say stuff was beyond hope way before it really was.

You’ll get a digi vernier caliper from aldi for about a tenner every so often, which is way more accurate than a chain checker, and very handy for lots of other measurements too.

Stop measuring your chains!

Use them until you have an issue that’s not to do with the gear cable, then change the chain and the cassette together. The whole chain checker thing is just a way of selling you more stuff; no one bothered up till about 2 years ago and managed perfectly well.

The chain and cassette on my winter roady has done 2 3 Peaks cyclocrosses, all the pre event training for both, and at least 100 miles a week for the past year. It shifts fine.

I use a park tools cc-3 chain gauge and have just checked it on a new chain and it reads correctly. Have 4 other bikes two run surly front rings at 36T in a 1×9 setup. Cassettes are regularly changed as required and I have 2 spare ones on the shelf. Other bikes are alfine and 3×9 equipped. Have just opened another ‘shimano’ HG73 chain and that contains neither a quick release or connecting pin straight out of the box. Bought my first MTB back in 1992 and as a mechanical engineer have done all my own maintenance ever since hence the stock of parts. That unimpressed by the drop in durability of these chains I have just ordered some KMC ones to try.

What does your park chain checker read on a new chain then ?

Ps the rohloff chain checkers a much better tool for the job,

and as a mechanical engineer have done all my own maintenance ever since hence the stock of parts

😆 😆 😆 😆 😆

Got digi-calipers, verniers and steel rulers, checked ‘stretched’ chain using the vernier 121.7, new chain 120.38 over 10 links. So that is 1.3mm of growth over approx 60-75 road miles this weekend. Previous chain was put on the week before xmas.

Park gauge says new chain ok, and measures 120.6 for 1.0 i.e. fully worn and 120.37 for (0.75) or 3/4 worn across its faces. The previous digi caliper measurements may be slightly high as its hard to get the measuring faces fully home inside the narrow chain.

Anyway, thanks for the input, I was principally just wondering if anyone else had experienced this problem with these chains.

You’re not actually listening/reading are you? 🙂

Why would you change the chain because a measurement says so when it will operate perfectly well for many more thousands of miles?

Why would you change the chain when the chain and cassette wear together?

Why would you put a new chain on a worn cassette?

If you keep checking your chain and replace it after 0.75 and before it gets passed 1.0 then the cassette, chain rings and jockey wheels will accept this.

If you let it get passed this then it wears the teeth and that’s when they go pointed.

I usually use 2 chains and swop them over from time to time, usually 3 or 4 times . i personally find this means i get twice as long.

Once the chain gets too old I replace everything. I might replace them quicker than needed but I hate riding my bike and having a chain break on me. a broken chain can do a lot of damage to your bike or you could crack your bollocks on the stem!

Its a small price to pay!

That unimpressed by the drop in durability of these chains I have just ordered some KMC ones to try.

You know KMC make all the entry to mid-level shimano chains, right?

Ive yet to see a park gauge with the words”ok” printed it

How do you clean your chain ? Have you recently changed how you do this ?

Things I would like to see:

1. More chain checkers that measure wear properly, like this shimano one:

http://www.madison.co.uk/products/cycling/tools-maintenance-repair/chain-tools/tl-cn41-chain-length-checker/

2. A decent study on whether frequent chain-only swaps actually save you money – I’d love to believe it, but given a worn cassette wears a chain more quickly than a new one, it would seem to be a fictitous ‘free lunch’.

3. A decent study on how important chain cleaning and lubing is re. wear.

Currently none of us really KNOW about 2 and 3.

Or chains actually designed to last.

3. A decent study on how important chain cleaning and lubing is re. wear.

anecdotally, very important. SS commuter doesn’t get much tlc, wipe down and relube only, get quite a bit of chain wear and loads if it’s really wet/muddy and I’m a bit lax. During prolonged wet weather I had to readjust the hub in the dropouts once a week minimum to prevent dropping the chain on bumpy stuff (using chaintugs so confident it wasn’t the hub moving).

Stop measuring your chains!

Use them until you have an issue that’s not to do with the gear cable, then change the chain and the cassette together. The whole chain checker thing is just a way of selling you more stuff; no one bothered up till about 2 years ago and managed perfectly well.

I used to do this but my chainrings were ruined by using a stretched * chain so, instead of a simple cassette and chain replacement, I ended up changing the rings as well as they couldn’t take a new chain due to shark-finning. 🙄

I’m thinking that binning a chain earlier on might be cheaper than a chain, cassette plus chainrings?

A stretched chain doesn’t do your jockey wheels much good either?

* I know they don’t stretch before someone quotes Sheldon Brown again. 😆

Right, Ignoring some of the dafter comments I have taken the ‘stretched’ chain off the bike which has done 60-80 road miles and laid it out on kitchen roll on the dining room table alongside a brand new shimano hg73 (supplied in its original box with a pin) and a brand new KMC one.

Using a metre rule and two steel rules, have laid them out straight and parallel on the aformention table and lined them all up at one end with one ruler and at 1m the offending chain has ‘stretched 5.5mm.

You can actually feel excessive play between links on the dodgy chain and now it is clean there are a number of other noticeable things.

1) The genuine shimano chain has odd links spaced at random stamped ‘Japan’ on one end and ‘Shimano’ on the other rather than ‘Shimano’ and ‘CN-HG73’. The other ‘stretched’ chain only has links with ‘shimano’ and ‘CH HG73’ on them. The genuine chain had 10 ‘Japan’ links in it.

2) The pins in the chain links on the ‘fake’ chain have evidence of double stamping on the dimples where they have been rivetted and some of them are slightly off centre. This does not occur on the genuine item.

3) This is the big one, if you get your digi-caliper out and measure the width of the chain across a pin the fake is 6.6mm whereas the genuine item is 6.2mm. This is a big difference. The difference across the centre of the side plates is however smaller (6.7 vs 6.5) which is why the chain works ok on the rear cassette.

So irrespective of how you lube, how often you change the chain and whether you use a gauge or measure with a ruler or caliper there are fake shimano chains out there being sold by even some reputable online retailers and bike shops.

In short even if the chain comes in the correct looking box if it doesn’t have a shimano link pin in the box and comes with an unbranded quick link it is a fake.

If in doubt measure the width of the chain at a link and it should be about 6.2-6.25mm if it’s over 6.3mm its a fake.

Right, Ignoring some of the dafter comments

You mean ignoring the comments that don’t pay homage to your mechanical engineer status?

Chain checking and the subsequent replacement of perfectly good chains is a way to get you to buy more chains.

The drive chain wears together, and putting new chains on a part worn drive chain just wears the new chain faster for no user detectable benefit.

Chainrings don’t last forever; one season of racing used to kill chainrings, cassette and chain, but I’d get another year or two on a training bike without too much issue.

Oh, and it would seem that there are different chains out there…

How do you know its fake and not newer (different) stock?

Every link on the fake has the same stuff stamped on it i.e. just shimano and CNHG73. The real chain has some links with ‘Japan’ stamped on them plus the odd link with ‘VIA’ and some with a two letter code like ‘HH’ or ‘IJ’ on the examples I have.

Crikey, I’m just pointing out that there are definitely substandard probably ‘fake’ shimano chains out there that are a waste of time and money. These chains come with a cheap unbranded quick link rather than the usual shimano joining pin.

I couldn’t care less about status, I’m just pointing out what I have discovered after buying the duff things.

have checked and the duff chains were from pedalbits who trade on ebay – nuff said – lesson learned

You are aware that a hell of a lot of Japanese mechanics and electronics is now manufactured in China or elsewhere (even if Shimano made their own chains, which I doubt)?

This might explain the absence of the word ‘Japan’ on your new chain.

Shimano do make their own chains at the top end.

As Alb said, KMC make their low-mid end chains.
I was lucky enough to visit 2 of Shimano’s factories in Japan, one of which made chains amongst other parts.