Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)
  • Superstar Components Satisfaction or not?
  • dangerousdonald
    Free Member

    After a not very pleasant 3yr relationship with good grips, fast wearing brake pads and nightmare rear hub woes. I think superstar customer satisfaction still has a long way to go! But on the plus side the customer service seems to be getting better! I’ve had almost every email responded to within the day!

    Im now on my 4th tesla rear hub. The third gave up a year outside of the original 2 year warranty at 22 months of age!

    My problem lies within superstars offer of replacement of a like for like rear hub at no labour cost or 15% off a new wheelset! When all i want is an ampicable divorce from them and at least half my money back! In my view the product has never been fit for purpose!

    Can anyone shed any light on consumer rights?

    And if you’ve tasted the customer service how was your experience?

    munrobiker
    Free Member

    Awful.

    samcuk87
    Free Member

    My brother had 2 tesla hubs fail within 6 months. He sent them back as not fit for purpose and got a refund.

    Mine gave up after 3 month so I did exactly the same thing! I did order another wheelset from them though (DT Swiss 350 hubs this time)

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    _tom_
    Free Member

    Everything I’ve used from them has been fine. I didn’t have my wheelset for long though. Pads, grips and headset I have no complaints.

    nedrapier
    Full Member

    only ever bought pads, discs and chainrings. Oh, and pedals.

    Not had any problems.

    They wouldn’t be first on the list of for hubs. But that’s because the list is quite long, and starts with the likes of DT, Hope, AC, Hadley, Goldtec, etc

    mattbee
    Full Member

    I’ve had 5 sets of wheel, assorted seat posts and chai rings and loads of different brake pads from them over the years.
    The only thin I have ever had a problem with was a set of delaminating pads which they replaced with no hassle.
    Doesn’t help you any I’m afraid but either I’m lucky or you’re unlucky, not sure which…

    amedias
    Free Member

    And if you’ve tasted the customer service how was your experience?

    be prepared for equally polarising responses on that one, a lot of people are holding grudges on here against them.

    My problem lies within superstars offer of replacement of a like for like rear hub at no labour cost or 15% off a new wheelset! When all i want is an ampicable divorce from them and at least half my money back! In my view the product has never been fit for purpose!

    OK, so without going into the details, you’ve clearly had some bad luck* with them to go through that many hubs, but it sounds like they’ve been replacing them, and even outside of warranty? So sounds like you’ve actually been getting OK after-sales care even if you’re not happy with the product.

    Given that the fit for purpose argument may be a hard one for you to win, as I’m sure SS have many hundreds/thousands of units sold they will be able to make a convincing** case aginst your claim, why not just take the replacement hub, sell it/wheel, walk away, and be happy?

    * for want of a better word, clearly there’s something more going on here, either the hub is fundamentally flawed or something about your treatment of it is, but that’s a topic for another day and I’m not making claims either way.

    ** convincing does not necessarily = true …

    jonba
    Free Member

    Had wheels and headset on my commuter for 3 years and they are fine.

    Pedals were ok – as good as any others. Pads are fine.

    retrobri
    Free Member

    All fine and still going strong

    Wheels, chainring, grips

    nickc
    Full Member

    well, my Tesla have worked well on two rims so far, so I guess you’ve been unlucky. (or I’ve been lucky)

    maybe it’s time to just walk away?

    devash
    Free Member

    Spoke tension on my Pacenti / SS Switch Ultra front wheel isn’t great and needs the occasional tweak but the rear has been fine. Can’t complain for £135 for the two wheels delivered though. The pedals I bought for my girlfriend two years ago have been faultless.

    Scienceofficer
    Free Member

    The Tesla hub looks like a Chinese pattern part. I’m pretty sure that maxlight used it in their 29er wheel set, as have nukeproof for various things, both of whose pawls and freehub bodies look identical.

    I alternately striped the teeth off the free hub, had it replaced under warranty, only for a combined free-hub and pawl teeth failure. I sourced replacements myself after maxlight (or their distributor) shrugged their shoulders and said they didn’t have any more in stock, and the replacements failed in the same way too. At that point, I called it quits, sourced a hub from the classifieds and re-built the wheel. It was fine after that. There’s clearly something wrong with the design. If you read around there are loads of failures.

    globalti
    Free Member

    We’ve had two sets of road wheels, only cost £195 and sadly both proved that it’s true that you can have strong – cheap – light but only two of those at once. The rims were thin and bent easily and the spokes rusted to the nipples meaning they couldn’t be trued.

    colournoise
    Full Member

    Use Superstar for pads, grips and wheels (3 sets). Only issue I’ve ever had (I always check and adjust tension on new wheels from them before using) is with my Tesla rear hub exploding after only 6 months of use. I had it laying around unused for 18 months and when I contacted Superstar I only had 2 days left on the warranty. There was no quibbling from them and they rebuilt the wheel on a Tesla Evo no charge, no questions asked. So in my personal experience their customer service has been good.

    Kbrembo
    Free Member

    Hope hub split in half last week..superstar hub going strong….

    Mind you hope replaced it no problem and no cost

    Northwind
    Full Member

    I’ve used them a lot but I do always go into it wary tbh. I like the pads, I use them through choice not because they’re cheap. The wheels, I thought well, I can’t actually buy these parts for this price so I can count it as a really well packaged build kit at worst, that worked out pretty well (I’ve had 4 SS wheels, 2 of them have been well made, one was adequate, one had the most random spoke tension I’ve ever seen and soon fell apart; to be fair, I didn’t take them up on the retension offer, maybe they would have put it right.

    I’ve had some bullshit from them too mind- I got an early KS, it never worked properly, they told me to service it, I did, it was completely unchanged, I sent it back, they said I’d caused the problem by servicing it. Apparently my grease travelled through time.

    steezysix
    Free Member

    Had a bunch of stuff from them, no complaints (although I found the Kevlar pads wore down quicker than expected). Three sets of wheels with Switch hubs have been faultless, seems the Teslas cause a lot of problems…

    sideshow
    Free Member

    Long time sasfied user of their sintered pads (don’t get the organic they wear too fast)

    Not so satisfied user of the grips, they do seem to wear fast.

    Never dared buy a hub from them and probably never will.

    nairnster
    Free Member

    Chainrings, grips, two different sets of wheels – absolutely no problems in any area.

    Recrnt wheels were meant to be flow ex on Switch hubs, stock was delayed, and they kept me up to date every step of the way. Great IMO.

    amedias
    Free Member

    The rims were thin and bent easily and the spokes rusted to the nipples meaning they couldn’t be trued.

    That’s a bit odd, all the SS wheels I’ve ever seen have used Sapim spokes, which are decent quality and unlikely to suffer rust under normal conditions, and Sapim nipples are normally decent brass ones too and never had an issue with them in the last 20 years.

    So far I’ve found their own brand ‘elite’ road rims (appear to be rebanded Kinlins) to be OK too, what wheelset was it you had issues with? (so I can keep an eye out for them coming though the workshop)

    The builds have been variable from decent to erm, less than decent, but the components have always been ok, especially considering a lot of them (sapim spokes, mavic/stans/dt/alex rims, brand name and rebranded novatec hubs etc) are decent parts the same as you’d get elsewhere

    superfli
    Free Member

    No problems from them, and good comms when needed. 3 sets of wheels (hubs from first set passed down and still used), many pads, chainrings, pedals. Great people imo

    cakefacesmallblock
    Full Member

    I’ve used their grips and brake pads ( both sintered and Kevlar ) with no issues.
    Had a seatpost which was ‘anodised’ with children’s paint, by the looks.
    Two pairs of pedals for bikes I’ve built for others which are working fine.
    A set of chainring for a triple, which wore quickly.
    Most of what I’ve bought, was when cash was really an issue, so, the good things were a bonus and the less so, well, just chalked up to being cheap.
    Mixed feelings really, but never had to return anything or had the issues which some speak of.

    dangerousdonald
    Free Member

    Amedias No problems at all with the quality of the Sapim cx ray spokes, alloy nipples or mavic en521 rims (they’ve took everything iv thrown at them)! The front hub bearings have lasted 3years and this is the first time the spokes need to be tensioned l!
    I honestly must say if i were to buy a new wheelset i would buy from superstar again, the build quality has been phenomenal! That said id be running there dt swiss hub options and with the 15% off, this set would work out around £430 compared to the original £360.
    I just wish id read this thread 3yrs ago!
    My biggest gripe with any component that fails is the time spent off the bike!

    amedias
    Free Member

    ^ well thats why I was asking Globalti, it would be really odd if he had a wheelset with Sapim spokes rusting up under normal use, which is why I was wondering if he had some specific model wheelset form them using different components

    tomaso
    Free Member

    Use their brake pads as they are as good as anything else and cheaper. There bearing tools are very useful and do what they should. Got some cheap road wheels with their hubs, said spokes and Pacenti rims for £150 – very nice wheels, true with good tension.

    Never had call to ring customer service.

    russyh
    Free Member

    I have ordered loads from them over the years. I have had wheels lose tension, which took me 15 minutes to fix. A bearing extractor fall to bits, replaced by them albeit questioning my usage. Brake pads that lasted 2 rides. All in all given the amount i have used them I have been really happy. I expect things to go wrong, its life. Its how you handle the problems that make you a good ro bad company. So far I have been really happy. That said I wouldn’t bother with their Kevlar pads again, but accept it may be my usage.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    I say this quite often, but one thing that I think causes problems with the kevlars is bedding in. Because most pads are just crap til you bed them in, so you go and do hard stops or whatever til they work and it’s fine. But kevlar work well and give good power right from the packet so maybe you don’t bother bedding them in, or you do just a couple of hard stops and call it good. But they actually want just as much bedding in as anything else, otherwise they can wear very fast. It’s the same with some other pads but with SS kevlar it’s a fairly big deal IMO.

    Scienceofficer
    Free Member

    Like Northwind, I like superstar pads. I don’t use anything else. Completely agree about bedding in kevlars.

    spawnofyorkshire
    Full Member

    Useful advice on the Kevlar pads, thanks Northwind.

    I’ve never had less than stellar service from superstar. Used them for grips, pads, discs, finishing kit and a set of Tactic rims on switch ultra hubs.
    Wheels need a true but that’s after a fair bit of use, mainly over rocky bumpy things and i’m a pretty unsympathetic rider

    I find it pretty funny how people seem to have higher expectations for SS kit and then almost will it to fail. My wheels were less than £200, i don’t expect them to perform as well as Stans on Pro2 and they cost a hell of a lot less

    globalti
    Free Member

    what wheelset was it you had issues with? (so I can keep an eye out for them coming though the workshop)

    The wheels were Pavé 28s, my son bent two rims in relatively gentle bumps and SS rebuilt them well, even fitting new spokes. My cycling buddy bought the same wheels and admittedly is a bad neglector of his bike, which he rides in all conditions including salted roads, so I wasn’t surprised to find about 20% of the spoke nipples rusted when I tried to true them for him.

    fisherboy
    Free Member

    Purchased lots of stuff over the years, pads, expander rings, chain rings, wheels, stems. everything has performed perfectly. tbh i think they need to be praised for bringing usable products to market that are priced correctly.

    amedias
    Free Member

    The wheels were Pavé 28s

    ta, not used those rims myself or seen many around but will keep an eye out for any coming through.

    My cycling buddy bought the same wheels and admittedly is a bad neglector of his bike, which he rides in all conditions including salted roads, so I wasn’t surprised to find about 20% of the spoke nipples rusted when I tried to true them for him

    Well that hardly seems fair to lay the blame on SS then. It’s not like Sapim spokes are rust prone, they’re decent stainless spokes (not even a Superstar part really!), it still sounds a bit odd either way, brass nipples won’t rust, neither will Alu ones, but Alu do corrode badly in salty road conditions, but that’s the price you pay for the tiny weight saving, and part for the reason they’re not a good choice for foul weather wheels unless you’re going to look after them properly, a lot of other branded wheels that use Alu nips suffer the same fate, routinely end up rebuilding them with brass when that happens.

    russyh
    Free Member

    Thats an interesting point on bedding the pads in. Something i must confess to not doing. I also have to confess to using said pads in the winter, a winter thats been one of the mildest and wettest on record so hardly surprising. However for contrast the original Shimano pads I swapped back to after my second set of SS were nuked lasted brilliantly, in fact they still had over 50% life left in them when I sold the bike. Its fair to say they are a different compound, so maybe I’m being a little unfair. But like I say, I really rate SS and most of their products.

    kayla1
    Free Member

    I’ve stopped using them since they stopped accepting paypal as a way of paying, mainly because I’m too lazy to go downstairs for my bank card but also it’d be a PITA to get a refund without opening a PP dispute if owt went wrong (I don’t do credit cards). That said, we’ve got Superstar wheels (switch hubs) and NW chainrings on our bikes and other little bits and bobs and they’re fine. Shame about the PP thing though 😕

    warpcow
    Free Member

    I’ve been pretty satisfied with 3 sets of wheels and various smaller items through the years. Long ago (about 5yrs ago) I had a similar problem to Northwind with a wheelset that seemed to have been finished by a drunken jellyfish, but it was fine after I gave it 15mins with a spoke-key (they did offer to redo it but I couldn’t be bothered with the faff or cost of returning the wheels from Sweden).

    Hob-Nob
    Free Member

    I’ve only ever tried their pads, which I’ve found to be just as crap as any other of the cheap pad producers out there.

    They are all noisy, and the wear rate is astronomical in comparison to proper OE stuff (sintered), the only non OE pads that are as good are Goodridge IMO.

    Complete false economy buying the cheap padS for me.

Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)

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