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Appreciate this might be a simple question to some. Just bought some Avid brakes from CRC, front and rear. The rear one has come in a box as I would expect to find it in the shop. The front one is just in a polythene bag taped up. The contents appear the same apart from the boxed one has a Torx key in with it. Is the front one likely to be OEM? (It isn't advertised as such on the website). If so, will there be any difference, I know there can be with forks sometimes? If there's no difference I'm not really bothered, if there is it seems a bit cheeky of them.
no knowledge of CRC but a lot of Merlin stuff that people claim is OEM is identical. Big shops that build bikes get them in bags of a 100 and dont need the boxes. You will probably just have one of them.
Forks are the only produce I am aware of so called OEM but I thought that was caused by them making forks for specfic bikes. IIRC there is a set of Pikes with no motion control from a Spesh ??? but it has different number.
I've had bargain brakes from merlin (juicy 5 and k24) and crc (old saint) and they have all been bagged not boxed. All have worked faultlessly, and come with pad spacers and proper instructions. The saints even came with spare olives and barbs to shorten the 'will definitely fit your bike' long hoses. Only thing to be aware of (and they should tell you in the blurb) is if they come with shorther hoses or no rotors/mounts. Then they are not such a bargain if you have to buy extra bits...
[url= http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Merlin-Cycles-Ltd/OEM-Explained.html_ ]merlin oem explained[/url]
^ That says it all. well almost. any bike part can be oem. example- a bike manufacturer is building say, 500 bikes, they have 500 sets of components for those bikes but find that 100 frames are faulty. they have 100 sets of components surplus. they then sell those parts onto a retailer who gets them cheaper than normal and then passes the saving onto us. 🙂 result for us i say. the only parts that are likely to be different are forks as you said which may have the steeper cut and sometimes a starnut installed but also brakes may have the hoses shortened to suit the bike they were destined for. no worries on quality tho, as the merlin link said, it's not in any companys interest to make the same model but of lesser quality
Thanks.
I guess it's fine then. All the parts are present (rotors, bolts etc.) and I cannot see any difference.