[Closed] How long should a suspension fork last?

I'm still using a set of 2003 Boxxers, only had them since last July but still an old fork that's going well! The bushings did have to be glued back into place when I got it serviced though..

The repair estimate by MOJO is £341 which given that I only paid £300 in the sale renders them dead.

does it? how much is a like for like replacement?

I serviced them annualy

they have a 15 hr service interval iirc.

I serviced them annualy

you're doing it wrong!

read the flipping manual!

15 hr service interval?

I am shocked (no pun intended)

That is every other ride. I have some 2007 36 talas that are going strong and have only been serviced a couple of times.

2009 Totem never been serviced and feel as good as new.

With a quote like that I would just find some brand new second hand ones on this or a similar pink forum.

Got a set of 2003 Fox F800RLs that are currently being sold. Put new seals etc on them and they are still running strong. Paintwork is a little chipped but in general a sound fork.

two weeks minimum

Yep 15 hour service interval, so if you do a 24 hour race and break them, then you risk having your warranty refused as you should have stopped mid race to strip them down.........

That's why sensible people buy Rockshox.

I'm still using a set of Rockshox mag 21's from ~1993, for the age of the forks they still do what they did when brand new. They go up & down a bit.

Also running 2008 RS reba's, freshly serviced for possibly the 1st time in their life, silky smooth and no issues

I did run a set of Fox Float R130's for 3 years with no servicing & at the time the bike they were on was stolen they were still in perfect working order

yep, just dont buy Fox forks. Its very, very silly.

If you think that the extra perceived performance is worth it, then maybe you should just stump up around 800 notes every year or two.

Or, if you like riding your bike, dont believe the hype and just get out and ride.

Got a set of Marzocchi Z3 20mm thru axle from 2001. Had the first part of their life on a Kona Stinky 6 in Vancouver. From 2005 onwards they've had a significantly easier life with me. Cosmetically they have seen better days, functionally they are perfect.

15 hour service interval

What are they made of? Cheese? My Z3s have been serviced twice since I've had them.

I've not had a Fox fork fail and have kept them going for years - normally bought 2nd hand off classifieds, used for a few years and then sold on. I've had one set of stanchions replaced, but at £165 after about 5 years use, it was still better value than scrapping them.

The problem with Fox's is that the stanchions wear down just by the dust seal, so if you don't lift the seals you can't see the damage.

So if you have killed the stanchions but didn't notice it, save yourself some money and buy some cheaper forks as you will have been running with muddy oil for a while and didn't notice the damping performance drop off to that of £15 fork, on a supermarket bike.

It's not really a 15 hour service interval, its recommended 15 hours between giving them a proper clean and adding a bit of lube. Its no more difficult than cleaning and oiling a chain.

"Fox F800RLs"
I want to see some of those!

"Yep 15 hour service interval .. That's why sensible people buy Rockshox"
IIRC Rochshox lowers drop/service is only around 25/30hrs?
They also can have stantion wear problems. I think mine was due to a worn (to the metal) bushing on one side rather than more stantion anodising. Either way it leaks a fair bit of oil from just over 2yrs old

"Its no more difficult than cleaning and oiling a chain"
Apart from do it properly you need to take the lowers off the forks (which requires removing the front wheel, realistically the front brake caliper*/hose, then after dropping the lowers, cleaning, oiling, replacing/reseating foam rings/seals, refasten brake hose, *if post mount caliper reposition/reset brake caliper and replace front wheel. And to it properly you'll want to torque it all, qhich at least with rockshox warrants a long reach 10mm socket/or crows foot, which bot everybody has (yes, I realise the answer is buy one)

MArzocchi - 3 year warranty, no servicing.

Setting up a fork/shock service centre seems to be a licence to print money.

I helped Coogan change his seals once for some beer and a pizza, IIRC the usual charge was £40+.

I have 2002 FOX Vanilla RLC's on my winter bike and they are still going strong. I have not had them from new so dont know the full service history. Got them overhauled by MOJO recently as they had started to knock. They work like new now. I have always used fox on all my bikes and never had any problems. I've only ever serviced annually but clean & lube stanchions with silicone every ride. Most times my forks go through annual service with no faults found by MOJO so Im inclined to think the FOX service interval thing is a bit over the top. I cover a lot of training miles and have done mayhem for the last 2 years so the forks go through a fair bit of punishment.

when a timing belt on a car needs to be changed at 70k ish so you keep driving it or if the engine oil and fiter need changing every x miles do you keep driving it until the engine dies then complain to the manufacturer that the engine died?

its the same with forks follow the correct procedure and there won't be any problems.

According to the manual [url= http://www.foxracingshox.com/fox_tech_center/owners_manuals/011/index.html ]here, [/url]apart from a clean after every ride, servicing is not needed until 100hrs or annually.

The same manual also gives instructions for Seal Cleaning without having to dismantle the forks from the bike. Presumably this is optional/good practice as it's not listed in the service requirements.

So to follow the same analogy, you would be happy to service your car for every 15 hours of driving?

So to follow the same analogy, you would be happy to service your car for every 5 hours of driving?

pendant

+1 on fox being shite, i followed the instructions on servicing and there stil knackered. bike was in shop last week and the guy was amazed they still work, his words where "i'm surprised they havent killed you" 😀

they worked amazing on borrowdale over the weekend 😀 once i replace them i will post some pictures up and we can see who has worse forks.

i'm buying rockshox next.

So to follow the same analogy, you would be happy to service your car for every 15 hours of driving?

if it was a high performance off road race car this might be appropriate. If you want mondeo service intervals in a bike buy a hybrid not a suspended mountain bike. HTH

If you clean and lube the stanchions before and after every ride, Fox forks last for years. As for changing the seals and oil - £20 for the kit and about 15 mins effort - you don't even need to take them off the bike.

Frodo, you don't say what died? Is it the stanchions or the damping?
If you want to get rid of them for spares, let me know!

The old bombers on my girlfriends bike have done 8 years faultless service, four cannock chase winters and never seen so much as an oily rag. Still as smooth as the day they arrived from crc.

MSP - Member
It's not really a 15 hour service interval, its recommended 15 hours between giving them a proper clean and adding a bit of lube. Its no more difficult than cleaning and oiling a chain.

Yeah? Surely you don't mean just giving them a wipe and spraying some GT85 on them?

Perhaps you do - there's a little sticker on mine that tells me I'll get decapitated by the explosion if I start trying to fettle them...

it takes 10 minutes tops and all you need is a flat blade screwdriver and some lube (float fluid about £10 lasts years). place the screwdriver in the slots that have already been placed there for you then slowly leaver up seal then add lube to sponge rings and push the seals back down sorted. If you cant be bothered to do that you deserve for the forks to fail.

I have some 2007 36 talas that are going strong and have only been serviced a couple of times.

What this really means is:

'I have some 2007 36 talas that have degraded in condition and performance gradually so that I have not noticed. They've only been serviced a couple of times, so I've no idea how borked they are inside, but they still go up and down so they must be alright'.

cabbage, I followed that every 3 to 4 weeks and my forks are still knackered. All the wear happened out of sight, I only found the damage after I dropped the lowers to replace the seals. My advice would be to drop the lowers everytime now, it takes about 30 minutes.

F100RLTs here since '06 -

TFT service once, when they started rattling and spewing oil through the seals at the start of Bristol Bikefest 12hr solo,

DIY serviced again by me the other day - new seals, oil etc.

The uppers are still minty - no wear or scratches but I do clean and lube them after every ride.

Maybe I'm just lucky...

I have some 2005 fox 36 talas R's that *ARE* fine, they have been serviced 3 times in their entire life, and in between those services they saw no maintenance apart from to dribble some teflon libricant on the stanchions.

MOJO quoted the following repairs.

Crown Steerer
Lower TALAS assembly
Stanchions

They have been excellent forks but really your not going to have them serviced every 15hours (or even every 100 hrs - thats about every 3 months for me!) At £110 a service your better of running them into the ground!

They have been well looked after otherwise.

Frodo

the 15hrs is only a 30 minute thing anyways.

My fox 09 floats are on the way out, 3 winters of mud and grid has taken its toll, should have service them more than ones a year 🙁
Owell got some Lyrik now. Try and save these and stick them on my HT.

At £110 a service your better of running them into the ground!

the MANUAL shows you how to do it yourself. You really have no concept or understanding of how to look after anything

I've got some DTSwiss EXM 130 to replace them - they were going on my other bike but I think there the new TALAS. Long Live the DT Swiss!

At £110 a service your better of running them into the ground!

had 2002 vanillas from new still lovely,changed the oil annually cleaned them after every ride 😀

Bless me father for I have sinned. I have never serviced any of the forks I've owned - from the lowly Quadra 5 (1995 or there abouts) through to my current Foxes, all have been abused, neglected and generally left feeling unloved. I consider myself a bad, bad man and my head is hung in shame.

On the plus side I've saved myself a bloody fortune.

You could have saved yourself even more and just got some suntour forks, as they would work better than your never serviced foxes

Mind you, they wouldn't have had the right label 😉

You could have saved yourself even more and just got some suntour forks, as they would work better than your never serviced foxes

where's the facebook like button when you need it

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My experience of riding buddies who never service their fork, is that they just don't notice the gradual decrease in performance. I think what 99% of people need is something that prioritises low maintenance and reliablity over weight and performance, what they get sold/choose to buy is a high maintenance stiff lightweight fork with the bare minimum of oil and nothing to protect the stanchions.

You could have saved yourself even more and just got some suntour forks, as they would work better than your never serviced foxes

Mind you, they wouldn't have had the right label

Yeah, sorry I bought them before it was cool to not like them. It won't happen again. 8)

OK so which forks have the longest service interval?

15 hrs is just ridiculous even if it is only a 10 minute job.

High performance motorbike shocks (Ohlins) have a service interval of
Racing: Every 10-20 hours of operation.
Regular street use: Every 30000 km - which would make them a service free item on a 'normal' mtb

Can anyone explain this huge disparity?

Don't think I'll be buying fox next time. I don't mind paying a bit more for performance (and I like the way they perform more than anything else I've tried) but the service intervals and warranty from mojo makes them a bit of a dumb buy. There's more choice nowadays and fox don't seem to have noticed.
Whoever made the sun tour comment has obviously never used either mind you.

"Crown Steerer
Lower TALAS assembly
Stanchions"
I thought the CSU was one piece (comprising steerer, crown and stantions)
Either way how do you knacker the crown or steerer? Cable rub on the crown? Crash into something and your wheel doesnt give? You need to change the steerer standard?

"the rear shock which you cannot do yourself"
You can do at least the air sleeve/shaft/main seals yourself
With Rockshox you CAN service it all yourself, or at least the manual for my monarch appears to include everything (Ive yet to do so). It suggests using air instead of nitorgen if you dont happen to have the correct nitrogen filling equipment ..

"which forks have the longest service interval"
Maybe* shimano, bontrager, kona, salsa, on-one, niner, exotic, superstar, nukeproof, etc etc ..
Or did you mean suspension forks?
Marzocchi 3 year interval?

*guessing carbon rigid forks probably want inspecting all the time? though technically Id guess you're supposed to inpect all of your bike?

"15 hrs is just ridiculous even if it is only a 10 minute job.
High performance motorbike shocks (Ohlins) have a service interval of
Racing: Every 10-20 hours of operation"
eh?
if you're going to equate things, then regular street use would be like road commuting on a MTB?

I tried lifting the seals, but they wouldn't budge and I scratched the stanchion by accident.

I tried getting the lowers off but they would not release no matter how hard I whacked the nut

This is why I don't service my forks - it's too difficult.

And I wont buy Fox again. I only have these because they came on the bike, and they track very nicely, if a bit wibbly feeling. So they will soon be totally worn out (already weeping oil a bit) and I can look forward to getting some RS or Zochis

Nicknoxx - Member
High performance motorbike shocks (Ohlins) have a service interval of
Racing: Every 10-20 hours of operation.
Regular street use: Every 30000 km - which would make them a service free item on a 'normal' mtb
Can anyone explain this huge disparity?

I would expect even a Fox fork would last 30000km of street use, between services, however I like to ride my bike on dust mud sand gravel rocks so I have a pair of 2002 Marzocchi Bomber Z1s.