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Bought a Reverb in Dec 2012. Brilliant bit of kit. Except they keep going spongey. I'm about to send the 3rd one off for warranty replacement - I've had that since late May this year. They seem to last me between 6 & 9 months before starting to fail.
To be fair Merlin & SRAM have been great, no quibbles, just a brand new post each time, but obviously, I'm now going to be on my own now my warranty has expired.
My other half has one too - hers is 6 months newer, but has been replaced once, and is starting to go bouncy again too. Whilst I'm aware that there are other Reverb failures out there, it doesn't seem to be endemic, or I would have thought I'd have heard a LOT more about it...
I'm pretty carreful not to pick the bike up by the saddle with the post down. Otherwise - not sure what else I can be doing!
Spongey? Topping up the air and/or bleeding has always cured any silly behaviour from my reverb.
Have you bled it?
Had one of the first mk1 Reverbs which was known to have problems. When it started playing up Fishers swapped it out no problem andboth that one & the 2nd one I bought for the HT have worked faultlessly.
They've never needed bleeding, except for a cockup I made shortening a hose and when I tore a hose out on a trail stack, but I still give them a flush through very occasionally and they're running fine.
I did have to put a bit of air into one of them once but its not a regular thing by any stretch.
How regularly do you use the post the way it was intended? I do wonder sometimes whether some of the problems I see reported are from lack of use, i.e. lack of regular cycling of the post up & down.
I would argue that if it's the same fault time and again then even if 12 months (or whatever the number) has passed you are still under warranty as this is the still the same issue that you reported to them within the warranty period which has not been acceptably rectified.
I would argue that if it's the same fault time and again then even if 12 months (or whatever the number) has passed you are still under warranty as this is the still the same issue that you reported to them within the warranty period which has not been acceptably rectified.
Yeah this. The warranty applies for defects discovered within the warranty period and if they have failed to remedy these then you are at liberty to claim even if it's more than 2 years from the date of purchase. However, most bike warranties are done on a goodwill basis to maintain the reputation of the brand so it's up to them if they honour it I'd have thought.
Sounds like you're either very unlucky or you're doing something wrong though. Are we talking about significant sponginess? Or just a couple of millimeters that has no functional bearing but irritates you?
I'm probably tempting fate, but my Reverb has been solid since I bought it sh in early 2013..
I've replaced the hose to lengthen it, at that point it got bled and I put some air in it. That was last summer.
If only they came in 27.2 also...
Bleeding only affects the actuation process, not the actual stability of the post. Air pressure I check if the post comes out the frame for whatever reason. It's usually around 200psi rather than 250, but that could just be the drop caused by the air in the post filling the shock pump gauge.
Its the same fault every time - its starts behaving like a suspension s/post, and as mentioned in the SRAM tech vid for how to service the post, its a warranty issue.
The post definitely gets used as intended - I have it up and down like a tarts knickers.
The first time it went, I left it for quite some time before sending it back, had maybe 15mm of bounce in it. The second time was less than that, but I was about to go on holiday to teh Alps, so didn't want it being less than perfect. This time it's only got about 1/4" of sog, but if I leave it any longer it'll be out of warranty.
(1/4" doesn't sound much, but it's enough that I notice that something's not quite right when I'm climbing hard)
You sit on it and it sinks? With no weight on it it returns to full height? Mine was doing that a few weeks back and a bleed sorted it.
TF Tuned put out a Reverb troubleshooting guide a few weeks back in their email update, might be worth seeing if you can find that (I've deleted it)