It's still crash damage no matter how you look at it so you will have to start saving.
Life can some times seem a bit unfair, but there you go.
Hope my advice will help you move on 🙂
Just don't buy the carbon Demo 8. £10K is what I heard so god knows what they'll be charging for a new swing arm 🙂
As a bit of support, first time out on my new CRF I had a low speed fall against an embankment, it broke the radiator, I dont have any come back as I was racing and it wasnt a manufacturing fault. £300 bill.
You have to sit back and say if I hadnt crashed it wouldnt have broken.
Now I know your fuming because you think it should be able to withstand more abuse, but now and again you crash in a certain way to break the frame when 99% of the time it wouldnt leave a scratch.
I guess you were unlucky.
Or, like you said earlier, just don't tell them what you were doing when it broke. "I was just riding along a canal towpath on my way to the shops when my front wheel taco'd, the forks bent backwards, and the frame broke in half."
i trashed a Scott Scale frame and a front wheel in a comedy slippy-slide down a muddy hill in Essex. not a rock in sight.
ended up massively denting the top tube and tacho-ing the front wheel.
nothing covered by the warrenty. so i bought a new frame (a steel one).
<possibly borderline trollish, this>
I'd agree it's not a warranty job, if it wasn't a Yeti. But they're the undisputed champions of broken carbon swingarms, and so I'd be less inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
It's not a warranty issue but to my mind it is probably a 'not fit for purpose' issue.
I really wanted an ASR5 but was put off by the breakages. I wouldn't buy a Yeti as they seem to break far far to frequently for a premium frame.
Surely moutain bikes are mean't to withstand crashes? I crash probably once every 3-4 rides, if my bikes broke every time I crashed I'd be broke!! Gonna keep riding the Heckler complete with all it's crash scrapes amd scratches!
I agree, technically it's not warranty and although I understand the OP's frustration for all SF know he could be trying it on, have ridden the bike loads, and hit a rock at 25mph. Shame they couldn't reach an agreeable compromise as this thread won't do much for Yeti's reputation.
for all SF know he could be trying it on, have ridden the bike loads
There was a witness (3 actually) Rossendale Mountain Rescue were at the Weekender and it happened right next to them (thanks again for patching my knee up guys)
Ride-On (a Yeti dealer) were there so they were my first stop after I found the damage, showed it to them and asked if I could borrow a demo bike for the event, return it in the evening for demoing purposes and then borrow again for the Sunday event. They had to ring head office to check this, so I continued my wander around the pits and found the lovely chaps at Cotic who helped out. After the event I went back to Ride-On to discuss what to do, offered to show them where it happened and introduce them to the people who saw me do it, thinking it would make a warranty claim easier if a dealer had all the info SF could verify it easier, but they just said to ring SF.
Northwind and neninja seem to be going down my line of thinking, ie. Yeti frames do break a lot so it is more likely to be a design fault than just a 'one of those things' crash.
I've emailed Yeti themselves, bypassing SF altogether, maybe they'll be nice helpful people, I'll let you all know.
nacho - Member
Surely moutain bikes are mean't to withstand crashes? I crash probably once every 3-4 rides, if my bikes broke every time I crashed I'd be broke!! Gonna keep riding the Heckler complete with all it's crash scrapes amd scratches!
I agree, technically it's not warranty and although I understand the OP's frustration for all SF know he could be trying it on, have ridden the bike loads, and hit a rock at 25mph. Shame they couldn't reach an agreeable compromise as this thread won't do much for Yeti's reputation.
Agree wi this.
"Expensive bike owner in expensive repairs shocker"
Perhaps the OP needs one of these? Heard they are quite indestructable...
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Northwind and neninja seem to be going down my line of thinking, ie. Yeti frames do break a lot so it is more likely to be a design fault than just a 'one of those things' crash.
I agreed with this umpteen posts ago which is why I suggested/hoped that they might be generous with goodwill/crash replacement at cost. Which sure as hell wasn't £500 (and which they subsequently admitted to you).
I didn't bother reading through the whole thread, just the OP.
Its your fault.
I can't afford £331 either (just becasue I have a bike worth £lots doesn't mean I'm wealthy, quite the opposite in fact, I've blown all my money on a rather expensive bike.[/quoteI always enjoy an all eggs in one basket approach, good man.
I wonder how many Yeti frames actually break to constitute the conclusion in this thread that it's a lot? I broke my first 5 Spot and have just found a crack in my DW 5 Spot. On the basis of that unrepresentative sample, I might conclude that all 5 Spots break. If they did though, I very much doubt Turner would remain in business. 😀
While it may seem galling that what the OP considered to be a minor incident has broken his swingarm, hoping that Silverfish and Yeti will treat it as a warranty is perhaps a bit fanciful. It sounds like Silverfish have come through with a good offer of a replacement rear end at a fair price.
As for hoping Ride On would lend the OP a demo nike to race on for the weekend, I don't see why they should. Demos are for folk to try before they buy. They're not there to act as an insurance policy for you if you break your frame.
This might seem a bit harsh but at the end of the day, the OP is relying on the goodwill of Silverfish and Yeti to help him out. Posting on a forum in a manner that might be viewed as painting Silverfish in a bad light is probably not the best way to get things resolved.
I've always found the guys at Silverfish really good to deal with.
Good luck to the OP with the guys at Yeti. He might get lucky and be given a new swingarm. Who knows?
Right - before I start I'm putting this out there now. I dont work in the Silverfish warranty department and I've been out of the office for 2.5 of the last 3 weeks so I'm unable to comment on the particulars of this individual case I'm afraid.
What I can tell you though is that £500 is the cost price to us on a carbon rear swing arm. Bear in mind included in that cost is the expense of the part, the interntional shipping, the duty and the VAT.
As a complete ASR carbon frame retails at £2300 I really don't think that's too unreasonable.
If you've received any price below £500 that is purely as a goodwill gesture from Silverfish to you, personally. As the price is £500 we would've hoped for a little discretion and to not have this price splattered all over the net but never mind eh.
My second point is that I'm afraid I can't help but be somewhat frustrated by your attitude to this new price. We've made a goodwill gesture, offered a cheaper price at our expense and yet thats manipulated to still make us the bad guys? Would it better for you if we withdraw the offer and stick to the original price perhaps?
I really am sorry to hear of the damage to your frame and i understand how frustrating it can be but however you look at it it is crash damage and warranties do not cover this, we're happy to assist where we can but we can't ignore policy.
Well said Richie.
Some people are never happy.
It might not be a 'policy' warranty claim but Yeti clearly have major issues with their swing arm design. It might be the OP's fault in toppling over but I'd expect a swingarm to survive a non-contact fall from stationary.
You only have to take a quick look on mtbr to see how many people are suffering multiple Yeti swingarm breakages to doubt their structural integrity.
Here's a few choice comments from MTBR -
The rear triangle is junk. My swing arm has broke three times within 6 months.
Rear Triangle is garbage. On third one in 6 months. Went through 2 in first 2 rides. Tough to stomach after dropping $4K.
2 RIDES, 2 Broken rear triangles = JUNK. Apparently this was a known prototype issue and Yeti still allowed it to hit production. The third has lasted 5 months, but now I'm paranoid to even ride the bike.
Day one: First ride, terrain fairly normal for Tahoe...crack
Fast forward a little over a year: Crack. Same exact thing. Again, new swing arm and back riding in a week. Supposedly with a 2012 swing arm.
Five months later: You guessed it. Here we go again.
The swing arm that originally came on my 2010 Yeti ASR-5 Carbon bike cracked after only 10 rides!!! I was really dismayed that my (replacement) swing arm cracked so easily and can't help but wonder why Yeti didn't manufacture a better product, especially considering the fact that they are a high end bike company.
In 18 months the frame has failed 3 times. I have failed a "2nd gen" swingarm now also. 18 months owned, 6 months no bike due to brakeages. This is simply 100% BS. I ride flat fairly untechnical trails in Australia, and I make sure I don't send it due to fragile nature. I don't crash. It is not the rider. This will be my first and last Yeti.
With less than 10hrs of ridding the rear chainstay snapped! Carbon Fiber garbage. The first time I had it on a actual trail it snapped.
Drive-side carbon seatstay crumpled.
Carbon rear triangle--crack in seat stay without any known trauma.
Carbon rear end - a load of rubbish... I have never had issues with a bike before.. the rear folded on both sides of the chain stay and non stay side.
Rear carbon chain stay failed completely. Both chain stays snapped completely in half unexpectedly while riding down a straight section of a fire road. This caused the upper seat stays to fracture as well.
I have just returned my Yeti ASR5 the pivot point sleeves have broken, lucky I wasnt injured, my local dealer has returned 60% of these bikes that have been sold this year. (2010)
I have two guys i ride with that have both had the chainstays break.One guys on his third.
My LBS advised me that Yeti had said there was a manufacturing fault with the swingarms, but my view is that they are simply too lightly built. You can depress the carbon on the swingarm with your thumb!
Bought a 2009 ASR-5 in May 2010. The swing arm has broken three times. The second time it broke Yeti replaced it with what that said was "a new and improved carbon" yet three months later the chain stay has broken.
Yeti was easy to deal with the first two times my swingarm broke but that is not the issue. The problem is I've had my ASR5 nine months and the bike frame has broken three times.
About 2 mins. into the descent on fairly smooth fairly mellow grade I here nasty noises. Bang, snap, crack !
OP - take the replacement at £331, fit it, sell it, ditch the Yeti brand for good and buy from a British brand - Cotic Rocket perhaps...They did help you out after the plastic 'Dream-Machine' failed you after all. 🙂
ritchie, not kicking you as Ive always appreciated your posting here and you do silverfish proud, and most of the posters agree there is no warranty claim but
What I can tell you though is that £500 is the cost price to us on a carbon rear swing arm. Bear in mind included in that cost is the expense of the part, the interntional shipping, the duty and the VAT.
As a complete ASR carbon frame retails at £2300 I really don't think that's too unreasonable.
two questions/points:
Does cost price "to you" include VAT? Ive bought stuff from a supplier at trade deal ie. cost + VAT, so youre saying VAT is paid by you and then paid again by the final retail buyer?
The ASR7 was a £2K retail frame and Evolution were dumping old stock at ~£800, I assume around the time they stopped being the importer. I also assume they werent losing money on these. So without going into confidential commercial stuff too deeply, are you saying that carbon frames are markedly more expensive all the way through the chain? I was extremely sceptical that £500 was cost on a (carbon) swing arm when an entire (alloy) frame with shock could be sold for £800, regardless of rrp.
I wonder how many Yeti frames actually break.... I very much doubt Turner would remain in business.
Sanny,
the answers are
1) sufficiently many for Yeti to change the design and
2) plenty of posters on here have had 5spots snap (I believe around '09 was a bad year?) but all seemed to have very positive warranty/support experiences, to the point people were suggesting buying one of the massively reduced old stock frames as when it snapped youd get the newer better frame as a replacement. That sort of service breeds a reputation and brand loyalty, which keeps companies in business.
That's quite an assumption...crashtestmonkey - Member - Quote
The ASR7 was a £2K retail frame and Evolution were dumping old stock at ~£800, I assume around the time they stopped being the importer. I also assume they werent losing money on these.
Good on you for posting. Hopefully folk won't be buying those particular heaps of crap so much in the future....so they've sown and they will reap.
Blimey! Think i'll stick to Specialized. My 01 FSR (a xc bike with <90mm travel) survived two trips to Spain in the twilight years of it's life and was repeatedly dropped & crashed onto pointy rocks & stuff. Also took a drop of about 10' without me on it onto the trail below....
My 2010 FSR had some flaky paint after 6 months & Spesh replaced it with the carbon version for £50 (as they had no alu frames left in stock) with an upgrade to the Brain shock...
The ASR7 was a £2K retail frame and Evolution were dumping old stock at ~£800, I assume around the time they stopped being the importer. I also assume they werent losing money on these.
If any importer could sell a product with that profit margin, no way would they drop it.
You are dreaming, sorry.
cynic-al - Member
The ASR7 was a £2K retail frame and Evolution were dumping old stock at ~£800, I assume around the time they stopped being the importer. I also assume they werent losing money on these.
If any importer could sell a product with that profit margin, no way would they drop it.You are dreaming, sorry.
Waaaay off topic ➡
Jeez, you still following me around?
How is it off topic?
Back on topic.
OP, are you sure dropping the bike caused the damage, or is that just the point at which you checked it. Plausibly the swingarm may have cracked earlier?
... andvto re-iterat my earlier post the law provides that products are fit for puropse, if they are not then you are due a replacement or refund. Warranties are simply a way that all manufacturers of all goods avoid lots of legal unpleasantness and expenses of court proceedings, and to be fair to build brand goodwill.
It matters not one iota what a bike manu specificies in their warranty, if they say that the bike has a 30 minute service interval abnd is not covered if it goes out in the rain then that is simply the limit it too which they will provide a quibble free replacement. This has no impact on your rights under uk law to be sold fit goods.
The question then is what is fit for purpose for a mountain bike. Certainly some degree of rough treatment, the booklets that came with our trek, 'dale and specialized set out those manufactorers' viewd and this seems to support the point. Clearly there is a limit, no-one would reasonably expect to turn up at their LBS with a bike they had pretzeled around a tree at 30mph and claim unfit fir purpose, but there is a scale on which the balance must tip.
I also take the point aboit lightweight and carbon frames and expectations of resilience that need to be considered - although when I was recently looking for a new bike the bike shop guys seemed pretty much of a single voice about how strong carbon is.
Finally, I think that the fact the bike was three years old, albiet hardly used, further clouds this specific case.
Anyway, thats my tuppence worth, take it as it given as the personal view of somoeone slightly drunk and vey excited at being at the Olympics...
... ps I'm not a lawyer and you should get some professional advice if you think its worth following up or try to make any case ... always be wary of 'helpful' but amateur views on forums...