Used to get forks serviced at least every other if not every year . Then I thought I would try the if it ain't broke don't fix it strategy . I figured that the money saved on servicing could go towards new stuff especially as technology is changing more than ever and a 5 year old pair of regularly serviced forks will be out of date ( well I was right about the Hummer anyway ! )
I thought with rear shocks it would be even more relevant , how wrong I was ! 18 month old bike , Monarch has picked up little nicks on the shaft , something must have got passed the seal upshot bolloxed Air Can and new shock time 🙁
I still wonder though if I'd taken the Air Can off 3 or 4 times and had a full service after 12 months would the end result have been any different? Guess I'll never know . Why though can't rufty tufty mountain bikes stand up to a wet winter without being mollycoddled ? After all it gets cleaned after every ride ( not with a power washer ! ) . This on top of all new frame bearings . Bikes ridden on average once a week , I'm not impressed but apparently " that's mountain biking " Hardtail for me next winter methinks 🙁
Got me wondering about my Reba's ( 2 years since serviced and repaired under warranty and Revs on bike I'm whining about )
would you buy a car and not service it?
Zesty 2010 still going strong, once a year TF service. And I power hose my bikes. The Fox 32's are looking a bit shiney and the coating has worn but they've just come back and will last another year. Means I get another year out of the bike too. Seemed cheap to me for a years biking
No servicing, false economy.
To counter that , my 2010 Spicy , the Fox 36s had several lower services and a full service in the 5 months I was working in Whistler ( Working with a bike guiding company ) Didn't stop the stanchions wearing through 🙁
Retain your 'old' 'obsolete' bikes for winter duties and leave the nice ones for summer. When it's really minging, go for a road ride instead.
This is pretty much my philosophy anyways..
That said, I do keep on top of fork servicing. It's far too painful (as I've learnt) not to.
Rear shock though.. Really?? Last time I had one of those services was 2011, by Mojo. And it cost about 1 million pounds. Didn't really seem worth it. Maybe I'm chancing my luck, but see above!
Avoid total minging filth! (If you want your shinies to stay shiny).
I service yearly normally. Last year I had new uppers fitted. These are my uppers today
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Fox ?
No Eyed Deer my thoughts with rear shock ( til now )
Yep, Fox F29
I rest my case , I got new uppers then I flogged my 36s , nothing seems to have changed . I remember seeing a leaflet from Fox in my LBS ( Pre Kashima ) recommending a strip down every 25 hours !!!!
Yup. Fox rear shocks on all 5 of my full sus bikes. Just give the seals a good dose of furniture polish and pump to wipe between rides, then clean off any excess. Seems to have worked well for the last 6 years.
Will have to give them all a close inspection now though!. Mojo shock servicing just seemed to be like snake oil to me. No real perceptible difference in shock performance afterward, so I just wrote the whole thing off.
Might be wrong! Who knows.. 😉
Might think of getting Revs done , but £90 a year , in 5 years you'd have £450 towards a new pair ! As you say who knows . My opinion on rear shocks ? Same who knows , think once I get the new one might pop the air can off a couple of times a year and give it a clean and lube .
on a rockshok note, my pikes went in for first annual service last year and TF spotted warranty issue. Got a new set of forks from SRAM. I thought they were working fine ......
My stations on old fox 32 like the photo are worn but they function fine and pass service.
It's all a bit 'calgon' isn't it? Washing machines [i]may[/i] last longer on the stuff, but you'd have enough for a new machine by the time it dies from lime poisoning IF you hadn't of spent it on friggin' calgon...
Might think of getting Revs done , but £90 a year , in 5 years you'd have £450 towards a new pair !
Don't forget the performance drops over time too. So you might have saved £200 after 2 years but the fork won't be performing at its best.
Engine and major loaded parts yes, but I wouldn't expect to have to strip & service the suspension on it every year though.would you buy a car and not service it?
My Suntour Epicon forks from 2009 are still going strong despite having never been opened.
Your mileage may vary etc etc
I've never had any issues with Fox stanchions wearing out - I have a pair of 05 36's still on the original CSU and they were only serviced once a year if they were lucky!
My 32's withstood the Peaks when I lived in Sheffield with no real maintenance.
RS aren't immune from it though - when I was looking for some Boxxers for my old Demo, there were loads suffering from worn stanchions.
I do wonder if the relative lack of oil in modern forks is part of the issue - Marzocchi open bath forks weighed loads but had loads of oil sloshing around to keep everything happy. My old 888's had 220cc per leg! Modern forks seems to use very little for lubrication.
Rear Shock !!
Even the most inexperienced spanner wielder can drop one of the bolts out and slide some kind of cover over it, to keep the muck out..
The only forks I've managed to kill so far have been two pairs of RS Rebas. Both times through riding them in absolutely filthy conditions, probably without servicing them enough AND through lubing the seals with chain oil, which is something I never do now.
My 6 bikes with Fox forks have never been a problem, but then I keep firmly on top of servicing them regularly and don't ride them in winter filth YMMV.. 😉
The sealing is generally better these days than it once was.
I still do a lowers service my rockshox forks (takes about 1 hour of my time, not really worth going to a bike shop for) once a year, marzocchis which have lasted since 2001 get serviced every 1-2 years and are starting to show some stanchion wear. (I clean the stanchions and put a little lube on the dust seal after a ride too) My first pair of rockshox I ran for about a year before the stanchions were totally wrecked, I think I even serviced them twice in that time.
They do perform better when they have lube where they should, anyway!
Cars aren't really comparable - I give my rear shock a similar amount of attention as I would give a car's shock, but it's a coil shock. Cars aren't built to be light and seals can be much tighter without causing any perceptible drop in performance (the Marzocchis took a good few rides to actually bed in & become plush as everything was so tight when new). More expensive adjustable shocks on cars do require regular strip downs in any case, and if I was going to spend the money on them I'd certainly pay for the servicing as I'd want them to perform as intended.
Having been quoted £90-odd for an old RP23 (which was about what it was worth) I learned to service my own. It helps that I spend a few years of my life taking fairly complex machines apart and repairing them.
Fork lower service takes no time at all once you get used to it.
oldfart - I recently had the identical situation ,albeit less than a year after buying the shock.
Cleaned it fairly regularly, but didn't go crazy. Noticed slight discolouration on the shaft, sent to TFtuned along with fork to service. Shock is beyond economical repair.
Why though can't rufty tufty mountain bikes stand up to a wet winter without being mollycoddled ?
I then went through the exact same mental process. Bearings had gone too.
Built up a cheapo hardtail for winter riding, but pretty jaded from the whole experience. I can't be bothered to spend more timing cleaning and servicing a bike than riding it.
kiksy jaded sums the whole experience up 🙁
I guess the only silver lining is that being 60 now I've probably only got to put up with it for about another 5 years if I'm lucky 🙁
samunkin not sure covering shock is wise might cause more hidden problems than it solves ? Will ask Dave from TF when I get new one , value his opinion .