Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 80 total)
  • Let down by Merlin Cycles and SRAM
  • fubar
    Free Member

    if they have been returned to SRAMTECH

    …do we know for sure they were sent and Merlin didn’t just sit on it for a couple of weeks ?

    A few years ago I had a new component fail on it’s 1st ride and Merlin were not too helpful / didn’t believe it ‘just happened’. They sent it on to someone (can’t remember who) to be assessed and after a couple of weeks of me chasing them they still refused. I have my doubts that it was sent anywhere but I might have been placated if they had even offered a discount on a replacement (but they didn’t).

    What can you do ? Well I usually avoid shopping with them especially on anything I might expect warranty help with in future and now and again I have a whinge on a thread 😉

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    FWIW i once saw someone arguing about a pedal in there and saying it just failed.
    I am no expert but it was bent , the pins were bent and it has a huge impact gouge and he still insisted it was damaged.

    I suspect they [ all shops tbh]get their fair share of chancers so may err on the side of caution.

    peachos
    Free Member

    get on social media #bashtag
    get the US HQ involved

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    LoCo
    Free Member

    Fubar, I wasn’t suggesting that.

    I’d honestly suggest speaking to SRAMTECH UK and see what they say as they’ll be have dealt with them. No point in getting all het up until you’ve spoken to them, as I said previously.

    Blazin-saddles
    Free Member

    TBH, if there’s any doubt over use/abuse with no obvious signs, then I think as a Product Warranty Manager, I would take one for the team and replace the lower legs FOC if for nothing else than a sign of goodwill.

    As a customer, if I’d have been treated like the OP, assuming he’s telling the truth, then I’d go out of my way to buy from anyone other than the manufacturer in question again, and also tell anyone else not to buy from them also. All that for what is probably a $20 part at Srams cost.

    Take a look at the way Hope sort things out. If you have a broken part, no matter how it occurred, they replace generally FOC or at worst case, cost. This generally results in a happy customer and repeat business, even if it’s their fault the part failed.

    Stuff breaks, it’s how companies deal with it that mark them apart.

    LoCo
    Free Member

    We deal with Sramtech/Fishers on a daily basis and the warranty service is pretty good tbh.
    Agreed Hope are amazing with their product support too, all my bikes have their kit on.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    LOCO its the internet shuttup with your useful and informed advice based on working in the actual industry in this actual area. Pfft some people 🙄

    We dont want to hear from experts now shut it unless you get with the programme which is

    wee and bombers

    Its basic internet stuff this now back to the day job for you

    spazzolino
    Free Member

    To be fair from the fracture it’s be fairly obvious to someone with a bit of engineering training whether the fault is from the manufacturering process or not and the forks if they have been returned to SRAMTECH either here or in europe should have been looked at by the workshop manager who would have a good idea on this.

    Loco, this is simply not correct. You must see the fracture surface to determine whether its a materials or process problem.

    spazzolino
    Free Member

    Who’s going to pay for that? Do you think for a second it will be cost-effective?

    Crashtest, well this is a good point. What you suggest is that no one with the right knowledge has looked at this because of the potential cost involved.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    LoCo – Member
    Crashmonkey, as a materials bod, would you say that a fault with the casting would be fairly obvious as air gaps, impurities, faults at the point of the break would be relativly easy to see?

    He did say you had to see them which you confirm he later explained what to look for

    parling
    Free Member

    thanks for every ones response some useful information on here. they are still on there way from SRAM TECH in Holland apparently.

    the oridginal responce from SRAM TECH

    “I’ve reviewed this case after talking to the technician who made the assessment & find no reason to reverse the original findings.

    This case is not one for warranty, damage to the upper tubes, the arch & presence of paint flaking & bending to both the arch & the upper tubes is indicative of an impact causing this. It may not have been caused by the small jump the rider took when the break actually happened, but it has happened at some time.”

    there is no damage to upper tubes there is to the arch that’s snapped, the paint flaking is from after the arch snapped as the forks flex alot without that arch been there turns out that’s very important to the structure,and no idea what the bending was about as the legs are very straight.

    I will post hi res pics when they return as they are in excellent condition.

    If I had crashed them I would accept they broke and get on with my life but I didn’t they just snapped.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Well, in a way, that’s good news- they’ve been very clear that the stanchions are bent. If they are, then well, game over for you frankly. But if they’re not then it shoots them down. And it’s a fairly easy thing to check/get independantly checked.

    Blazin-saddles – Member

    Take a look at the way Hope sort things out. If you have a broken part, no matter how it occurred, they replace generally FOC or at worst case, cost.

    Which is good. But then it breaks again, which is less good. And then they release a new part that fixes the problem, but refuse to replace your badly designed part. Which is less good.

    Tiger6791
    Full Member

    hmmmm.

    Right here’s an idea….

    This is now in a public forum and a lot of people will have seen it, negative brand impact and all that, thing is I don’t know what to believe, even as a loyal RockShox customer and dare I say it even an advocate this worries me… but I want to believe the hard done to little guy..

    Dilemma;

    Is the OP lying and trying to leverage the internet as a way to get a replacement unfairly….?

    or

    Is SRAM making faulty goods and trying to cover it up,and fob off a genuine customer….?

    From a forum it is impossible to tell which is true so maybe it’s time for a independent to test the claims and whoever is wrong picks up the cost and the shame??

    parling game?
    SRAM game?

    crashtestmonkey
    Free Member

    As Northwind says the allegations of bent stanchions and shedding paint are pretty stark and easily verifiable/disprovable. Has the OP rolled the stanchions on a glass sheet to establish there is no bend, or just going by eye?

    negative brand impact

    Hands up who’s been put off buying a SRAM product as a result of this? Anyone? Heard other examples of their forks, Sektors specifically, failing at the arch? No? Last recall I remember for RS were the bottom-end Jetts in about 2001.

    would you say that a fault with the casting would be fairly obvious

    it COULD be macroscopic (bloody great void), a professional would be able to infer certains things from the fracture surfaces (a single break or a slowly propagating crack from a defect that has then expanded quickly after reaching a certain length) but it is likely to be microscopic.

    Your best bet for an independent would be to find a metallurgy/materials student (pre or post-grad) who is into cycling and may be able to access equipment at no cost as a personal project with their supervisors blessing. Sadly (in this case) my lab days are behind me.

    batfink
    Free Member

    As a long-term advocate (read: fan-boi) of Merlin’s customer service, this thread makes interesting reading.

    I’m quite bad at Mountain Biking….. so I crash a lot. But even with my history, I’m struggling to think of how any sort of crash could snap the arch of a fork (particularly an 150mm “AM” type fork) in half?

    Surely, even if you managed it, the rest of the fork would be so completely mangled (stanchions at right-angles?) that it would obviously be the result of a crash?

    Is it me? Am I just not crashing hard enough?!?

    cynic-al
    Free Member

    I N R A T S but:

    1. just because there’s not physical sugn of trauma (dent scratch etc) doesn’t mean they’ve not been ridden beyond their design parameters.

    2. I’d have thought the SOG legislation is on your side here – newish product fails unexpectedly.

    3. How can SRAM/Merlin prove they’ve taken a hit? They have no clue what riding you have done – only you have evidence of that. Unless they have some EVIDENCE like a report on the damage then I’d say you have a good chance in court albeit that’s risky, time-consuming and potentially expensive.

    4. Who was that guy that sold some cracked forks here saying “they are not under stress where the crack is so it’s not a problem”? :mrgreen:

    hora
    Free Member

    Tiger6791 everytime I had a fork repaired at Fisher/Sram the words were ‘it wasnt faulty but we replaced the cart anyway’ Eh?

    Or ‘You turned the compression dial one click too far thats why it seized/broke’.

    Eh? Sat on bike, forefinger/thumb pressure- give over. Its a design flaw that ruins the moco surely

    My impression was there was never a faulty item but FOC. Whereas windwave handsup/sorted asap.

    LoCo
    Free Member

    Or ‘You turned the compression dial one click too far thats why it seized/broke’.

    Are you going to tell me you’ve broken that damper Mark? 😉

    Loco, this is simply not correct. You must see the fracture surface to determine whether its a materials or process problem.

    Perhaps that wasn’t clear enough, of course you need to see the surface of the break, I wasn’t suggesting it was to be done by remote viewing or something 😉

    hora
    Free Member

    Nah t’was a Lyrik damper. The (high?) speed blue compression dial ages ago- turned it full anti (?) and it stuck solid.

    LoCo
    Free Member

    Thought I was about to get a mail saying the ‘new’ one was stuck 😉

    Blazin-saddles
    Free Member

    Is the OP lying and trying to leverage the internet as a way to get a replacement unfairly….?

    or

    Is SRAM making faulty goods and trying to cover it up,and fob off a genuine customer….?

    And this is why most companies with exceptional customer service would replace the part anyway at their cost, it gets the customer back riding on their product and customer has a good story to tell about Rockshox. As it is, for the small cost of a replacement part, he is feeling let down and probably won’t buy Rockshox again.

    It’s their word against his, they say he’s damaged them, he say’s he’s not.

    I’m afraid the customer is going to loose out though. My friend had a pair of Rockshox Sid XX 29, he treats his bike like a baby, after every ride cleans it to within an inch of its life, he rides like a bit of a baby too, hardly ever crashes and isn’t at all rad. The XX’s stopped working over the winter of not being used, wouldn’t compress much at all as if the lockout was on, he sent them to Fishers via the Sram dealer and they refused warranty, saying the stanchions were ‘kinked’. There’s no way he could have damaged them like that IMO but either way, they bombed him out and he needed to buy a new CSU, at around the cost of a new pair of forks from Merlin ironically. He bought some Fox instead!

    Jamie
    Free Member

    Thought I was about to get a mail saying the ‘new’ one was stuck

    Self fulfilling prophecy in action 8)

    …anyway, as for:

    And this is why most companies with exceptional customer service would replace the part anyway at their cost, it gets the customer back riding on their product and customer has a good story to tell about Rockshox. As it is, for the small cost of a replacement part, he is feeling let down and probably won’t buy Rockshox again.

    RS can take that hit, unlike their forks*, though. So why should they? Although, something here definitely does not add up, and it appears someone is being liberal with the truth. Who? God knows.

    negative brand impact

    As per Crashtestmonkey’s post above, SRAM won’t go bust over this. Also, Merlin quite wisely never get involved in these threads. So eventually it will just drop off the front page, and everyone will forget.

    Shame for the OP, though.

    *allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly

    hora
    Free Member

    Thought I was about to get a mail saying the ‘new’ one was stuck

    I’m not that bad a mechanic. Theres nothing much to go wrong on that DNA.

    LoCo
    Free Member

    Theres nothing much to go wrong on that DNA.

    😯 you’ve done it now! It’s probably vapourized itself as you typed that 😉

    Rorschach
    Free Member

    (I generally find that people who work for bike companies are not that clued up

    D
    Quick,dis-regard anything Loco says 😉

    LoCo
    Free Member

    😛

    atlaz
    Free Member

    Last time I had to return something to Merlin, it was a bit outside warranty and they fixed it FoC anyway (Reba seals went). I’d be surprised if they were avoiding their responsibilities given my experiences with them.

    LHS
    Free Member

    Not read the whole thread so apologies if this has already been asked:

    Have you taken these forks on a plane, i.e in a bike bag etc to the alps or anything?

    avdave2
    Full Member

    If I’d done that to a pair of forks by crashing I reckon the only thing I’d be worried about right now was getting my face fixed! 🙂

    onehundredthidiot
    Full Member

    Wouldn’t anything that caused those to fail in that way have totally ruined the wheel?
    How can that failure happen through “stress”? Twisting, separation both would wreck whatever was attached to the bottom of the forks.

    LHS
    Free Member

    An over-stressing could occur if the leg was caught (when the wheel was not in place) and pulled outwards. This happened to a bike on a plane once, it had evidently got caught on something and pulled and the brace snapped, hence why i asked if it had been on a plane. It could have been pulled to a near failure point and then it would only take a smallish impact to initiate failure.

    hora
    Free Member

    TBH there would have been SOME greyness for the SRAM tech.

    What would it have cost him to simply pick up a set of lowers from his facilty and stick them in? I doubt the stanchions are bent. IF they are surely he’d have a CSU knocking about too.

    Abit tight of them. Its a very weird place for a fork to fail. That ‘weirdness’ should at least afford alittle goodwill.

    flattyre
    Free Member

    Merlin customer service was very poor when I returned an expensive pair of (altura) shorts which just fell apart a couple of years back. Not just the fact they weren’t replaced but the manner in which it was dealt with. Had just started browsing their site again for forks but will think twice now. Have always had good experiences with fishers warranty though.

    FuzzyWuzzy
    Full Member

    Tricky one really, can see the reasons why both sides think the way they do – doubt there’s much you can do apart from going through the courts and then it would be your word against the word of their service department. How far did you ride once they’d snapped? If the uppers are slightly bent surely that could happen JRA with a snapped brace rather than had to have happened at the same time as the brace failed indicating a massive impact occurred.

    chestrockwell
    Full Member

    A friend of a friends forks snapped in the same place while we were out riding a few years back. He clipped something solid while bombing down a track at Dalby. From memory there was not much sign of other damage.

    Saying all that, wouldn’t be suprised if the forks Merlin sold you were less then perfect. I’ve been told they sell seconds as well as OEM stuff. Think this was the case with the Rev’s I bought from them a few years ago. Had a right going on to sort that and get my money back, they were a pain in the arse and the customer service was rubbish. I wouldn’t spend a lot with them now and it put me off RS. They’re cheap for a reason I guess.

    patriotpro
    Free Member

    OP – buy a Cannondale, fit one side as a Lefty and keep the other as a spare.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    I’ve been told they sell seconds as well as OEM stuff.

    bloke down the pub type claim – wise to say you have been told as to claim it outright would leave you open to suing for your statement- must remember than trick.

    have you [ or the person who told] you any actual proof

    bacondoublechee
    Free Member

    SRAM service were also terrible when my Reba’s went belly-up after only about 2 months use from new.

    crashtestmonkey
    Free Member

    3. How can SRAM/Merlin prove they’ve taken a hit?

    Cynic-al, if you had read all that sh1t youd have seen SRAM saying the stanchions are bent, indicating a crash/impact

    I doubt the stanchions are bent.

    You haven’t seen the forks, the SRAM tech has 🙄

    IF they are surely he’d have a CSU knocking about too.

    Yeah they probably do have a CSU lying around, but then they’d effectively giving an entire new fork (CSU + lowers!) to someone who is trying to make a warranty claim on something they believe has been crashed

    That ‘weirdness’ should at least afford alittle goodwill.

    goodwill towards someone they believe is trying to have them over? Would you show that goodwill?!

    I’m not against the OP or some SRAM fanboi, just trying to play devils advocate and manage his expectations. They have recieved a set of forks for a “JRA” warranty claim, with an unusual failure they possibly haven’t seen before (and would expect to have in the case of a manufacturing fault). They have inspected them and found what they consider clear signs of damage. They have offered the OP a crash-replacement, so turning the other cheek to what they believe is a fraudulent attempt to claim new forks, and have been turned down as, thanks to the low price of mail order OE-overstock, the crash-replacement price is not competitive.

    Do they still sound like corporate monsters now?

    Giving the OP the benefit of the doubt I’d be just as p1ssed off in his position, but SRAM have explained why they think the forks have been damaged and offered verifiable/disproveable evidence. If the stanchions aren’t bent then the OP should be livid, if they are then he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. Simple enough to check.

    chestrockwell
    Full Member

    Junkyard – lazarus

    I’ve been told they sell seconds as well as OEM stuff.

    bloke down the pub type claim – wise to say you have been told as to claim it outright would leave you open to suing for your statement- must remember than trick.

    have you [ or the person who told] you any actual proof

    I was told that by some one on here or on retrobike when I was having trouble with my Revs. Feel free to find the thread. It made sense to me as the forks I bought as ‘new’ had defects that looked like they happened when built. The pair that replaced the originals were the same. I showed the defect on both pairs to Merlin and they replaced the first pair then finally refunded the full amount on the second. This means they accepted the fact the forks were not perfect.

    Why would OEM kit be defective? Of lower quality yes, but defective?

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 80 total)

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