Shimano XT & XTR hubs 'not designed for off-road bicycle riding'

Been researching some 15mm hubs… and came across this on the Service Instructions for XT & XTR 15mm thru axle hubs. Eeek!

From this service instruction

http://techdocs.shimano.com/media/techdocs/content/cycle/SI/SI_26P0A_002/SI_26P0A_001/SI-26P0A-001-EN_v1_m56577569830646827.pdf

None of the QR hubs have this warning, just the 15mm…. Throw that into the 15mm vs. QR debate – 15mm not even designed for off road use!

read the ext sentence… they’re apparently prone to cracking too 😉

Looks like generic legal arse-covering to me rather than anything more. I do wonder how they stand with stuff like this though given how it’s marketed you can’t just undo it all with a quick bit of print buried in the manual surely?

yep, my thoughts entirely. ridiculous…

You’d have thought they’d stick the same warning across all hubs – but the latest qr xt hub doesn’t have such a warning.

Glad I have Hope. That’s unacceptable. They’re top-end MTB hubs, not cheap ones. If their legal people feel they need that wording in the T&C’s then they shouldn’t be on sale as MTB kit. Full stop.

Glad I have Hope. That’s unacceptable.

I’d rather have a hub that says it can’t be used off road and is perfect, than one where they say you can use it off road and they break.

Just saying…

I wonder if you had a case for returning a bike to a bike supplier if they used these hubs as it’s not fit for purpose …

If something’s not designed for off road use and you fit it to bike sold for off road use then where do they stand. I’m surprised suppliers haven’t addressed this with Shimano before now.

I guess its a disclaimer should a hub fail, and cause an American to crash. Stops them suing for whatever damages they see fit.

I don’t know, it looks like an error, or mistranslation. If you took out the word ‘not’ it reads better. At least it makes the “However…” statement make (more) sense..?

but they are otherwise marketed as an MTB hub – they are listed under the ‘mountain bike’ section of their website, which to me at least, would imply off road.

I imagine it is just arse covering.

I just found it amusing having read up quite a bit on the differing opinions of QR vs. 15mm and how much ‘better’ 15mm is that Shimano say 15mm isn’t suitable for off road & yet by assumption that there is no such warning on the qr version of the hub that qr is indeed OK to use offroad.

And the 15mm standard was jointly developed by Fox and Shimano to circumvent potential legal claims arrising from alleged incidents of disc brakes causing qr’s to undo.

dodgy translation did cross my mind. Shimano docs are generally pretty good, but that one is a bit of a shocker for English.

Surely that’s not an adequate disclaimer to admonish responsibility though!?

Otherwise couldn’t car manufacturers just put a footnote that says ‘please note using brakes may lead to failure’, then just say “we told you so” when people crash and die because of a horrendous manufacturing fault!?

cp – Member

dodgy translation did cross my mind.

Or a bad template job. Saying “not for downhill” is reasonable, after all it’s a 15mm hub anyway. Crappy, anyway.

I found a very similar disclaimer sticker on the chunky-but-cheap OS stem as fitted from new to my commencal MaxMax jump bike! IIRC it was advising not to engage in extreme, off-road, downhill or jumps.

On. A. Dirt. Jump. Bike. 😕

Also, though they are not prohibited for mountain bike use, the many and “you WILL die” disclaimers for mechanical ‘incompetence’ on formula brakes are quite outstanding. 😀

My brother’s Sarcin full suss had BOMBER EXTREME wheels which were not to be used offroad. Probably about right.

They have changed the wording on the Shimano (Europe) site. It now reads
“The HB-M788 front hub is not designed for downhill bicycle riding and freeriding”
Which makes sense I suppose. Although I’m not walking down the hills having slogged all the way!

It might protect Shimano but if the hub does fail can’t you then sue the bike supplier for using a part that isn’t designed for off road use?