Bought a pair of Mavic XA Pro Carbon wheels (cheaply).

Faffed around to get them setup, put them in the bike, realised the rear axle won’t pass through. It gets stuck on the non-drive-side right near the end cap – as if the gap for the axle is too small. You can tap it through with a rubber mallet, but then it requires tapping out again and doesn’t turn freely and scores the interior axle hole a bit.

I got back to the shop and they said they have no more in stock, but offered me a replacement SRAM ROAM 50 wheel, or to have the hub changed – and rebuilt on a brand new DT 240S Straight Pull hub. What’s dumb is the cost of a brand new 240 and a wheel build is more than I paid for the wheelset new.

Can mavic’s odd spokes be rebuilt easily? Is all this faff worth it? Has anyone come across this problem before?

Boost wheelset?  You can easily change the adapters on Mavic wheelsets, so a bit confused about the shop saying they can rebuild the rim onto another hub.  So if they had more in stock how was that going to help your issue?

Sounds like they either have no idea about what they are talking about or just trying to make more money out of you.

They just need to supply you with a wheelset that is compatible with your frame….

The axle on my boost xa rear hub was very tight fitting. I had to prise it out to remove it! though don’t recall having trouble installing. Greased it up and it’s now fine.

Non boost. It’s not the axle adapters, it’s the actual inner gap.

Could it be a floating axle spacer? i.e The bearings are quite tight and dont allow the spacer to move exactly into the centre, hence tight at one end?
I’ve had similar with a hope XC freehub where it wouldn’t go on until I’d tapped the central spacer a little bit.

Yeah sounds like the same issue I had with mine, it was certainly the inner gap as you say rather than end caps. It was so tight it wouldn’t budge with all the force of my puny muscles. Had to work a flat screwdriver between the lever and the frame to free It.

Try a bit of grease.

If they’re offering a 240 build FOC get that, the hub is far superior and it gets rid of the silly Mavic proprietary spokes

Quality and tolerance issues are sadly par for the course with MAVIC products IME,

I know a mate with a different brand of hub who had a similar issue. He just had someone run a 12mm drill bit through it.

Mavic factory built wheelset – NEVER!

Quality and tolerance issues are sadly par for the course with MAVIC products IME

Not in my experience. 4 sets of factory wheels, road & mtb, all fantastic quality and still running smooth and strong. Oh, 5 if you count the Crosstrails I sold to a mate.

It must just be these newer MTB products where QC has let them down.

I have a set of the boost ones and they’re really nicely put together. No issues with mine which may not help, but if you do get them sorted, they are an excellent wheelset. Stiff enough without being silly stiff, pretty light and good engagement on the free hub. 2.3 tyres come up really nicely on them.

There’s every chance it’s your axle too, I’d say a far easier solution is to stick the axle in a drill and give it a polish down with some emery. I don’t know what the specifications are for the 12mm axle standard but you could have an axle slightly out of tolerance combined with a tightly toleranced hub.

Just to add zero issues with my Mavic wheels here, far better build quality than any hopes I’ve had

Funnily enough I just had someone with a different wheel with the same problem and I sorted that in about 10 seconds by running a 12mm drill through the centre. It was such a tiny imperfection that it barely registered on the drill but afterwards the axle ran through as if it were made for the job. Maybe we are talking about the same wheel Onzadog?

@welshfarmer, yes we are. Same chap, same wheel, same bike.

Welshfarmer – that sounds like a winning solution – did you then polish the interior?