so i have this so-called mate who i have recently bought a set of 888s off. they’re a good 7 years old, supposedly 170mm travel and in full working order – pretty much perfect for my mini DH bike so i hand over £100 for them; a good deal for both i think.

anyway, got them fitted to the bike and took them up to scotland for a bit of DH over the weekend. the action is nice but after a few runs i realise that i’m getting only around 130mm out of them before they bottom out. spoke to a couple of other mates who tell me that said so-called mate knew about this issue from a previous uplift day which i didn’t attend – he even stripped them down recently to try and find out what the issue was but couldn’t and ended up buying a new set of forks instead.

upon hearing about this i approach said so-called mate and ask him what the deal is with them not getting full travel, to which he proclaims that they are working fine and do get full travel, coming out with some bs like ‘you don’t get full travel out of every fork all of the time’. obviously you don’t, but you expect to get most of the travel most of the time with a little in reserve for the big hits, not for the travel to just end part way through the stroke.

so i’m rather annoyed at him – he sold me a set of forks that are goosed for some reason or another, which he knew about and did not tell me about before taking my hard earned. i know they’re only a relatively cheap set of forks, but £100 is £100 and this guy has skanked me by palming me off with dodgy goods. i gave him a chance to try and sort the issue, to which he said they were sold as seen, so i now want my money back which he’s not being very forthcoming with!

what should i do???

by the way, he posts on here regularly…here’s a post of his to give a bit more background:

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/anyone-know-about-2004-888s

Sort it out face to face?

Hmmm outing him straight way on a public forum wouldn’t be my 1st move (yes I know you’ve spoken to him but even so), as you’ve backed him into a corner.

Maybe edit you post for now? Hope that the thread ‘goes’ your way and then threaten him to post it again, if he’s not being reasonable about it.

they’re bombers, right?
😉

he’d be giving me my money back

Send them to Simon from Loco tuning – or just give him a bell, and split the cost with your mate. He’ll sort them out for you, and you’ll get a better fork than you paid for, and your mate should feel less guilty then.

Simples.

http://www.locotuning.co.uk

are they the cheaper ones

bet they are spiking ….cheaper 888s were horrendous for it due to valving

i went from monsters to them and back to monsters quickly ….

tried getting him to sort it out face to face, he’s avoiding me.

outing him on here’s not my first move by a long shot. he’s pretty much rejected that there was any problem at all with the forks – i only just found that other post of his now where he asks about the exact same problem. i emailed that over to him but been ignored again.

may be spiking, all i know is that they are stopping mid-stroke with a good couple of inches left in their travel.

rickon’s suggestion is a good one, maybe i’ll offer that to him, but depends on how much it’ll cost to fix the issue. still gonna be hacked off at being done over in this manner!

Simon should be able to take a look and let you know the cost, possibly he may be able to diagnose the problem over the phone to give you an idea of cost.

He’s a clever chap 🙂

ask him to pay for the repair..
he would have had to anyway if he’d kept them.
Tell him he’s a knob then forget about it.

Jeez go and have a word with him.

is it school holidays already?

is it school holidays already?

feels like it i tell you!

If you take the springs out do they compress 170mm or 130mm?

Marz forks are pretty simple just get the drawings for that model and strip and rebuild. From your description I would guess either somebody has been messing with them and put the spacers back in the wrong places reducing the travel to 170mm or they have been overfilled with oil therefore hydrolocking the fork when they reach a certain travel.

not much of a mate is he? he’s stroked you.