Bicycle Mechanics - Mavic SL3 wheels and grease

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Rutnick
03-28-08, 08:37 AM
I bought some new bearings for my SL3s and was removing the old ones and putting the new ones in with zero issues. While I was at it, I wiped down the internals of the rear hub and applied some oil based lube to the pawls and seals. I took it out for a ride and was greeted by a nice moaning sound from my bike whenever I coasted from a certain speed. I thought I had some bad bearings so I put the old ones back in and got the same noise.

Well.....I ended up calling Mavic and they were great. They asked me what I did and I was totally honest and they told me to degrease everything that I put oil and and replace it with mineral oil. Yes, mineral oil. It seems that is the lube of choice for Mavic's internals (at least the SL3s).

Took the bike out for a 50 miler with zero issues. Lesson learned and maybe someone will store this for when they work on their Mavic wheels too.

Note on the Mineral Oil....any MTB hydro mineral oil will work. Mineral Oil with PTFE (teflon) is NOT acceptable.

cascade168
03-28-08, 07:45 PM
I bought some new bearings for my SL3s and was removing the old ones and putting the new ones in with zero issues. While I was at it, I wiped down the internals of the rear hub and applied some oil based lube to the pawls and seals. I took it out for a ride and was greeted by a nice moaning sound from my bike whenever I coasted from a certain speed. I thought I had some bad bearings so I put the old ones back in and got the same noise.

Well.....I ended up calling Mavic and they were great. They asked me what I did and I was totally honest and they told me to degrease everything that I put oil and and replace it with mineral oil. Yes, mineral oil. It seems that is the lube of choice for Mavic's internals (at least the SL3s).

Took the bike out for a 50 miler with zero issues. Lesson learned and maybe someone will store this for when they work on their Mavic wheels too.

Note on the Mineral Oil....any MTB hydro mineral oil will work. Mineral Oil with PTFE (teflon) is NOT acceptable.

Yes, you have it correct. Mavic recommends three lubes for the hubs. Those would be Mavic oil, Phil's Tenacious, and Pedro's Road Rage - all mineral oils. The SL3's (and almost all recent Mavic hubs) have a bushing that you DON'T want to lube with any synthetic oil (i.e. teflon based). Teflon based oils will make the bushing too slick and will adversely affect the correct operation of the pawls. If you stick with what Mavic recommends, you will not go wrong.

BTW, the "mineral oil" you get at the drug store is NOT a suitable substitute for the list I gave above.

It's nice to see someone giving Mavic credit for good support rather than *****ing about being told what really works.
Rutnick
03-29-08, 03:01 PM
I do have to say again that Mavic was great. They even told me that if applying mineral oil did NOT work that they would want the wheel back to see why. When I called, I was on hold maybe 1 minute. The person on the phone knew exactly what to do and the total call was maybe 7 minutes.