NoRacer

I could care less about referral traffic and neither does BiM care. The blog is free. They get paid through cell phone carriers.

I just went to Performance Bike to give them the chain. They found the record of my purchase of the chain on the 23rd of February and credited my credit card, Then, I picked up a Wipperman chain, installed it there, and left.

Believe what you want. I don't know you so, I don't care. People who do know me (i.e., 3 bike clubs that I ride with and race for one) know that I'm always on the up-and-up.

operator

Which means absolutely nothing. The only thing you're up and up about is rumours.

FBinNY 

No, before making my chain lube, I designed and manufactured bicycle hand tools, and so am intimately familiar with the various factors involved. I've no axe to grind with Shimano, and in any case it's irrelevant. The chain speaks for itself. Stress cracking of this type isn't unheard of, though it's been rare. However the type of overbuilding which gave chains large margins for error is no longer possible given todays width and weight constraints.

As I said in my first post on this thread, I usually blame the user for chain problems, but in this case there's nothing the user could have done to cause this type of fracture, short of re-heatreating the chain, or somehow introducing hydrogen into it's crystal structure, which is possible but not very likely. There are other possible but highly unlikely scenarios.

Idle speculation on forums is meaningless. Ultimately Shimano will need to see and analyze the chain, or problem plate to determine if it is within their own specifications. An outsider could, for example could measure the hardness, but unless privy to their specs. couldn't say for sure if it was too hard or not.

I'm intrigued by the posters trying to put the blame on the OP. I guess shooting messengers who bring bad news hasn't gone out of fashion.

FBinNY 

That's a shame.

Not that you didn't deserve a replacement or credit, but but that by doing it the way you did will likely keep Shimano from getting it to analyze.

One of the causes of delay in spotting and solving manufacturing problems, is how long it takes for anyone to see the big picture. Typically a user will have a problem, visit the dealer who'll take care of, end of story. That could be repeated hundreds of times all over the USA, but with no mechanism for reporting problems and/or no one person at the manufacturer to gather and consolodate these reports, we just have isolated incidents but no picture of the nature or extent of a problem.

Eventually, if enough chains come back someone may notice, but unless someone goes out of his way to make sure the manufacturer is informed of potential problems, they're usually the last to find out.

Consider Toyata's recent problem. Early on it was dealt with case by case, either fixed or the owner pooh-poohed, but with it being fairly rare in a large country it took a long time to reach the point that Toyata had the basis to start their internal investigation.

Kimmo

Yeah... mental note: if I want to cop a faceful of crap, one of the best ways is to tell these guys about such a problem.

AEO

bad batch? happened to some 10sp KMC chains in the past, didn't it?

improper hardening, too brittle.

operator

Some sram 10 speed powerlocks were also recalled.

AEO

aren't KMC and wipperman the only companies that actually make chains? sram, shimano and campy just have their names stamped on kmc/wipperman chains.

Kimmo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRAM_Co...cle_Components ?

And

https://velonews.competitor.com/2009/...-vicenza_97867

Mr Zippy

So when are kero and mineral spirits "detergents"?

In the CN-6600 manual, Shimano say, with a Warning icon, under "General Safety Information", first bullet point, "Use neutral detergent to clean the chain."

I think it is wise to follow safety warnings, in particular when there is no discernible marketing/sales agenda.

cyccommute 

While I'm not a fan of using water on bicycle chains...in most cases it's a silly thing to do whether you use detergent or not...your case is an exception. Your chain problem is probably due to the salt. WD-40 (and other organic solvents) do nothing to remove the salt, just as water does nothing to remove the lubrication. If you have only cleaned the chain after rides with WD-40, the salt and water - which are heavier then the lubricant- have penetrated into the plates and rollers.

In a moisture rich environment like Maryland, the salt will never dry out and will just continue to absorb water from the air. The chloride from sodium chloride and, more likely, magnesium chloride will react with the iron to form iron chlorides which are water soluble. This reaction is very rapid...even faster than oxygen and iron...especially when water is present. Put the chain under stress and have thin pieces of steel - like 10 speed chains do...and the iron will crack very quickly. Hate to say this but you are the likely cause of the failure

Although I don't recommend doing this every time you clean a chain, for your kind of winter riding, I'd suggest putting the chain in a water bath to remove the salt, rinse with a water soluble organic solvent...ethyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol, or acetone...then rinse with a nonpolar organic solvent like mineral spirits. You can do this is wide mouth plastic bottles (500 ml Gatorade bottles work great) so that you don't have to pour out the solvents so often.

The rational: Water will remove the salt that is sitting on the surface and likely any that has worked it way down into the chain. The water soluble organic solvent will remove the water so that you don't have a rust issue but it won't do much on the lubrication. The nonpolar solvent will remove the lubricant and the grit associated with it. The nonpolar solvent will also evaporate quickly so that it won't dilute your lubricant.

You should do the water/alcohol rinse after each sloppy ride. The mineral spirits bath may not be required each time...I hope not...and you might just reapply the lubricant after the alcohol bath.

cyccommute 

The image I posted is from the CN-7900 / CN-6700 Technical Service Instructions (SI-09G0B-003). Read it again. It does not say to use a neutral detergent. It says to use appropriate chaincleaner. It also says not to use an acidic or basic solvent.

Kerosene, mineral spirits and other organic solvents are detergents in the sense that they have detersive - or cleaning - abilities and are used to assist in cleaning. They remove contaminants...in this case grease...and leave the chain clean. They also happen to be pH neutral...actually pH meaningless...and thus meet the requirements of the Technical Service Instructions. They just so happen to do a much better job...fewer steps, cleaner chain, quicker evaporation time, etc...then does water based detergents.

HillRider

The chain was returned to a Performance shop and they do such a large volume with Shimano that I expect they will be diligent in reporting the failure to them, particularly if they see several of these chains. A small LBS wouldn't be as likely to see enough failures to recognize it as a systemic problem but Performance probably will.

The "chain cleaning" tangent here is completely irrelevant. Unless the OP cleaned the chain in strong HCl, this failure is completly unrelated. It was either mechanical damage or a manufacturing defect.

greaterbrown

I'm liking this chain more and more as I read. It provides you good performance as long as you clean it twice a day (after each 14 mile one way commute)
Or, perhaps the failure is so rapid that we should encourage the OP to bring the supplies with him during his commute so he can give a thorough cleaning at the 7 mile point.

cyccommute 

He is riding in more severe conditions that most people are going to run across. I'm not saying that he has to clean the salt off twice a day but, if the roads have been heavily salted, NoRacer may want to do a water rinse at least once a day. He may also want to consider another bike for this kind of severe service. One with an 8 or 9 speed drivetrain would work better since those chains are wider and more robust. Changing to a stainless chain might also help.

AEO

I used my sram 9sp chain with the quick link on my FG for winter... actually it's still winter, and it has held up fine, despite the amount of salt on the roads. lube and wipe once a week and after a couple of wet days.
then again I'm not doing skids or other hard things on it.

Al1943

Thanks for the chemistry lesson. This is good information.
Al

strop

I definitely don't recommend doing skids on your chain. Not even sure how you do that exactly, normally my tires are the only things touching the ground :-D

HillRider

You don't really skid the chain itself but you put enough back pressure on the pedals to lock the rear wheel and cause the tire to skid. That puts a lot of tension on the chain so the comment noted that "skids" are hard on it.

larry_llama

Chill out. The general public WILL put WD-40 on their bike chains FOREVER, no matter what we argue about on this message board. I was using sarcasm to suggest that claiming that WD-40 could cause your chain to break is a bit ludicrous:

bikinfool

Interesting stuff.

Somehow I can't imagine the Performance shop being diligent about much of anything, retail sales people understanding and writing up why they replaced a chain one day? Somewhat of a stretch IME in dealing with Performance shops.

As to waiting for a recall, either a voluntary recall or mandatory recall, neither will come particularly quickly (who wants to undergo the expense of a recall, although obviously if you wait too long it can be a disaster...like for Toyota). I could see why a shop wouldn't want to react to this kind of information without some backup from Shimano, though.

deep_sky

Christ, what the **** are you doing to your chainrings? They are filthy and starting to wear out, it looks like.

HillRider

My thinking was that Performance will see a lot of these broken chains if the problem is wide spread and will be returning them to Shimano for credit. They will see a greater number of defects and be more obvious than any mom-and-pop LBS since there are so many Performance stores.

deep_sky

Maybe. Since you can't actually get any service at a Performance store, you spend a great deal of time waiting for some mouthbreather to finally come help you. Getting frustrated, you head to your local mom-n-pop LBS because although its more expensive, you might actually get some service before you retire.

LarDasse74

Shops do not give money back for defective items out of the goodness of their hearts - they must return the defective item to the manufacturer or distributor to get credit or replacement. If a chain is returned to a shop, I'm 95% sure it will eventually wind up back at Shimano.