Originally Posted by
wroomwroomoops
I doubt very much that I am the only one to have a White Industrie's hub with cheap and crappy bearings, or that I am the only one with atrociously badly machined shell. When there are such fabrication imperfections, assembly failures are much more frequent, hence the bearing that was "dancing" in my case. Basically, the axis of the bearing and the axis of the shell were not parallel (the difference is just a fraction of a degree, but enough to cause the clicking noise at every revolution). Careful repositioning of the bearing solved the problem, but also opened my eyes to what piece of crap did I spend my money on. For less money, Surly's are way, way better, in every aspect.
I haven't had particularly good luck with WI products either, including a pair of cranks and hubs.
I don't have the track hubs, but a pair of H1 road hubs. The front bearings crapped out very quickly. I've since replaced the front and the rear is still smooth, but I can't (nor my LBS) seem to eliminate a small amount of bearing play in either hub. Apparently they addressed this problem with the H2 hubs, which are a bit heavier and probably have a bit more meat in the hubshell. That said the hubs are beautiful and the freehub mechanism with titantium freehub body is top notch.
The splined interface of my ENO cranks and chainring are also problematic. The tiny amount of play (which WI assured me is normal) loosens the lockring every ride (when riding fixed) and creaks like mad. I was able to solve the problem with a bit of loctite on the lockring. The hub-cog interface of their track hubs has the same flawed design. I would steer clear of the track hubs for that reason alone.
WIs main problem is their tendency to produce odd designs, which usually end up being flawed somehow.