Originally Posted by
Campag4life
To your last point, my Specialized Secteur which was 4 years old had what I consider substandard weld quality. Ultimately the paint started to bubble from a couple of these poor welds on the frame which resulted in replacing the frameset with the latest Allez Elite which in effect is the replacement model for the discontinued Secteur.
Even though the frame model level is not dissimilar, the weld quality on the new Allez is from another planet it is so good in comparison. The frame design is also quite a bit different with some really excellent design cues which make it such an excellent riding frame. Even with relatively poor weld quality of the Secteur the bike was rock solid and performed beautifully until it was replaced.
I'm not sure of the timescale but Merida bought into Specialized (I think they own 49%) a few years ago and now pretty much all their bikes except perhaps entry level are made by Merida and Merida are one of the best large scale frame manufacturer's in the world. Personally I rate Giant higher but I have some older 7005 Saracen bikes with Merida frames and they are superb. I would be comfortable buying a Specialized bike knowing it's a Merida frame where as other brands I'm uncertain of because I just wouldn't know who made the frame. It's possible from what you have written that the early frame was from a completely different inferior factory. Even if Merida had already bought in to the firm on that date there must have been a transitional period before most of the frames were sourced from Merida.