Regardless of the warranty limitations this is an obvious defect in materials and/or workmanship and Downtube should provide a new frame. In fact many states do not allow certain warranty limits regardless of what the manufacturer specifies. Downtube would also gain a lot of good publicity, and reroute the negative impacts of this occurence, by helping resolve the issue to the customer's satisfaction.
BTW I am recovering from a broken left hip and plan to buy a Downtube once I am riding again. So for both of those reasons I am watching this thread very closely.
Last edited by Cascade; 11-22-07 at 02:19 AM.