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Old 08-06-08 | 01:51 PM
  #9  
interested
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Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 465
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From: København

Bikes: Kinesisbikes UK Racelight Tk

It depends somewhat on climate and riding distance.
The Shimano Nexus 8 spd. (red band or not) is genereally considered a rather horrible product in the country where I live. In fact most Danish bicycle producers I know of have pulled the Nexus 8 from their 2008 product lines because of extremely high failure numbers. The main problem seems to be inadequate sealing that makes intruding water destroy the racings and bearing in record time. Since the left racing are part of the hub shell (not a spare part) this mean a new hub and usually a new rear wheel. A former colleague that had 1-2 warranty repairs on his Nexus 8 before he finally destroyed it after a year was given the advice that he needed to have the hub serviced every 1000 miles.
For some reason the Shimano 7 spd. is much more resilient to water and corrosion damage, also the Sram Sram Spectro S7 is considered the most durable of all the "cheap" IGH's.

But no matter what, if you ride a lot and also in wet weather, and perhaps in the winter/spring when there is salt on the roads, get your IGH serviced at suitable intervals, in practise this just means repacking the bearing grease. IGH's are perhaps low maintenance, but they are not zero maintenance devices.

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Regards
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