nathank

ok, so the rings on my 2 year old 2002 Specialized FSR Comp were pretty worn (i replaced the middle and small ring last year) so i decided to just replace the whole crank and do an upgrade at the same time... to the new "external-bearing" XT...

i took the bike into my local shop and all... they're pretty good guys... so the next day a guy i'm good friends with (we've gone for beers twice and i've been to his house) calls me and says there's a major problem:

basically, when they removed the left side crank, the right side just fell out and the threads on the right side of the frame where the bottom bracket screws in are thoroughly gone. you can take the right crank with the bottom bracket and slde it in and out of the frame!!!

anyway, the bike shop is not a Specialized dealer although the buddy who called me used to work for another shop that is a dealer so he knows the rep...

so on his recommendation i took it to another shop. there was a misunderstanding there as they thought the bottom bracket had been changed... but now the new "guess" is the following:

it appears that the original bottom bracket that was installed was the wrong type so only about a third of the thread-length was used and then it was a little loose and the threads completely wore out. both shops say that Specialized installs the BBs before they are shipped out. i stripped the frame and left it with the crank/BB and the regional Specialized rep will look at it Monday and HOPEFULLY i will get a new M4 FSR frame...

anyway, the whole thing seems a little bit weird ---
* at first my local shop told me the threads were worn b/c the crank/BB was loose and i continued to ride and ruined them.
* then the other shop told me it was not a warranty issue b/c someone had screwed up it -- i then took the biek back tot he first shop and they then talked to the other shop and explained everything and i again had to take the frame back to the 2nd shop (oh, what a pain, here and there!)

so hopefully i will get a new frame as it does seem that Specialized made a mistake and installed the wrong bottom bracket (you can see that the threads in the BB only went like 1/3 the way into the frame which doesn't seem right)

it's so sad that my frame is ruined as otherwise it's fine... but if Specialized doesn't warranty it, the shop guys say the threads can be repaired by taking it to a specialist and building it up and reboring the threads, but that doesn't sound too good on an aluminum frame to me...

anyone ever seen anything like this? or what does it sound like to you guys?

madpogue 

I wish I knew more about government in Germany than what the glowing screen tells me. Over here (as you probably remember), most states have a Consumer Protection department or the like. This is obviously a result of negligence in the assembly process. It's only everyone's good fortune that it didn't result in serious injury. If there's any chance that Spec won't make this right for free, and if you have a comparable agency, contact them. Let Spec know you've contacted them, and remind them that their negligence made your bike unsafe. Hammer the safety issue home as much as possible. Let them know how lucky you and they are that you weren't injured or killed riding around on their time bomb these last two years.

townandcountry

To add to the above, if you are a service person stationed over there or dependent, call your base JAG officer. They can work with the local government on behalf of the individual and get results that you might not be able to get on your own.

Moetools

I have run into the same issue with the bottom bracket on my 2003 Big Hit. Preliminary investigation by my LBS says that I need to purchase a new frame. I am not that hard on my bikes and expected them to last longer since it is supposed to be built to handle rough riding.

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

AfterThisNap

Even if the threads are completely buggered there are specialty bottom brackets with threadless shells that screw into each other. They're made specifically for this problem. I think YST is the mfg.

operator

With the added caveat that the YST suck and it also requires a special tool to modify the frame to accept this BB.

TO11MTM

Something doesn't sound right... I can't tell you what to thing without inspecting the thing myself but something just doesn't seem right... Good luck on getting the thing fixed.

However, if all else fails you might be able to rethread the BB for Italian threading...