Hi all

Just joined bikeforums.net, purely to ask you guys for an opinion, if that's ok?

I have been commuting on various bikes for around 10 years. In March, I bought what I thought was my first bike actually designed to do the job, a Scott Sportster 60.
At £350, I am fully ware that it is not the highest spec bike, but I thought that it would last longer than the 6 months I've had it.

On average I do 50 miles per week in total. Last week the rear hub practically collapsed during morning rush hour, the axle and QR spindle snapped!
According to both the manufacturer, and Evans Cycles, this is purely wear and tear and I shopuld not expect this bike to cope with the excessive miles I do....yest that's right...50 miles is excessive apparently.

I have been in touch with Scott Sports - not interested. Evans Cycles are apologetic, but ultimately not interested.

What's your opinion guys?

Utterly ridiculous, is my opinion. It's a cheap bike, and the components aren't the best, but 50 miles a week is a low mileage. For a hub to fail at c. 1500 miles is very poor indeed.

I'm surprised at Evans' attitude, I'd have expected them to replace the hub. I suggest you go elsewhere for a replacement, higher spec wheel.

Having said all that, you only mention the hub. Presumably the rest of the bike is OK? If so, with a half-decent wheel set there's no reason it shouldn't last you for years.

Hello,

yeah that's not excessive, i'm guessing a 5 mile each way ride, 5 days a week? I do twice that on my commute. I would suggest either a maintenance problem or a fault on the part/s that failed. A pic of the failed part/s would help to make judgement, was there any grease on the spindle when it failed? Any noise before the failure? When you say "Axle" do you mean the hub of the wheel? What happened to that?

That's ridiculous. I've got wheels with over 10,000 miles on them. Performance tried to pull that stunt on me with some Open Pro/Ultegra wheels that had eyelets cracking and breaking less than 2 years after I bought them, even though Mavic has a 2 year warranty. I pitched a fuss and they finally agreed to give me a new rim, but I had to pay someone to rebuild the wheel. They lost a loyal customer that day.

You shouldn't have told them how many miles you ride. Warranties are based on time, not mileage. You gave the OEM one more reason to not honor your warranty.

Not saying that mileage is excessive. It's a far cry from excessive. But, manufacturers are not really interested in you. They are interested in making money. And, they don't make money from warranty work.

Thanks for your responses guys. I was beginnning to thnk it was just me!

I ride around 11 miles each way, but rarely more than 3 time a weeks.

I agree about giving them the mileage, but at the time I fully expected to be sorted by Evans, so when their store manager asked me, I thought it was for the right reasons!

They've now said that this bike is a "leisure bike" and not intended for commuting!!!...although their website states it is ideal for "touring and transportation"

The axle actually snapped in half, inside the cone...the QR spindle snapped just outside the frame dropout.....really wish I had taken pictures.

At the moment it's just the real wheel that has failed (although the pedals only last a month)...I did ask the warranty tem at Scott Sports UK to give me a list of other parts that are likely to fail...they never replied!

I've never heard anything good about Scott's warranty. My local LBS dumped them as a result. Evans is just at the mercy of what Scott will agree to reimburse.

Cheers and welcome to Bike Forums!

I'm with jezmellors here, more info would be good.

If you're giving us an accurate description, I'm surprised at Evans Cycles' reaction. I've had very good customer service on the few occasions I've dealt with them. After sales, too - I bought a pair of panniers from them, tried to put them on the bike a couple of weeks later (back in Finland) only to notice one pannier was missing vital mounting hardware. They sent me replacement parts, no cost, no questions asked.

To have Evans Cycles (or any bike specialist shop really) claim 50 miles per week is "excessive" is ridiculous indeed.

--J

I don't think so. EU has pretty strict legislation for customer protection and I would imagine UK being up to standards in that regard. I don't know the exact UK legislation though, but I still think Scott or Evans alone do not make the call for what's reasonable and what's not.

They do, unless you fight it :wink:

Well, they can try of course but "fighting it" is not a very complicated or costly procedure in my experience.