Thinking about eTap? Think again
 

I love my etap bikes. One tandem, one road bike. BUT, my road bike etap derailleur has failed. The failure was intermittent; try to shift and it wouldn't move. Not the batteries and maybe the server/motor (not sure of the terminology here). I called my LBS and they didn't bat an eye. Their report? Many etap failures are coming into the shop (as well as campy). Their advice? Stick with Di2 for now. Great. Can I get my money back?

I wasn't aware people were having issues with eTap. It's not super common here, but I know one guy who has it, and he hasn't had any issues. If you had bought it from our bike shop and it stopped working WE would look into warranty from SRAM for you. Not sure what the deal is with your LBS that they wouldn't take the initiative and start that process for you. "Stick with Di2 for now" isn't an answer - UNLESS you didn't actually buy it from them. hehe.

Never road eTap, but this is my first year with Di2, and two things I've noticed:

1. it never fails to make a shift.
2. battery life is amazing. I charged it twice this year and never came close to running out of power.

my husband has Di2 - flawless. maybe shimano had bugs at the start, I don't know, but it's tried and true now.

Too bad I had my custom bike designed for wireless. No mounts or drilled holes for wiring or cables. Zip ties? Uggghhh. I do really like the shifting method of etap ... I really hope sram can work out the problems. In the meantime, head's up ...

My LBS IS handling the warranty - they'll send it back for me and get a replacement. Unfortunately they said sram isn't terribly speedy so I'll be on another bike for a while.

Good to know.

My mechanic, however, reports that Campy is extremely reliable.

Campy waited to get into the electronic shifting field in order to get it right.

This coming summer I plan to change over from Record mechanical to Record electronic on my C60.

if It helps, my previous albeit limited experience working with SRAM on warranty replacements for some of my previous bike park’s bikes was quite speedy. They were good to work with. I hope they get you on the road quickly.

I have not run the etap and have been a user of DI2 for about 4 years. It does work pretty darn well, the only challenge I’ve ever had was my battery draining every week or two that ended up being caused by a malfunctioning climbing shifter.

I ride with a pretty large cycling group, quite a few etap users none of which have had any problems (other than one guy who had his bike stolen), nor have our shops outwardly reported any challenges from talking to a few guys at this morning’s ride. Hopefully you get fixed up quickly!

It is hard to ignore anecdotal evidence when it is your own experience. But it is still true that anecdotes, even multiple ones do not constitute data. The shop guy’s comments are worthless. So what, you have a single product failure which will likely be resolved satisfactorily, and yet you now know the product is crap. I don’t think so.

Or to put it another way, I would be happy to buy the full shift kit from you. Just don’t expect me to pay too much, since the seller is telling me the stuff isn’t any good.

Cogs and chains wear out, cables fray, batteries die, electronics get corroded.... plus ça change. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. No reason to stop living and growing, right?
My reluctance to go electronic is two-fold. Not so much because I'm so afraid a battery might die at an inopportune time, but because I am generally frustrated by electronics - the drudgery of mechanical maintenance - cleaning a chain, etc. - pales in comparison to the nuisance of charging gadgets and worrying about batteries, and the fact that I can't SEE the defect makes it all that much more annoying. The other side is cost. No WAY would I spend that much on an electronic gadget!

So because you had one derailleur failure, everyone should stay away from E-Tap? Makes sense...

Do you know how many hours were on the derailleur before failure? Just curious. I have it on my secondary bike & have not had any problems but I only have about 40 hours on it.

Is it inside warranty, at least?

I installed Sram eTap back in February 2015 and had zero problems. I have about 18,000 miles.

No sure why people are having problems, sure glad I'm not.

I have run Etap on three of my bikes the last couple of years. I have experienced no problems at all. I have become a SRAMophile.

Good to know. I have it on order and should arrive this week.

https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycl...-mid-ride.html

I had this problem. Did extensive diagnostics while living with it. Eventually decided I could no longer live with it, after bike refused to shift climbing a 16% grade on a ride I was doing for time.

Involved my LBS, they contacted SRAM, who sent a replacement rear der (which is the brains for the whole system).

Problem resolved, that bike has not acted up since.

Now my OTHER eTap bike, which had previously performed well all year, has started exhibiting the same symptom 2-3 times on the trainer this winter. So far it has self corrected each time by shifting the front, but I suspect I will be pursuing a warranty replacement for it shortly.

My main takeaway is "Thank god SRAM killed the offshore channels and I had no choice by to pay a couple hundred more through my LBS. THIS time, the warranty has proven valuable."

SRAM will send the replacement to the shop, and the LBS can swap them out while you wait. It's like a 10 minute job to pop the quick link, install the der, set the high and low limit, pair the system, and get it trimmed.

(15 minutes if they bother to put a der alignment tool on while they have the hanger bare. You should make them bother, because, 5 minutes to know it's right).

That's what they did for mine.

I personally saw someone have to ride a beat-a-rental for 3 days in Sicily because none of the mechanics could get his electronic campy to work right. IN ITALY. And ultimately a system reset got it working, it wasn't even a parts availability problem.

Sample size one, and I personally would NOT use that to mean I should avoid Campy.

(However, in the US, the general incompatibility with pretty much everything else that's readily available does make campy a really hard sell for me.)

Yup, very much this.

I have had nothing but good results with Campy, going all the way back to1988.

Maybe I am just fortunate.

Ive never had a single issue with eTap. Then again I only use Di2 :D

A couple of people I know locally, on SRAM eTap, are having FD issues ongoing.

Love it. One person's issue and everyone should stay away. Another suggests Campy - they got it right- except the poor schmuck who had a 1st gen EPS and brought it into my LBS - LBS couldn't get it working correctly - on the phone with Campy they told him, "Yeah, we fixed that in the next generation so your customer is out of luck."

Let's see, maybe we can find someone who had issues with shimano and then we'll have to go and find issues w/ traditional cable shift systems.

thanks for the link and another confirmation. google shows multiple threads on this issue on other forums. I didn't find yours when I did a search on this forum.

Because this problem is intermittent - and despite 3 mechanics seeing the "frozen" rear derailleur in INaction - the shop will NOT contact sram! Why? Because my RD was working this morning! Hello! That's what happens when a problem is intermittent. Frustrated and don't know if/how I can twist their arm on this.

If anyone knows of a way to contact sram directly please let me know. Thx.

https://www.sram.com/contact

call them on the phone and make them call the dealer and send the part, or else refer you to a dealer who is willing to support your choice to buy SRAM.

Honestly (IMO), this is not SRAM being dicks, this is your dealer/LBS.