gw280

So I have a pair of carbon tubular wheels that I purchased in 2010, and I got a puncture about a year ago and just didn't have the time to sort it, so I've been riding on my clinchers in the meantime.

I just found out though that when taking the tyre off, the carbon weave that makes up the rim has come off with the tyre! So there's a small patch of carbon that's stuck to my tyre and about a layer of it missing from the gluing surface. The layer that's come off is about 4 cm long and 1.5 cm wide.

Unfortunately they had a two year warranty and they were purchased on April 6th 2010. Serious headbang moment there. One week out of warranty and I need a warranty service!

Can anyone suggest the best course of action for me? I'm a bit bummed as I got a really early puncture (<200 miles on these wheels) and I'm hoping I haven't written them off before even starting to get my feet wet with them!

DropDeadFred

Just contact them anyways...see what happens...stop waiting

Say you called but got nobody...musta been an Easter thing...

milnerpt

pics!

Bob Dopolina 

Seen it before.

Brand of wheel?

Glue or tape?

gw280

I'd rather not say the rim model whilst I have an open service issue with them, but they were glued on by my LBS using (I believe) continental tyre glue.

wapiti

Make sure you know the brand of rim and the glueing method ( and glue) - there are some well known issues with cf rims out there - warranty may be longer than you think.

ilovecycling

Why does it matter who made the rim? Just tell us for crying out loud! I had a crappy experience with Reynolds top-of-the-line mv32c UL wheels last year. It was a relatively expensive wheel that was not durable from the factory. I was disappointed but not afraid to share my experience with others so that they can take one more customer's experience into consideration before plunking down a lot of dough for a product. Why not help people out and share the brand? It's not going to make a difference with your warranty experience, but it helps other people make more informed decisions.

I <3 Robots

Thats it...I'm ditching my carbon wheels and buying a pair of steel wheels!

gw280

Well Easton refused to fix the manufacturing defect because it's outside its warranty period by a week in two years; my take on it was that you can't tell that it's defective until the tyre is removed anyway which can happen after the warranty period depending on how much you ride it and whether you puncture or not, but they wouldn't listen to any of it. In my opinion it was only a week out, it clearly hadn't been ridden much and it was clearly a manufacturing defect that was present from the start and so they should have replaced it as a matter of course.

I certainly shan't be buying their wheels again given this experience; I'm not particularly impressed with their quality control if a simple tubular tyre can rip the rim to shreds, and they're extremely expensive for the wheels you get. In future I shall be buying Boyd wheels, and recommending them to my friends.

gw280

(Oh the wheels were Easton EC90 SL wheels by the way)

Smallguy

sorry to hear

did u deal with easton yourself or did you go through your LBS ?

gw280

Both actually. They were bought in the UK when I used to live there (I since emigrated to Canada and took the bike with me), and the retailer there was extremely helpful but couldn't say for certain whether they'd replace them as faulty without seeing them physically. Unfortunately, shipping them from Canada to the UK via Canada Post would have been $100-$200!! I didn't see any point in paying that much to ship them on the off-chance that they would be replaced.

When I phoned up Easton I basically got a drone that kept repeating over and over again "the wheels are out of warranty". In my opinion manufacturing defects that are clearly present from the start should be fixed when it's a safety issue like what I have, *especially* if it's only like a week past the warranty period. For now I'll probably just get them repaired by a carbon repair shop in the US then ride them till my current tyres are dead then sell them at a huge loss for parts or something.

MikeyBoyAz

shimano replaced my friend's wheels after > 5 years when the spoke nipples started pulling through the rim. He didn't even have to send back the old wheels... they just sent a new set and we put the old front wheel (only) in the box and sent it back... postage paid...

gw280

Yeah, and it seems Zipp would replace them too: https://forums.roadbikereview.com/whe...re-126536.html

I'll put this in the "life lessons" box

Bob Dopolina 

I've never seen this happen with glue, only tape.

I would suggest a short, polite email with photos (and documentation) to Easton or, at the very least, their local rep/distributor. You're LBS should be able to help you with that.

You've got to get past the robot.

DropDeadFred

twitter and facebook comments tend to get things done for me lately, it seems social media can be very detrimental to businesses and it happens quick. Many businesses are being taught to pay more attention to negative comments or mentions via social media than anything else. This would be a last ditch effort simply because things can get nasty. I got Delta to give me 5000 miles on my card after they locked the gate doors EARLY and the gate attendant would not let me board, leaving me on standby for 4 hours. I took to twitter after I exhausted all my options at the airport and had a phone call and an email and they gave me all sorts of other vouchers to right the situation, they just asked I respond to the quality of their "timely" response on those same sites

gw280

I already sent them an email; no reply at all They just don't seem to care about their customers.

DropDeadFred - already tweeted that it's busted. I'm going to leave a review comment at the retailer warning other customers about the issues as well - don't want people to get caught in the same situation as me. At this point I figure that they're not going to do anything to help me, but if I can prevent others from falling in the same trap then that's at least something.

Bob Dopolina 

That ain't right.

gw280

And I sent the email a week ago so it's not even as if I've not given them enough time to reply. I've rewritten the tweet to ping their twitter username as I figured I've got nothing to lose, but as it stands I am very unimpressed with the low quality of these wheels.