AzTallRider

I got low battery indications (and drop outs), repeatedly very shortly after installing a new battery, and the Quarq tech had me carefully bend the contacts (under the battery) out a bit. No more low battery warnings.

MuppetMower

Would that result in the battery lasting less than a day?

I just bought a used quarq, and it devours batteries. This thread gives me hope.

kleinboogie

I like my Quarq and it died due to two adjacent switches locking up. They paid for 2-day shipping both ways, replaced the unit and calibrated it. Very helpful customer service. btw, customer service means how they handle your needs not how long the product lasts without service. A company that will do what they've done for me, and of course the awesome price, makes them a good choice for me. There's lots of bad customer service out there so when a company like Quarq screws up the curve for all the sucky ones, it's notable. Cheers

Racer Ex 

Mulling this...customer service is a tertiary consideration to whether you will need customer service or not. The OP's premise is that you should buy a Quarq because they have good customer service. That the three major players in this market all provide great customer service negates this as a differentiation. That a lot of folks have had to find this out might not be such a ringing endorsement.

Would you rather buy a car that runs trouble free for 300,000 miles or a car that breaks every 20,000 miles but you get a quick around or some great advice about how to keep the engine from blowing up so quickly?

While Quark's service is great, their reliability, based on a BF return per purchaser or issue per purchaser is not.

That said I wish them well and hope that the latest version proves trouble free.

JAX_11

Just ordered my first Powermeter ever. Sram quarq Riken. Now time to read up on the Powermeter thread. All this calibrating seems confusing. Powermeter should be here today.

shovelhd

Just don't overthink it.

merlinextraligh

Contrasted with Polar, where the product and the customer service, are both dog ****.

I've been trying for a week now to get the Look/Polar Keo pedals to work, with no luck, and no help from Polar.

Racer Ex 

Bummer.

zigmeister

Quarq, hands down best customer service. I purchased a used Quarq 975S. I run QRings so I wanted it calibrated. They had the rings I run in the shop, so just sent in the Cranks/PM, and they did the rest. Just paid for shipping both ways, and I needed a few magnets, which they threw in for free also.

Their communication and service is about as good as it gets.

JAX_11

Got my Quarq Sram Riken yesterday. Since I have been a shimano person since I started racing 2 years ago I decided to Try Sram out since it matches the Quarq and went with the 2013 Force and I love the fact you can pull the shift lever back into your hands while sprinting. Been racing a compact for the last 2 years and done decent in races including cat 3, but now its time to give a big boys 53-39 a shot. Also since I have switched to Sram I took the oppurtunity to try out some speedplay pedals instead of shimano spd pedals. should have it switched out by end of week and start learning just how little power I actually put out.

Racer Ex 

Can I see your customer satisfaction statistics? Using words like "best" would indicate either a broad survey or a lot of first hand experience with all the major companies.

I've owned probably 8 SRM's since 2004...wired, wireless, track and road. I find their customer support to be outstanding, but then the only unit I've ever sent in for something other than a battery turned out to be a user error.

A friend sent in his wired unit for service (an old, old unit) and they upgraded him to a wireless unit with the head unit for a ridiculously small amount of money.

And if I need my unit calibrated I go out to my garage and do it for free. I get free shipping from my bottom bracket to my bottom bracket. 10 minute turn around. Lest I seem a shill for Quarq I also directed several people to Powertaps because they are stupidly cheap on Ebay.

MDcatV

this is like the 33s version of a campy vs. shimano thread.

kleinboogie

Except in this thread there's a few people who appreciate Quarq's care for their customers and one person who's never owned one. Or did they do that in the campy vs. shimano thread to?

Jancouver

My two cents. I have both and I also have two powertap wheels.

Quarq: My Quarq (race bike) had to go back after few weeks of use because of some issues with the readings and values. Since then, I had no problems and battery swap takes 10 sec.

SRM: Bought used on eBay. Worked great after installation on my crit bike. (shorter cranks). Just about before Murrieta, I wanted to the bike out for a ride jsut to realize the battery was dead. Now, I'm too lazy and stupid to swap the battery myself, so I have to remove the crank, clean it and send to to SRM along with $100 payment for battery replacement. What a hassle.

Powertap 1. (EDGE/ENVE clincher, training, racing etc.) Worked OK for few months, than stopped working completely and had to send it in for a replacement. After that I had no issues other than replacing battery every 6 months or so. Not as easy as Quarq but still less than 5min of work.

Powertap 2. (Psimet Training wheels). Those hoops are da bomb and I never had any issues with the powertap.

There you have it. I have all three and all three had issues. Cant wait for those Garmin pedals hahaha

echappist

red herring

you don't need to own an Ergmo or an old Look to trash the two said products.

Racer Ex 

I would question whether sending out bad units one after the other constitutes "care".

If you're referencing me as the non-owner you are correct. The reason why is evident in this and other threads.

The premise of this thread is that you should ignore if something that breaks a lot and buy something because the company has good customer service. Sorry, I disagree. If I buy a service I expect good service. If I buy a device I expect it to work, the longer the better.

I'd be happy to sit down with you after a race, take out my lap top, and run you through my knowledge base. I've got well over a thousand files from Quarqs among thousands of PM files, and can go back and tell you how much down time per hour they have vs. SRM vs. PT's (and I have a bunch of Ergomo files BTW). I can tell you the number of bad Quarq files vs. the aforementioned meters. I walk people through their power meter issues on a regular basis. I've set up numerous bikes with the four PM's listed above. I've seen at least 7 client Quarqs replaced; for my purposes they are a crucial piece of my job and while the units were going bad it caused (and continues to cause) a lot of extra work and disruption.

Then you can tell me about the time yours broke.

shovelhd

That's certainly a valid viewpoint, and it has caused you some pain. I bet, though, if you looked at the total out of service time/unit between SRM, Quarq and Powertap, that they'd be pretty close. Not counting the guy who solders his own batteries into his SRM. The difference is, though, that when an SRM battery gets low, you have a warning, and your data is intact. When a Quarq fails, it may take a few days or a few minutes, but the data is all screwed up. So the impact is potentially bigger. I haven't had Powertap electronics fail, only bearings, but it's a similar situation to the Quarq, the data is messed up.

Speaking of messed up data, I have found that if I do not back up and delete the data on my Garmin 800 on a regular basis, that the unit will eventually go wonky, requiring a hard reset. I don't know if anyone else has seen this. The threshold is somewhere around 300-400 activities.

gsteinb

I DL, backup, and erase (srm) at least a few times a week

shovelhd

The backup and erase part, is that part of the download procedure, or is it something that you do on your own? In other words, is the SRM PCx capable of storing hundreds of activities, and will it if you don't do what you do?

gsteinb

I've never let it go more than two weeks, but when I did the PC7 had plenty of space left. Of course, I'm not doing 30 hour base weeks so your mileage may vary. My protocol is pretty simple: DL data. Hit the erase button. Export files to my desk top. Drag them in to WKO. They then live in my user folder in my documents (wko) as well as in my srm folder (undetailed obviously). Back up my computer regularly to the external HD.

Creatre

Yes I've had that same issue with the Garmin. I try to back my files up and clear it up every couple months. I make sure it doesn't get over 50% full.

AzTallRider

I load my files into TrainingPeaks.com daily, so I can review my files. Then on Sunday, I copy the files over to my hard drive and delete them from the Garmin. If you leave a large number of files on the Garmin, then the upload using Device Agent takes longer, as can firmware upgrades. Plus, having your data protected is like brushing you teeth. Also on Sunday, I pull the week's files into WKO+ from the TrainingPeaks server, and send them to my coach. I use a Mac, and run WKO+ with a Windows virtual machine. I prefer doing most of my review in TrainingPeaks, as I can do that from any computer.

shovelhd

I upload to Strava and zip up my files every week for coaching, so I have plenty of backup. What I have not been doing is deleting the files from the Garmin.

gsteinb

the SRM has an dialogue box pop up right after the DL with the option to delete or keep.

Racer Ex 

Sadly no. SRM's will run up to 3 years without a battery replacement, they do a very fast turn around when you need one. Generally people send them in during the off season after a couple of years so the impact is pretty minimal. Downtime for other reasons is almost none. PT's have more battery related issues and can occasionally get buggy, but the data produced is pretty stable across those two platforms. Quarq's are way out there in comparison to the other two for downtime per day especially if I include throwing out bad data files from under or over reporting.

Comparing this to a Campy vs. Shimano thread in the 41 is only partially accurate in that some folks (not directing this at you) seem to have an emotional relationship with their power meter vs. a practical one. I don't. If Zundapp came out with a 0.5% accurate, 99.9% reliable skewer based power meter that was $500 and could be swapped from bike to bike I'd be over there in a second. I do understand part of this though, it's a big ticket item for most people.