Surly
 

Their warranty department blows. Was in at the shop where I get my parts from to order a red velocity deep v rim, enter the door, and the owner is on the phone with surly's warranty department. In a bit of a heated discussion. The owner has been building and riding fixed gears for 30 years.(Take note) The customer whose hub it is had the hub for all of one day and had only gotten 3 miles on it when for no reason the threads strip out. The customer brings it back to the shop, where he flips the cog over and it holds up. He brings it back later to get the hub replaced by warranty, the warranty department, turns down the warranty claim, blaming the cog(dura ace track cog.) for stripping out the hub and started to accuse the owner of not knowing on how to install a cog, remember the owner of the shop has been building and riding fixies for 30 years.

Was pondering a surly track hub, but that locked it in ice, I'm getting a phil wood.

I've warrantied Surly stuff and never had a problem. They replaced a Singulator and a Torsion bar no questions asked. I wouldn't make a judgement after hearing one side of a story and walking in halfway through it.

Was there when the wheel arrived in the mail and when the cog was installed. I also know the person whose wheel it was, great rider, but absolutely no mechanical skills at all. This ordeal with surly has been going on all of last week and this week until today. He finally got a straight answer today, each other time they kind of avoided his calls.

My guess is therein lies the answer. I absolutely cannot believe any hub, even a Suzue Jr., could just magically strip out after 3 miles. Two things I've learned are: mechanics make mistakes no matter how long they've been around, and people try to "fix" their own bikes even if they have no mechanical skills. Regardless, its still one isolated incident... I've called Surly about 100x over the past 5 years and usually get a live person on the 2nd ring. I'd honestly say their customer service is 2nd to none, and would probably say the same for their hubs. My point is, with all the Surly hubs that have been put into use over the past decade, how many have you heard stripped out? I can't think of a single one. Which to me says this case reeks of an error either on the users part or the builder's part, or an isolated one time incident. I can understand Surly's skepticism.

The person acknowledges the his lack of mechanical skills, and leaves it to the owner of the shop, hell I've even made repairs to his bike after his chain snapped a few weeks ago. The owner does know what he is doing. It really isn't a big concern, because this guy is a psycho on the bike, produces an insane amount of torque, and is the only person who has managed to make me suffer like a dog in order to keep pace or keep in front.

It really didn't make my mind up either, was just set on a phil wood hub in the first place.

Sounds like you want a phil wood hub anyway. Surly seems to have a pretty good warranty department from my personal experience.

The guys at Surly were great on the rare occasion I had a warranty item. Phils are nice, but owning both the Surly hubs and Phil hubs I have a hard time justifying the price premium.

Mods are rich - he should buy everyone a Phil hub! I want orange!

wait...

I had an issue with a rear hub, not the threads, but bearings. They replaced the hub even though I damaged it. Pretty good service IMHO.

I don't know personally, but I hear that the Surly guys are good people.

At a LBS here... they don't even stock Surly hubs anymore, for that single reason. Stripped threads. Lots of people complain and don't get any kind of warranty. Can't say from first exp. though. I strpped a sealed quando (the LBS's Surly replacement for mid priced fixed hubs) after about 2 months of learning to skid.

Buy nice things cuz they last longer.

Maybe the mechanics are not installing it properly. The LBS guys I know don't know squat about installing a fixed track cog, nor would I trust them to install one. With a freewheel (which the mechanics may see everyday) you don't even have to screw it on all the way because it will self tighten as you pedal and never come loose. A track cog obviously has to be threaded on tightly and the lock ring as well. Maybe the mechanics don't get that and they are only hand tightening the cog, thus allowing it to develop some play between the hub and lockring..that could eventually strip the hub. I have two sets of Surly hubs and they have both worked flawlessly with nothing ever slipping or stripping whatsoever despite the fact that I skid, skip and what not and I weigh over 200 pounds.

i partied (and rode) with a couple of them over the weekend in pittsburgh (dirtrag punkbike enduro) and i can verify that they were really nice AND SURLY guys who seem to care way more about riding bikes than having fistfuls of cash! :D

after seeing them ride (dunno the dudes name but he was at least 6'7") i would believe the stuff will hold up to the abuse that just about any human can dish out.

Agreed. I think a lot of the people bought the hubs and installed it themselves. Thus the strippage.
From what I can tell, the Surly hubs look fine. It just so happens that there was a number of complaints.

I think maybe the learning threshhold + loose cog play might be a factor.

I've been dealing with SURLY since 99 without ANY problems. I'm glad they offer good products that cyclist need at great prices. Thanks for the thread... I think I'll send em even more business.

Mine have been great so far too. One of them I've put through hell. I did a 400 mile tour across NY this past summer. I had a custom bike built as a commuter/tourer, but the frame wasn't quite designed right and I couldn't use it. My only other bike choice that would work for the ride was my fixed gear. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I survived with no wrecked knees. Pulled 45-60 lbs split between front panniers & a BOB trailer. We rode partly through the southern Adirondacks in upstate NY with some fairly steep hills and 46/16 gearing. The hub performed flawlessly, though my chain very noticeably stretched in that 400 miles (yeah, I measured before & after). Needless to say I'm quite happy with it.

The one problem I had with a surly hub was that I kept having the locknuts shatter on me. I emailed Surly , and they sent me a couple of replacements. When those also cracked and I asked for a replacement hub (since there was nothing else I could attribute the locknut failure to), not only did they send it without needing a receipt, etc., but they sent it to me before I sent back the one being replaced so that I had the least amount of downtime possible.
Someone else (leif-fire-eater, maybe?) posted here about having their bearings improperly adjusted and wrecking the shell, and Surly sending a replacement despite it clearly being user error. Maybe the guy who deals with shops is cranky, but...

Yeah it was definitly me the wrecking the shell by not adjusting the bearings correctly. It was my fault and they were cool enough to send a new hub. They let me know what I did wrong also. I totally stand behind this company and I love my steamroller.