Cracked Carbon Frame

Smokin Joe

Disagree with that, Coach H.

Most pros get one bike for the season, when they will see more miles than most of us do in five years and they are used far more agressively than the rest of us are capable of. Pro teams do not use frames which are prone to falling apart half way through a 180 mile race over bumpy surfaces. People seem to labour under the false impression that they junk all therir gear at the end of every race and get brand new stuff. Cycling isn't Formula 1 where teams have unlimited budgets, most of them have watch the pennies.

Lightness is achieved by reducing material where it can be done without compromising the strength. Any superlight top end bike frame will last many times longer than that on some gas pipe 25lb clunker from Argos.

bigkid

Trek will have done lots of testing before releasing a bike for public sale. Hence, they will simply have a list of 'acceptable' failures that are covered under warranty (mainly known recurring manufacturing faults). Yours has been judged as non-warranty. I would not give up as if you are certain that you did not 'damage' the frame then you could ask them to prove that it is not a manufacturing fault. Ask if they can confirm the correct material thickness is present and no cut/wrinkled plies in the laminate. This should be enough to make them look into their findings thoroughly. Correctly wetted/cured plies would easily be detected during manufacture. Proper analysis can be done by a third party easily if you really want to push the situation.
If you haven't got weightlifters thighs and buckled wheels then there are only 2 reasons left for failure - impact (what Trek believe) and manufacturing. Most impacts that are hard enough to break a frame will leave a very obvious damage witness on the surface.
In the end, don't dispare it is pretty much certain that your frame can be repaired by one of the mentioned companies and for probably less than £200.
Good Luck.

oldwelshman

A couple of points.
Firstly carry on chasing Trek.
Second point insure all your bikes on home contents.
For £50 extra per year on my home policy I have 2 "named" bikes covered up to £6k each and 4 more up to £4k which do not require to be named.
Recently I had a bad crash and though I thought carbon frame was ok it was damaged and had to be replaced, along with some other bits, which came to £2.8k, all of which was paid very quickly by my insurance. (Norwich Union using Axa)
Final point, send it to reputable frame builder for repair. I recently saw a Planet X track bike which had a broken chain stay fixed by carbon wrapping and re lacquer, Dolan's did it.

Charlie R

Les,
The same thing recently happened to me. I have a Madone 5.2. During recent rides, I heard clicking sounds whenever I stood on the bike to climb hills. I could not determine where the clicking was coming from. Last week, while riding my TREK, I stopped at a traffic light. When I started again, the chain slipped and I had trouble keeping the chain engaged with the cassette. I was only a few miles from home and was able to spin my way back home. I then took my TREK to the Bike shop where I purchased it from. An employee at the Bike shop noticed that the chain stay had broken. The person I purchased the bike from told me that bike had obviously not been in an accident and that a TREK representative was due in the store that day. I was told that TREK would take care of the frame. A few day later, I received a call from the Bike shop and was told that TREK would not replace the frame because the bike had been in an accident or misused. I was stunned. The bike has never been in an accident or misused. The bike does not have a scratch or ding on it other than the broken chain stay. When I picked up my bike from the Bike shop, I was told that the TREK rep did a visual inspection of my bike and determined that the bike had been damaged by an upward thrust. I am not sure what the means, but I do know that my bike had never been abused. It has never been in an accident, it has never been dropped or hit in any way. It has never been on the ground.

Could you give me an update. Has your problem been resolved?

Charlie
Mesa, AZ

on-yer-bike

Slow Downcp wrote:

If no joy with Trek, are you insured? When my chain unshipped on my Kuota, it got stuck between stay and chainset, which left a small groove in the carbon. I phoned my insurers (normal house insurance with accidental damage included for contents), told them exectly what happened and how much a new frame would be, and they said that if my LBS thought it was scrap, just get a written statement from them along with a quote and they would arrange replacement. Luckily the damage was just superficial so didn't have to claim.

You were lucky. Same thing happened to me and my insurer said "that's not an accident that's mechanical failure so you aren't insured. A properly built bike will never lose its chain, go back to the bike shop that built it" Well I built it and chains do come off.

damoando

Having just dropped my Trek 6.5 off at the LBS due to damage where the seat post clamps to the seat mast my hopes of getting a favourable outcome have dropped severerly having read through these posts. Wondering if anyone has heard of Trek ever giving a good response in these situations?

Mr. Skweek

I met a guy in Mallorca in 2004 who also had a cracked chainstay on his new Trek and - guess what - Trek said it had received a horizontal load when it was only designed to withstand vertical loads.
The Trek warranty is worthless.
Personally I recommend titanium which is durable and repairable.

mamba80

Hi there,
yes, there was a guy at our local club who got a replacement bike out of trek, it took months, they sent the wrong frames, wrong builds, faulty parts, in the end the poor bloke gave up and i never heard from him again!
Get a Spesh or a LOOK if you want decent CS
my LBS sent back my Spesh for accident damage assesment and they sent me a brand new frame FOC even chuckin in a free DuraAce BB.
LOOK have jsut upgraded my friends 595 to a 2010 Cofidis model after a small issue with slightly damaged BB threads.

Did any of these Trek issues on this post ever have a good outcome?

damoando

My Trek issue currently pending. They have asked to see my torque wrench. They obviously believe the saddle cap has been over-tightened. Although what this will prove I dont know (other than that I own a torque wrench).

passout

I had something similar with a new Commencal Meta MTB frame. It hadn't suffered any knock when it failed. I stuck to my guns, insisted it hadn't been crashed/severly banged and insisted they took it away to run any tests they liked to prove it. It took them a couple of months but eventually I got a new frame out of it. Of course that was under a 1 year warranty but even the better companies have been known not to offer the benefit of the doubt. Keep pressing politely but firmly - it's worth it!

Monty Dog

Oh the joys of 'limited warranties' and poor unsuspecting folks who buy bikes on the basis of them. I wonder if those good folks at Trek are reading posts like this.

Wappygixer

My Kuota Kebal failed on the back end where the carbon stays meet the alloy drop outs.
Took it to the shop I bought the frame from and it was repaired after just a day.It would have been faster but time was needed for things to set.
Great customer service.
Also I work selling bikes for a large French company.If a frames failed we just replace it.With all the costs involved with testing for this and testing for that its just as cheap to give them a new bike, not just a new frame.Its also good for customer service.

Mothyman

..any progress on the Trek claim madbiker?