another lapierre zesty bites the dust.

richg1979

nope hes paid cash.

im about the same weight and ride a yeti 575 carbon a lot more agressivly than he does, off drops and jumps ect and my back end has not broken.

what is your trying to get to? your only supposed to be 8 stone and ride it on the road?

Doombrain

sorry i'm trying to get through the awful english here but, what is the point of this topic again?

your mates bike has snapped and you're waiting for the outcome of the warranty process? simple, it will get repaired/replaced or if it's weeks you can push for a refund minus a small cash deduction for usage. that's the law.

PS, who the hell pays for anything new over a few hundred in cash anymore? IMO, that's a idiotic mistake to make right off the starting line.

richg1979

Doombrain wrote:

sorry i'm trying to get through the awful english here but, what is the point of this topic again?

your mates bike has snapped and you're waiting for the outcome of the warranty process? simple, it will get repaired/replaced or if it's weeks you can push for a refund minus a small cash deduction for usage. that's the law.

PS, who the hell pays for anything new over a few hundred in cash anymore? IMO, that's a idiotic mistake to make right off the starting line.

what you talking about? are you on drugs? call FRANK on 0800 77 66 00

if you have not noticed this is a bike forum not an english test and a freind has broken his bike and ive put this info on the site for people who are thinking of buying one of these
bikes knowing that there is quite a lot breaking lately.

PS: people who have lots of cash floating about buy things with cash.

and also for some info on a refund

Doombrain

how many do you know of that have broken?

The Northern Monkey

Doombrain wrote:

how many do you know of that have broken?

do a search :roll:

richg1979

i did see a couple broke but quite a few more after looking around the net, unfortunaly after he bought it.

Doombrain

ok well that's also a mistake.

to not research a expensive product before committing is, again, very silly.

edit (3rd one now): the point is it will get sorted. if the fail rate is so high there's no reason your 'mate' will get a refund.

i myself have a road bike returned because there's a crack in the frame. however you have to let the reseller have a chance at bringing the issue to resolution before you start demanding refunds etc.

Doombrain

bigbenj_08 wrote:

Doombrain wrote:

how many do you know of that have broken?

do a search :roll:

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

nickfrog

stubs wrote:

nickfrog wrote:

You might have to go to Taiwan and speak to the people who made the frame.

Wonder if they are the same people who made the 3 commencal frames I have sent back because of cracks

Very possibly. Asian sourcers from a given country (in this instance France) may have wanted to copy / neutralise each other or have simply been too lazy to take a gamble and used the same factory. It would seem that Commencal may have changed factory now at least for the Meta, hopefully for the better.

richg1979

i did look at quite a few reviews of this bike from the shop on my phone, and it does review very good but obvioulsy they dont tell you that it will brake after a few rides.

Doombrain

can't comment on that but i do know is that some 'reviews' are more or less paid for by the maker, or at least the publisher has had some healthy investment...

you need to be very carful about researching a product and take your time over it.

Northwind

richg1979 wrote:

i did look at quite a few reviews of this bike from the shop on my phone, and it does review very good but obvioulsy they dont tell you that it will brake after a few rides.

Because most don't :roll:

dogboy73

richg1979 wrote:

I knew there were some problems with the 09s but thought there must have been somthing done by now. obviously not. so i do feel a bit shady as i sort of got him to buy the bike, think ill keep my mouth shut from now on :shock: .

Should have recommended an Orange Five Pro - MBR trail bike of the year, single pivot simplicity, strong as an ox If he manages to brake one of them I'd be surprised. If he did then some sort of diet might be in order :roll:

Saying that I'm pushing maximum density myself I think. Set up my rear shock on the rebuild last night. Maximum PSI is 275 & I had to take it up to 250 to get 25% sag :? I need to shed a few pounds myself.

Mccraque

Lapierre offer a 5 year frame warranty on the Zesty so you should have no problem getting it replaced - however, if you bought from a decent retailer, and given that your contract is actually with the retailer, I would be suprised if they don't exchange the bike for you to something else, then take it up themselves with Lapierre.

Incidentally, I own the 09 version and did raise an eyebrow when they went to a carbon back end this year...

dogboy73

Mccraque wrote:

Incidentally, I own the 09 version and did raise an eyebrow when they went to a carbon back end this year...

It's a carbon rear end? I didn't realise that. So the 514 is carbon & the 314 steel? I think I'd rather have the piece of mind of the slightly heavier 314. Carbon all-mountain just doesn't sound right to me. I'd rather carry a few extra pounds & have a more reliable material.

Radioactiveman

314 is made from an alloy not steel. I think it is a shame as I have seen a couple of zestys hammered on nice rocky terrain and they are still in one piece. I really fancy one myself.

However if it happened to me I think I would be happy to have it replaced, providing the failure mechanism was understood. Everything made on the planet has the potential to present quality issues, it is the reason for quality control. To me what is important is how the retailer/manufacturer deals with it. A new bike with explanation would be nice. For example when a Cannondale Scalpel failed in an MBR test it was taken away for analysis and a new one provided with the fault engineered out and the explanation published. I am not sure if this would happen on an individual case as opposed to a popular biking publication such as MBR.

nickfrog

Radioactiveman wrote:

314 is made from an alloy not steel.

Steel is an alloy, so is aluminium.

Pedantic of Sussex.

Radioactiveman

+1 to Nickfrog for refreshing me in GCSE level science\history

I think what I meant was it is a lightweight alloy as opposed to more traditional steel's

stubs

nickfrog wrote:

Radioactiveman wrote:

314 is made from an alloy not steel.

Steel is an alloy, so is aluminium.

Pedantic of Sussex.

Aluminium isnt an alloy its an element

Pedantic of Lancashire

Radioactiveman

+1 for lancashire

Dammit cant believe I missed the chance to bat him for 6 myself

BigJimmyB

Splottboy wrote:

Mon dieu! Wot eez goeeen on?

Do you Eeeengleeeesh not know ow to verk zis bikes?

You are giveeeeen us French and wery bard name, is eeeet not?

Cum on Johneeeeey Ennnnglish, sort it!

OOH LA LA!

Is this your minky?

dogboy73

Radioactiveman wrote:

+1 for lancashire

Dammit cant believe I missed the chance to bat him for 6 myself

Some interesting elementary science refreshers going on here. Can we agree that the steel/alloy/alluminium rear end of the 314 looks to be somewhat more reliable than the carbon rear end of the (more expensive) 514? It seems to be the 514's that are getting these problems occassionaly.

Thewaylander

but i don't think its down to the carbon its a construction flaw surely, as Yeti have been running rear cabon swing arms for a while now no issues..

rbleightonbuzzard

Was the bike made in Vietnam?

rbleightonbuzzard

PS: people who have lots of cash floating about buy things with cash.

Yeah... especially plumbers and drug dealers.

dogboy73

Thewaylander wrote:

but i don't think its down to the carbon its a construction flaw surely, as Yeti have been running rear cabon swing arms for a while now no issues..

I'm sure this is the case becuase, as you say, a lot of full sussers have employed carbon rear ends without problems. But in this case (at least for the time being until Lapierre sort things out) it would appear that a 314 would be a much sounder prospect than the 514.

jam1e

To be fair though, when the "bike du jour"(as the Zesty is at the minute) breaks then it gets infinitely more attention than when a more established bike goes the same way.

Unless you can compare actual failure rates across the board then comparing a couple of highly publicised failures with the perceived lack of failure in other brands is just wrong. For every Zesty you've heard of breaking how many broken Fuels or Stumpys or Genius' have just been quietly dealt with with no fanfare? Nobody has any idea...

Maybe failure rates and manufacturers warranty claims processes are things that WMB/MBUK can investigate at some point and build into their reviews in some way. (Edit - This would probably be too much like actual journalism for mtb mags.)

Oh just for info - I had an 09 714 with the carbon rear which got hammered all over the Lakes and Peaks and which didn't miss a beat, and I'm a good 16st kitted up..

nickfrog

stubs wrote:

nickfrog wrote:

Radioactiveman wrote:

314 is made from an alloy not steel.

Steel is an alloy, so is aluminium.

Pedantic of Sussex.

Aluminium isnt an alloy its an element

Pedantic of Lancashire

. Damn. :oops:

lawman

tbh i think its just bad luck, loads of the frame shave been fine for months, so maybe there was a faulty batch of say 100/200 bikes (as a guess :?: ) then the likely hood is that this batch will most likely break and these are the bikes that have come up recently. it makes logical sense well atleast it does to me. every manufacturer has a quality control stage, with alloy bikes its relatively easy to see if a frame passes this test, as the defects can be pretty clear, with a carbon frame, the defects are less easy to see, due to the many layers of carbon, which is why it seems that most of the snapped frames have been with carbon rear ends. this does not mean that carbon bikes, or indeed zesty's, are crap, the bikes had a fault from the factory that is seemingly from one batch and if you get one of these bikes then its just bad luck, and will be replaced under warrenty. mags dont tend to document the failures because they only get one or two bikes in to test, so obviously the likely hood of getting a faulty bike is pretty slim, but with the internet being the all emcompassing juggernaut it is, these stories do the rounds and everyone goes into panic, thats just how the media works im afraid, and alot of the stories get recycled on different sites, and people cant always have the same username on every site so the amount of suposed "crap" bikes multiplies simply by word of mouth.

breezer

My 09 514 is fine, my friends 09 714 with carbon rear is also fine and he chucks it off 7 foot drops, rides in the Alpes etc.