Design life of Fox suspension components: what's reasonable?

supersonic

But most of the R adjusters are the same! Not just this one fork. All of them. They use a thin shaft, and clip for detents. Not just the Van.

Andy B

As far as I know there haven't been any issues with the adjusters on any Fox forks. I certainly haven't had any problems with the F series or 32 & 36 Float forks I've used or handled @ work

Haven't had any problems with RS adjusters either

Only problems I've had are with Manitou's & Suntour adjusters, made of finest Swiss cheese they are

weescott

If you ride in rubbish conditions (which most people in the UK do) then you have to be very careful with maintenance of Fox forks or the stanchions can wear out quickly. It's the biggest gripe with Fox Forks. The Kashima coating should help alleviate that on the 2011 Forks.

Thewaylander

My stansions wore out due to my lack of servicing on my fox my fault.

But pretty muchmost people i know rides fox's and since i'm the only person who has had that issue, I'm willing to bet for most people ti truly is neglect.

Zaim

I've seen pictures of the coating rubbing off the stanchion, and excuse the stupid question, what difference does it make?

I'm just about to remove the lower legs of my Float 32 R and give them an inspection and clean the first time in 2 years (I know, I know). If they look OK they'll be off to Mojo for a service. Currently I'm getting no stiction and they feel as silky smooth as ever.

weescott

The coating helps with how plush the forks feel. Worn stanchions can also lead to leaking oil and let dirt get past the seals to eat away at the internals.

Northwind

weescott wrote:

The Kashima coating should help alleviate that on the 2011 Forks.

That must be why the service intervals have dropped from 100 hours to 30 hours

Thewaylander

Smoother forks, Less Solid though,

thel33ter

I'll stick with my basic Recons, been hammered for a year and as good as day one, no air leaks, oil leaks or anything. Any premium fork should be able to survive UK condtitons without eroding IMHO.

ESHER SHORE

I commute an hour a day, plus rides after work and weekends, so if I were to be using Fox forks on my bike, I would need a service every 3 weeks or so? What a crock of sh1t.

its pretty simple to understand, you are commuting on the ROAD.....

if you commuted every day to work across a wet / muddy Mountain then your service intervals would be as recommended

simple enough?

Alex

thel33ter wrote:

I'll stick with my basic Recons, been hammered for a year and as good as day one, no air leaks, oil leaks or anything. Any premium fork should be able to survive UK condtitons without eroding IMHO.

Nothing can survive without basic maintenance, especially highly strung lightweight mountainbike components.

You wouldn't let your car's engine run without any oil in, and if you did you'd expect it to seize.

The service interval on a mondeo is 12-20K miles. The service interval on an Evo 10 is 2 thousand. It's a more highly strung bit of equipment that needs greater care to extract good performance than a dumbed down everyman car that's designed around performing averagely even with poor maintenance.

The same happens with mountain bike gear, if you want the lightest and best, you've got to keep up with the care. If you want to abandon all maintenance, put a cheap heavy fork on the front.

Thewaylander

What Alex says,

Some people are coming across rather foolish in this thread, they don't realise the high tolerences that are used to make there equipment.

Anonymous

i'll tolerate your equipment in a minute.

Thewaylander

You have to tolerate me all the time! Bi..tch

The Northern Monkey

Service your forks... simple as.

Unless you are willing to shell out for new forks every 2 years or sacrifice the performance of your forks of course.

It makes me laugh when people say "i haven't serviced mine for x years, but theyr'e still really plush and perform well"... With a good service they'd probably be even better

Northwind

The Northern Monkey wrote:

It makes me laugh when people say "i haven't serviced mine for x years, but theyr'e still really plush and perform well"... With a good service they'd probably be even better

My older Revelations are 3 years old and never serviced, used 2 or 3 times a week in all conditions since I've had them, and by comparison with the newly serviced ones I had last year there was no noticable loss of performance. Stop making assumptions

Thewaylander

Northwind wrote:

The Northern Monkey wrote:

It makes me laugh when people say "i haven't serviced mine for x years, but theyr'e still really plush and perform well"... With a good service they'd probably be even better

My older Revelations are 3 years old and never serviced, used 2 or 3 times a week in all conditions since I've had them, and by comparison with the newly serviced ones I had last year there was no noticable loss of performance. Stop making assumptions

I'm with Monkey on this one, your oil for damping is prob off best by now in there, and there is no way there isn't play in the seals in this time.

It's just a mechanical impossability that they haven't worn mate..

Northwind

I'm not saying they haven't worn, I'm saying they're still working just as well as a newly serviced set, or close enough to make no difference. Not the same thing. Feel free to make your own direct comparisons and see what you think, my experience is that my old forks, probably about 10 times overdue for an oil change, feel pretty much the same as my newer forks that had been serviced properly.

And I'm not just one of those knobbers that can't feel any difference, when I change the fork oil in my motorbike forks the difference is unmissable... But then the oil in those is expected to last about 10 times longer than the oil in a set of Revelations so it's probably no wonder (when it comes out it's noticably thinner than it went in, due to shearing apparently, and for some reason always smells of fish)