Planet X Nanolight frame disaster

chris1001

I'm the proud owner of a Planet X Nanolight high modulas frame, it's treated as the 'Sunday best' and never abused, doing less than 200 miles a month as I use a cheap Kinesis for commuting etc. Today I took a trip over to Buxton and part way through one of the final descents I noticed that the rear brakes were making contact with the rim, just on one side, thinking the caliper had shifted I opened up the adjuster and carried on until I could re-set it with an allen key. However, as I went to adjust it I noticed what looked like a dodgy paint job on one of the seat stays, on closer inspection I realised that it was cracked - I guess this resulted in the rear wheel not sitting centrally between the seat stays. Anyway, I didnt dare ride it so had to phone for help, which went down well! Its about 9 months old so is well within the warranty period, but I was wondering how people have found the warranty process with Planet X? Just checked their website and it mentions a 50% reduction on the price of a replacement if the bike sustains crash damage, however this bike has never even hit a pot hole - am I likely to face a stiff argument over this, or are they generally ok? Considering how well this frame has been treated, and the fact that I'm only(!) 72Kg, I'm devastated that its failed in this way.

dodgy

I expect you will get a new frame pronto, in my experience, PlanetX handle their customers well.

tim_wand

Owning a Pro Carbon Sl a Kaffenbach a Pompetamine and an On On In Bred and having owned a Uncle John and a Pro Alu I can only say my experience of Planet X has always
been 100% fantastic (Not that I ve really ever had course for redress)

Might have been a bit fairer if you had have contacted them for a response before posting on here. If as I presume its 100% no quibble replacement or upgrade in your favour please be sure to feed that back to the forum as in my experience Planet X really are good guys who dont deserve to loose out before being given a chance.

chris1001

Thanks for the replies, its very re-assuring to hear that Planet X look after their customers, I've met my fair share of online retailers that dont give a damn or do their best to blame frame failures on the riders behaviour. I'm just grateful that I noticed the split before making the return journey, its very easy to top 45mph down one particular hill from Buxton to Leek, would hate to think of what might have happened if it gave way completely.

peter101cycle

Pretty bad failure, you were lucky it didn't fail badly as I used to ride the Peak District a lot a number of years ago. Should be a straight forward exchange.

ugo.santalucia

Bloody hell...

Maybe the modulus is a bit too high... sometime a little bit of compliance is not a bad thing...

Bring back steel!

gilesjuk

Consumer laws apply. 12 months manufacturers warranty.

Yossie

As above: in my experience P/X are excellent: never had any problems with them before.

Please keep us updated: praise where its due if its due.

ugo.santalucia

Yossie wrote:

As above: in my experience P/X are excellent: never had any problems with them before.

Please keep us updated: praise where its due if its due.

Except their frames are crap...

Yossie

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Yossie wrote:

As above: in my experience P/X are excellent: never had any problems with them before.

Please keep us updated: praise where its due if its due.

Except their frames are crap...

In your opinion, oh wearer of the maillot jeune, purveyor of knowledge and crusher of cols.

But we're not discussing their frames, we're discussing their customer service, so cheerio.

ex-pat scot

Not got a bad word to say about after-sales and warranty on PX. They've been fab the few times I've had to ring them.

As others have said, let us know the good and the bad on how it pans out

chris1001

Will do, just waiting for a call back now. They've got the photos. So far they have been happy to help, fingers crossed!

Other than this defect - hopefully a 'one off', I have to say that their frames are fantastic (very light, not too much flex), especially for the price.

amaferanga

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Yossie wrote:

As above: in my experience P/X are excellent: never had any problems with them before.

Please keep us updated: praise where its due if its due.

Except their frames are crap...

No. they are not crap.

Steel is real eh? :roll:

ugo.santalucia

amaferanga wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Yossie wrote:

As above: in my experience P/X are excellent: never had any problems with them before.

Please keep us updated: praise where its due if its due.

Except their frames are crap...

No. they are not crap.

Steel is real eh? :roll:

Yes but not necessarily... there's plenty of carbon frames built to last... something like in the picture suggests bad design or bad manufacturing... or both... I certainly wouldn't look for a replacement with the same product... if your Focus splits in half on the motorway, will you buy another Focus?

amaferanga

ugo.santalucia wrote:

amaferanga wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Yossie wrote:

As above: in my experience P/X are excellent: never had any problems with them before.

Please keep us updated: praise where its due if its due.

Except their frames are crap...

No. they are not crap.

Steel is real eh? :roll:

Yes but not necessarily... there's plenty of carbon frames built to last... something like in the picture suggests bad design or bad manufacturing... or both... I certainly wouldn't look for a replacement with the same product... if your Focus splits in half on the motorway, will you buy another Focus?

Any frame can fail. I've seen pictures of plenty of very expensive carbon frames that have failed 'for no apparent reason'.

So come on then - name some of these carbon frames that are 'built to last'.

ugo.santalucia

There's plenty of 1980s-1990s carbon frames on E-bay... 20 years of life suggests quality to me... today someone cuts corners to achieve 900 grams at an affordable price... i

That said, we're off topic

rolf_f

ugo.santalucia wrote:

if your Focus splits in half on the motorway, will you buy another Focus?

You would have to be very stupid indeed to choose not to buy what is well known to be a very good car on the basis of a one off incident.

If you had any sense at all, you would check to see if your split Focus was a known problem and make a judgement based on that.

Yossie

ugo.santalucia wrote:

There's plenty of 1980s-1990s carbon frames on E-bay... 20 years of life suggests quality to me... having had years of experience building and racing carbon frames while selling hundreds of them I know from personal experience how today someone cuts corners to achieve 900 grams at an affordable price... i

That said, I know that I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about and have started off an argument I can't win, so I'll let it drop and hope that no one notices, because obviously its only firms I don't like who have carbon failures and not firms who I do like, but we won't talk about that.

Small typo in your previous post, so for pedanticity's sake I thought I would correct it - I hope that 's ok.

Cheerio. Its been real.

chris1001

Update: they want a photo of the serial number so that they can discuss the issue with the manufacturer. Was kind of hoping for a 'bring it along to us and we'll sort you out ASAP', oh well.

marcusjb

They aren't a million miles away from you are they? Staffordshire to Rotherham isn't all that far - is it worth suggesting you take it up to them on the weekend or something?

Touch wood, I've never had any problems with my On-One - but when I ordered it (as parts to build myself), they forgot a couple of little bits from the brake levers - their service from the moment I phoned them with the problem was spot on. Nice people, so I hope that they sort you out as that does look to my, admittedly non-expert in all matters carbon, eye that it is a manufacturing defect.

chris1001

Had a reply back from the returns department, slightly worrying as the email only mentioned paint defects being covered by a 1 year warranty, I've explained that its not a paint defect and have offered to take the frame up to them tomorrow for inspection. 150 miles round trip but if it gets a fast resolution it'll be worth it.

Yossie

Paint defects are a year everwhere - I had the lacquer go on some Trek carbon forks and they were only covered for a year, so I took them off, threw them in next door's garden and bought some EC90 SLXs brand new for £100 from the US.

If the carbon has cracked then it should be a lifetime for the initial owner warranty.

ugo.santalucia

Specialized does 2 years on paint

But you are sure it's not a paint problem because of the wheel issue, I recall... Unless you have fibres aligned along the direction of the tube, it's incredibly difficult for a crack to develop that much in a composite. Is it unidirectionally aligned CF?

chris1001

Hi,

I've dropped the frame off at PX this morning. The returns guy is pretty sure its just a paint crack because the carbon either side of the crack cant be depressed i.e. it doesn’t appear to flex. Maybe it is just the paint, but hard to say without stripping back the paint or putting it under an MRI scanner (my mate operates one of these so its a possibility!). Unfortunately I wasn’t offered an immediate replacement, it'll have to be assessed, but I did enquire as to what 'could' happen - re-spray or new frame ? - and was informed that a new frame was the most likely, so fingers crossed. If this frame was repaired I don’t think I'd ever tackle a fast decent on it again.

I must say that despite not walking away with a replacement he was pretty thorough and asked about forthcoming races or events that I'll need the frame for, so will try and get it sorted for then.

A paint flaw doesn’t explain why all the wheels I tried didn’t sit centrally, but it might have another fault for all I know. Oh and in answer to the last question, its got a cosmetic layer of carbon but I didn’t take note of the direction of the weave.

Cheers

W5454

Crapbon fibre... ... ... ... Nuff said ! ! !

ugo.santalucia

I guess in the end you will get another frame, considering it's pretty new.

The lesson to be learned is that, yes, customer service is great and in the end you get a new frame... but in the meantime you don't have a bike for weeks or months and nobody gives you a "courtesy bike" to replace yours, unfortunately... so although warranty is a great thing, a frame that does not crack is an even better warranty

Good luck

PS: I had a similar case... my alloy MTB frame started bubbling badly, phoned the shop, they say Specialized frames are guaranteed for life... stripped everything and brought it there... they said it's paint, I said it was a bit bad to be just paint, they said it's paint, covered only by a two years warranty, hence expired...
Moral... 4 hours work to strip and rebuild and a trip for nothing (as they didn't mention the paint bit at the phone)
They even had the audacity to offer me a scrappage scheme... to which I replied... it's only paint, I don't need a new frame

chris1001

You're quite right, its the waiting thats the worst part. I'd have imagined that it would only take 2 minutes to look at the crack and realise that its either the paint thats cracked, or the carbon is damaged, either way it needs replacing and they have stock available.

rafletcher

chris1001 wrote:

You're quite right, its the waiting thats the worst part. I'd have imagined that it would only take 2 minutes to look at the crack and realise that its either the paint thats cracked, or the carbon is damaged, either way it needs replacing and they have stock available.

I wouldn't expect a steel or alu frame to be replaced if the paint finish failed outwith the warranty period, why should a carbon frame be an exception? Paint "fails" for many reasons, and some of those are attributable to damage caused in everyday usage.

chris1001

'Damage coaused by everyday use' - what like riding the bike without ever sustaining any impact damage? Either way, the wheel no longer sits true, as per previous posts above. The paint is under guarantee for a reason.

meanredspider

rafletcher wrote:

chris1001 wrote:

You're quite right, its the waiting thats the worst part. I'd have imagined that it would only take 2 minutes to look at the crack and realise that its either the paint thats cracked, or the carbon is damaged, either way it needs replacing and they have stock available.

I wouldn't expect a steel or alu frame to be replaced if the paint finish failed outwith the warranty period, why should a carbon frame be an exception? Paint "fails" for many reasons, and some of those are attributable to damage caused in everyday usage.

From what I can tell it's within the warranty period (9 months for a bicycle frame is certainly well within the timescale for durability). The OP should have a refund or a replacement to my mind. It's disappointing that he's left hanging on. The difference between CF and steel or aluminium is that it's much easier to determine if the crack is just paint or the underlying material with metals.

andi1363

chris1001 wrote:

I'm the proud owner of a Planet X Nanolight high modulas frame, it's treated as the 'Sunday best' and never abused, doing less than 200 miles a month as I use a cheap Kinesis for commuting etc. Today I took a trip over to Buxton and part way through one of the final descents I noticed that the rear brakes were making contact with the rim, just on one side, thinking the caliper had shifted I opened up the adjuster and carried on until I could re-set it with an allen key. However, as I went to adjust it I noticed what looked like a dodgy paint job on one of the seat stays, on closer inspection I realised that it was cracked - I guess this resulted in the rear wheel not sitting centrally between the seat stays. Anyway, I didnt dare ride it so had to phone for help, which went down well! Its about 9 months old so is well within the warranty period, but I was wondering how people have found the warranty process with Planet X? Just checked their website and it mentions a 50% reduction on the price of a replacement if the bike sustains crash damage, however this bike has never even hit a pot hole - am I likely to face a stiff argument over this, or are they generally ok? Considering how well this frame has been treated, and the fact that I'm only(!) 72Kg, I'm devastated that its failed in this way.

That is very unlikely to be just paint. Looks as if the Carbon has cracked and run along the warp/weft.

Did I mention I am a Carbon Laminate technician? :roll: