Scott Foil Internal cable failure while descending

matt-h

Hi,
I have a Scott Foil (see sig) and used it on a trip to the Alps a week ago.
As i was descending down the Semnoz i pulled on the brakes at a hairpin and the rear completely failed.
Very alarming when you're travelling at a fair lick.
I pulled over to check the bike and assumed i had snapped a cable or the caliper had failed but couldn't work out the problem.
I cautiously finished the descent and checked the bike over at the hotel.
The 2 outer cables from each end had free movement so i pulled them out and heard something drop down the frame - i have yet had a chance to fully strip the bike
It seems there is supposed to be a stop for the 2 short outers and that has now gone.
I managed to get hold of a full length of outer and fed that through the frame.
The brakes work perfectly but the new full length outer rattle like hell and its driving me nuts.
I obviously need to speak to Scott about this but i want to make sure i understand what is going on inside the frame and word appropriately - can anyone help?

Matt

dodgy

I think you just did a reasonable job of explaining what happened in your post above.

That is an alarming failure, though.

norvernrob

I got my Foil back from a shop a while ago, and on checking it the rear brake pulled straight to the bars - on inspection the cable stop had broken (or the shop had broken it). The outer part that fits into the frame was still there, but the inner part that narrows and prevents the cable outer going through had broken off.

Anyway, to get to the point, the cable stops are plastic. I ordered a full set of new ones from Westbrooks (around £15) and they were metal, which suggests to me maybe Scott are/were aware of a potential issue and upgraded the ones they sold in future.

lesfirth

Many years ago I used to do MOT testing of cars. Car handbrake cables used to break quite often on test because we pulled the lever harder than the owner ever did. We would also burst hydraulic brake pipes from time to time because we pressed the brake pedal harder than required in normal driving.
With this in mind I regularly squeeze my brake levers as hard as I can when checking over my bike. If anything is going to break it I would rather it did when I was stopped.
Car owners never thought we had done them a favour. They thought we had broken their car and we should fix it FOC!

dodgy

Think Scott should be doing some kind of recall if what I'm reading above is right!

AK_jnr

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19692781#p19692781]lesfirth[/url] wrote:

Many years ago I used to do MOT testing of cars. Car handbrake cables used to break quite often on test because we pulled the lever harder than the owner ever did. We would also burst hydraulic brake pipes from time to time because we pressed the brake pedal harder than required in normal driving.
With this in mind I regularly squeeze my brake levers as hard as I can when checking over my bike. If anything is going to break it I would rather it did when I was stopped.
Car owners never thought we had done them a favour. They thought we had broken their car and we should fix it FOC!

What?! Lol. Of course I would be sooo grateful for you breaking my handbrake cable because I roll down hills all the time due to not pulling it hard enough.

matt-h

Cheers for the replies.
I'm going to ping Scott and Westbrook an email as that is where i purchased the bike to see if they can post me some.
Its less than £20 but something they should be providing in my opinion

Rightarmbad

Sounds like who ever cabled it mixed up the gear and brake frame fittings.

matt-h

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19694335#p19694335]Rightarmbad[/url] wrote:

Sounds like who ever cabled it mixed up the gear and brake frame fittings.

Its a Di2 only frame so i would hope not

dirtymonkey1985

Mine had this exact problem while taking it for a service. I spoke to the mechanic and he thinks its a poor design and it's a good job you get 4 in a pack as i now have 3 spare! I thought it was just bad luck but clearly there is some kind of fault there

matt-h

Just thought i'd update after a PM. Sent the email to Westbooks and they sent out the replacement stops in metal the next day.
Cant really argue with that but it does seem to be a known problem.

I would think its a good idea to contact the bike shop and get replacements before it happens in a situation like mine

Matt

timbarnes

Interesting. I had the same breakage on my Foil - fortunately whilst brake testing at home - at almost exactly the same time.

My experience with Westbrook totally different - took a month to get some (plastic!) replacements out of them. First they claimed that they were 'consumables', yep, brake cable stops are consumables. Then that because they'd sold 160 of the replacement parts that they 'don`t think that people would buy them if it was a warranty part'. Then some quibbling over warranty periods if you haven't had your bike serviced at a Scott dealer.

All that for a safety critical component of the frame.

Cut a long story short, I'll never deal with Westbrook again.

The Rookie

Bit of a resurrect there, but how long ago was that?

neeb

Just had this problem myself - I'd zip-tied the brake levers to stop the wheels turning when the bike was on the back of the car. Arrived at (mountainous) destination to find the rear brake non-functional due to the (plastic) frame cable stop at the brake end breaking...

Ordered replacements from Westbrook and they arrived very promptly. They are metal but otherwise the same as the older plastic ones.

A few thoughts:

- It's a problem that will only ever affect the rear brake, as the front one isn't routed through the frame. Still, it could be pretty dangerous if it failed at the wrong moment..

- If you have a Mk I Foil you should probably get the replacement kit and use the metal frame stops front and back for the rear brake. The kit comes with these, plus two metal replacements for the gear cable stops. I haven't bothered changing the latter myself yet, I think it's pretty unlikely they would fail given the much gentler stresses on the gear cables, but if they do it won't be fatal and I have the metal ones to hand.