Aluminum Frame Quality Among Brands

Ltrain98026

Wondering if someone has an opinion about overall frame quality issues among major brands. Aluminum full suspension bikes, should I be worried about the quality of the frame between brands like Giant, Diamondback and Commencal? Or is the Aluminum frame quality pretty similar among brands? Looking at bikes in the $2000-2500 range. Thank you.

cycleclinic

it depends what you mean by quality it is such a vauge term it is almost meaningless without defintion.

You might be talking about frequency of failures which can a design issue rather than QC at the factory or do you mean finish of the welds or the durability of the paint. Perhaps you mean consistancy of the tube wall thickness.

Since I dont know what you mean it is hard to comment. In fact all the only answer you could get is opinion and first or second hand anecdote, to your question, not hard fact as the sample size we deal with is not big enough.

I am not trying to be a pedant here but the question itself is flawed and you will therefore get a flawed answer.


Base you choice of bike on these things. Does it fit, does it meet your needs, does it use proprietory comsumable parts that may or may not be available (like freehubs or other spares), is the bike easily serviced or does it require specialist tools......

fenix

It's in nobodys interests to make a frame that fails.

No big name makers will have 'dodgy'' frames.

Read up on the model you want - it's always possible some have more flaws than others - but if you're aware you can make an informed decision.

The Rookie

Fenix wrote:

It's in nobodys interests to make a frame that fails.

No big name makers will have 'dodgy'' frames.

Read up on the model you want - it's always possible some have more flaws than others - but if you're aware you can make an informed decision.

Ignoring that 'Crackandfail' and 'Crackierre' and before that Commencal had exactly that?

cougie

Crackenfail - how long ago have I heard that last used ? 15 years ? 20 ?

As has been said - check out the reviews for your model.

The Rookie

Cannondale have just suffering a significant number of failures on their latest CX bike, so heard that just last week.

Point is they still get it wrong.

Review won't tell you if it's going to crack in six months or not!

That said, I agree it's pretty rare these days, and brand names are irrelevant really to quality as the cheaper frames from big name brands are often not as good as the entry level from lesser brands, for example teh Carrera hardtail frame is better than that on a Lardrock.

rockmonkeysc

Lappierre are still making weak frames but that's design issues rather than quality.
There's only a few factories making frames for all the major brands so very little difference in quality.
Just avoid anything with a label saying "Hand made with pride in the USA"

vrsmatt

To be honest, if its hydroformed alu frames then its more than likely made by Giant for the other manufacturers anyway

The Rookie

Or Merida......