My beautiful bike broke last year, the frame cracked.
It wasn't under guarantee, as I had not bought it from new (it was, in fact, unused, but I bought it 'ex-dem') Dealers in France weren't very much arsed to be honest.
Carbon fibre is expensive to repair (although apparently - like bone - stronger thereafter. But somehow who wants a repaired bike frame?)
But a letter to the MD in Germany, and a few weeks later, voilà. Brand new (superior) frame. All démontage, rémontage and freight costs covered, along with a complete overhaul and clean of my old parts (those of the bike anyway). No charges. I bought a new saddle because my old one was white, and it didn't match. Customer service par excellence. Focus bikes - A company that will have my gratitude and admiration for all time. A lot like Naim in that respect.
Can't wait to get out tomorrow!
Posted on: 20 January 2015 by naim_nymph
Very beautiful bike, Rod.
Glad everything turned out so well getting a new frame,
that was very kind of them! : )
Do you know how/why the first frame cracked?
Debs
Posted on: 20 January 2015 by rodwsmith
Thanks Debs
indeed - and this replacement is one up in the hierarchy, and on its own far more than I paid for the whole original bike in the first place. Nevertheless, they apologised to me that they couldn't replace my exact frame because it was no longer in stock/current/range.
No idea what happened. I had never dropped, or fallen from, the bike and I treated it like a seventeen year-old with his first car. The crack was behind the chainset, and I can only assume that perhaps a stone flew up and hit it from underneath. It wasn't a large thing - I only noticed because the wheel started wobbling a tiny bit and the paint flaked. In fact I rode home - about 40km. An internet search suggested that the Izalco frame is - relatively - far from fragile, has no particularly known weak points, and is even quite resistant to overtightening - the usual cause apparently. I think occasionally carbon fibre frames do just 'go' but I'm no expert (as you can tell!)
Fingers crossed this one will not!
Posted on: 23 January 2015 by winkyincanada
I've never had a carbon part or frame fail, touch wood. I'm on my fourth carbon bike. That's not to say that they don't fail, of course. Carbon bike frame manufacturing has become routine and commoditised for the most part. I imagine that there is an element of inspection and rejection in the quality control systems (i.e. it's cheaper to check the products for compliance with standards and reject those that don't measure up, than it is to engineer the manufacturing process to absolutely guarantee compliance) . Your frame may have slipped though.
But that's good customer service. Thanks for posting.
A friend of mine had a Ridley crack under the downtube just near the headtube. It started creaking and the bike shop then noticed it on inspection. The frame had never been crashed, but was a few years out of warranty. Ridley replaced it with a new updated frame - no questions asked.
