Are all bikes as unreliable as the German direct sales brands?

PB Forum :: All Mountain, Enduro & Cross-Country
Are all bikes as unreliable as the German direct sales brands?
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flag donda81
Posted: Aug 8, 2020 at 6:09 Quote
Seems polygon is the way to go!
flag bakemono
Posted: Aug 8, 2020 at 7:36 Quote
Will1848 wrote:
I fear it is a result of the desire to drive the price down. Otherwise I might as well go to my LBS where I can get more help and support for technical issues and warranty help.

I have a YT Jeffsy AL (Gen 1, 2017MY) and it is on it's third front triangle. Had two frames crack where the shock mount is welded to the top side of the downtube. Exact same crack in the exact same spot. In addition, working on press fit bottom brackets and replacing frame bearings is awful. This, I've assumed, is due to poor manufacturing tolerances of the Jeffsy along with pressing in bearings without any grease or anti seize to prevent the aluminum frame and steel bearing race from bonding.

Next bike will probably be a Commencal if I can find someone with an XL to test ride. Obviously the price point is worth it to me despite the known issues...

Just to let you know - Commencal's are equipped with press fit bottom brackets also.
flag DHhack
Posted: Aug 8, 2020 at 10:00 Quote
That’s why a lot of bikes are getting heavier again. I’ve not had any problems with YT, Giant or Specialized, my old 2013 Trek on the other hand was junk. My RSD has been ok, nothing broken but some minor issues with finish and a bad job with one of the sliding dropouts.
flag rpet
Posted: Aug 9, 2020 at 15:11 Quote
My 2018 Capra has been flawless.
flag dieskim
Posted: Aug 10, 2020 at 3:52 Quote
Will1848 wrote:
I fear it is a result of the desire to drive the price down. Otherwise I might as well go to my LBS where I can get more help and support for technical issues and warranty help.

I have a YT Jeffsy AL (Gen 1, 2017MY) and it is on it's third front triangle. Had two frames crack where the shock mount is welded to the top side of the downtube. Exact same crack in the exact same spot. In addition, working on press fit bottom brackets and replacing frame bearings is awful. This, I've assumed, is due to poor manufacturing tolerances of the Jeffsy along with pressing in bearings without any grease or anti seize to prevent the aluminum frame and steel bearing race from bonding.

Next bike will probably be a Commencal if I can find someone with an XL to test ride. Obviously the price point is worth it to me despite the known issues...

Just got delivery of a Commencal meta HT, Lyrik fork was n dud out of the box.. Now, to try and get Commencal to take care of this is another headache, 3 phone calls later and the bike is still hanging in the stand fork-less.
flag fourfourone
Posted: Aug 10, 2020 at 9:20 Quote
If it makes you guys feel any better I can't get any sort of response from Santa cruz right now. Pay top dollar for a bike to expect decent service isn't always the case. I know they are behind from the whole covid BS but the are still shipping bikes.
flag Losvar
Posted: Aug 11, 2020 at 3:58 Quote
Got a Last Coal from 2016, and there have been zero issues with the frame, despite some pretty serious abuse.
Most impressive of all, is that all the pivot bearings still feel like new, but I will change them out at the end of the season just to make sure it's in perfect condition for next year.
Last frames are welded in Taiwan, but they do all the heat treatment and machining themselves in Germany, so I guess that makes it quite a lot easier to keep good QA.

99% sure I'll buy a Last next time too, even though the cost is a bit higher than some others.
flag skerby
Posted: Aug 11, 2020 at 7:19 Quote
I have beat the living hell out of my 19 nukeproof mega for almost a year now. Solid bike, some issues with loosening pivots but all were easy to resolve.

Hasn't needed bearings despite being ridden in axle deep mud almost every ride, I did fill them with grease when they were new though.
flag nematon785
Posted: Aug 11, 2020 at 22:09 Quote
2018 capra came with issues that put me off the brand for good. Non working seatpost, bad rear brake, no grease on pivots, bent derailleur hangar. That puppy was out for 3 weeks waiting for warranty parts before first ride. Seatpost was model
Number that had been recalled...2 years old!!! Spent a lot of time wrenching on a brand new bike and riding my beater hardtail. No grease in headset and pivots is straight unforgiveable. Specced with exo tires and cute yt logo rim tape that was beyond worthless. 1 minute testing bike before shipping would have revealed bad seatpost and bad rear brake. Must have been friday at beer thirty when they put mine together. Sold it off after basically rebuilding everything right. Lucky buyer ended up better off than ordering new. Wont touch a dtc bike or an e13 part without a gun to my head now. Bonus was bike on sale $400 off... 3 weeks after i bought, mine still not ready to ride waiting for recall/warranty parts
flag Arierep
Posted: Aug 12, 2020 at 3:33 Quote
I hate to be the guy saying this, but you get what you pay for.
When we see a bike with a huge price advantage but very nice spec and a frame with all the trendy stuff like fancy internal routing, fancy paint job and fancy moulded guards, one need to realize saving have been made somewhere else.
Sure an optimised no-middle-man supply chain and some other tricks like part standardisation or open mould components might help, but those only go so far. Unless they are able to scale up production quantities to VW Golf numbers, which they don't.

That's why I'm on my second Bird. The frames are not expensive, but one can figure out why just looking at them. No internal routing, no fancy moulded guards, meh paint job, honest welds, etc. Instead your money goes to proper materials and manufacturing quality, proper bearings that last and top warranty service
flag Supermikhailmtb
Posted: Aug 12, 2020 at 6:40 Quote
nematon785 wrote:
2018 capra came with issues that put me off the brand for good. Non working seatpost, bad rear brake, no grease on pivots, bent derailleur hangar. That puppy was out for 3 weeks waiting for warranty parts before first ride. Seatpost was model
Number that had been recalled...2 years old!!! Spent a lot of time wrenching on a brand new bike and riding my beater hardtail. No grease in headset and pivots is straight unforgiveable. Specced with exo tires and cute yt logo rim tape that was beyond worthless. 1 minute testing bike before shipping would have revealed bad seatpost and bad rear brake. Must have been friday at beer thirty when they put mine together. Sold it off after basically rebuilding everything right. Lucky buyer ended up better off than ordering new. Wont touch a dtc bike or an e13 part without a gun to my head now. Bonus was bike on sale $400 off... 3 weeks after i bought, mine still not ready to ride waiting for recall/warranty parts

Disappointing for sure but a number of the parts you had issues with are not made by YT. In terms of grease, yes that's a silly build quality issue but that problem is also easy to solve by just greasing the pivots.

Cheers.
flag Will1848
Posted: Aug 12, 2020 at 6:40 Quote
bakemono wrote:
Will1848 wrote:
I fear it is a result of the desire to drive the price down. Otherwise I might as well go to my LBS where I can get more help and support for technical issues and warranty help.

I have a YT Jeffsy AL (Gen 1, 2017MY) and it is on it's third front triangle. Had two frames crack where the shock mount is welded to the top side of the downtube. Exact same crack in the exact same spot. In addition, working on press fit bottom brackets and replacing frame bearings is awful. This, I've assumed, is due to poor manufacturing tolerances of the Jeffsy along with pressing in bearings without any grease or anti seize to prevent the aluminum frame and steel bearing race from bonding.

Next bike will probably be a Commencal if I can find someone with an XL to test ride. Obviously the price point is worth it to me despite the known issues...

Just to let you know - Commencal's are equipped with press fit bottom brackets also.

Yeah, that is my only gripe with their bikes so far. Will definitely order one of those BBs that converts it to a semi threaded compression fit.

Hopefully that wont mean new cranks. All these PF92 bikes don't seem to be limited by the lack of space to fit a special threaded cup, bearings, and spindle. Only so much room in there I guess...
flag Will1848
Posted: Aug 12, 2020 at 6:44 Quote
Supermikhailmtb wrote:
nematon785 wrote:
2018 capra came with issues that put me off the brand for good. Non working seatpost, bad rear brake, no grease on pivots, bent derailleur hangar. That puppy was out for 3 weeks waiting for warranty parts before first ride. Seatpost was model
Number that had been recalled...2 years old!!! Spent a lot of time wrenching on a brand new bike and riding my beater hardtail. No grease in headset and pivots is straight unforgiveable. Specced with exo tires and cute yt logo rim tape that was beyond worthless. 1 minute testing bike before shipping would have revealed bad seatpost and bad rear brake. Must have been friday at beer thirty when they put mine together. Sold it off after basically rebuilding everything right. Lucky buyer ended up better off than ordering new. Wont touch a dtc bike or an e13 part without a gun to my head now. Bonus was bike on sale $400 off... 3 weeks after i bought, mine still not ready to ride waiting for recall/warranty parts

Disappointing for sure but a number of the parts you had issues with are not made by YT. In terms of grease, yes that's a silly build quality issue but that problem is also easy to solve by just greasing the pivots.

Cheers.

I think the concern is more with grease being put into the frame before pressing in bearings. If that isn't done it is a huge PITA to pull the bearings down the road. Took me a few hours to get the main pivot bearings out of my YT because of this.

You better believe I filled each hole with grease before pressing the new bearings in. I'd rather deal with dirt collecting due to over greasing than frozen shit!
flag iainmac-1
Posted: Aug 12, 2020 at 7:34 Quote
Will1848 wrote:

I think the concern is more with grease being put into the frame before pressing in bearings. If that isn't done it is a huge PITA to pull the bearings down the road. Took me a few hours to get the main pivot bearings out of my YT because of this.

You better believe I filled each hole with grease before pressing the new bearings in. I'd rather deal with dirt collecting due to over greasing than frozen shit!

Due to the fact that these bearings & bearing housings are interference fit by design, all your grease is going to be pushed out during install anyway. Really, you should be pressing new bearings into a clean & dry bearing housing (may be different if pushing directly into carbon).

A possible reason it was so hard to remove the bearings from your YT could be due to their bearing housing tolerances being so poor that the housing is either a) too small or b) not concentric or c) a combo of both. The bike industry have a bad habit of being happy with very poor bearing fit tolerances...

All greasing the bearing housing will do is attract more dirt and grit, which you don't really want.
flag nematon785
Posted: Aug 12, 2020 at 11:10 Quote
If it is metal to metal fit, anywhere, its gettn grease. Stem, bars, seat post, seat, chainrings to spider or dd mount, water bottle cage bolts, and by gawd any bearing, axle, bolt, whatever. Friggin shock mounts creaking like a hunnerd year old staircase untill pulled, cleaned, greased, reassembled. I dont pressure wash, i just clean. Cassette on driver? Grease. Pull crank? Cleaned and light grease on bearings, crank axle, chainrings, bolts, pedals etc. No problem wiping off grease after install. Big problem with assembled stuff never greased. Pressing bearings? Yeah, im gonna grease the carrier, and the bearing. Then clean like a baby bum after. Headset no grease? The person who put that together would never do their own that way. I understand interference fit on linkage, valid point, but i grease it anyway. Disclaimer: i dont ride mud, i get fine dust. Chain and drivetrain are cleaned and lubed with dry teflon every third ride. If they made good tasting grease i would eat the stuff. Cannot stand creaks squeaks and clicks, and i dumpster older bikes with seized parts. Just not worth it. For a brand new bike to be assembled like a lego set with no grease is a serious offence.

 


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