Should I push for a warranty replacement of my rim?

[cloudguy]

Went on a ride yesterday and noticed a persistent, yet intermittent, rear wheel tire rub on a long steep climb where the subtle increase in friction every wheel rotation started to affect my pedaling. I was confused as to why this was happening, so I took it to the same shop that had replaced the rims this past January. They looked at it and concluded that the rear rim was bent, since they couldn't get it trued on the stand and also because of the intermittent nature of the rub. The rim is a Bontrager Race X-lite aluminum clincher, which I have so far been happy with - my last set of X-lite rims had to be replaced because the rim walls were finally worn down from braking. I don't recall riding over any potholes or bumps that could have damaged my rim - a question that the shop guy asked when looking at the wheel. Also, its not like I'm riding anywhere that I haven't ridden in the past 15 years with no rims getting bent. Do I have any standing to push for a warranty of the rim (which now has around 5000 miles on it) or is it just bad luck on my part as the shop person has suggested? If I have to suck it up and replace the rim, should I go with totally different brand (which would also require replacing the front rim for aesthetic reasons - silly, I know) or stick with Bontrager?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

[dddd]

A suddenly-bent wheel with no history of trauma often turns out to be a failing rim, where the eyelet is no longer being fully supported by the surrounding rim walls.
Note that inner and outer walls can fail on double-walled rims, so the failure could be hidden under rim tape.

Look for cracks in the aluminum, both inside and outside of the rim.

The eyelets themselves may also fail, especially when corrosion has been at work, and can be hard to locate without first locating the affected spoke with lost tension.

Sometimes also some harmless settling of mating surfaces can occur and cause a spoke to lose some tension, but this is less common so a tension evaluation and inspection are warranted.

I would at least now mark the location of the affected spoke (the one that best responds to truing tension to correct your current out-of true condition), and keep an eye on that spoke's tension and surrounding structures, including at the hub.

[Mark McM]

Rims don't just bend on their own - they have to be subjected to an (excessive) outside force. As noted by dddd, a cracked rim or failed eyelet can result in a rim going out of round - but in this case, the rim is generally not bent, and the wheel can be straightened by re-balancing the spoke tension (although this straightening may be temporary, as the rim cracks continue to grow). Cracks large enough to cause a rim to go out true should be visible.

If there are no cracks or broken eyelets visible, and the rim can not be straightened by re-balancing the spoke tension, then the rim is bent. The only way this would be warrantiable is if the rim was already bent from the factory; if this were the case, it could only have been round if the spoke tensions were wildly unbalanced. If the spoke tension when new was reasonably well balanced, then the most likely scenario is if you hit something and bent the rim.

[AngryScientist]

5000 miles? Warranty issues usually present themselves well before that.

As the guys above me mentioned, there is some cause for the out of true you describe. Doesn't just happen, and if the wheel was straight and true for the past 5k miles and just started to rub, the rim was OK to start with.

Sounds like your "wheel guy" is being a bit lazy, or doesn't know his stuff. He should probably be able to tell you what's going on based on a good visual inspection and spoke tension measurement.

[charliedid]

I second what Angry said above.

I can't tell you what is wrong or what happened but at 5000 you're done.

Time for new wheels.

[oldpotatoe]

Went on a ride yesterday and noticed a persistent, yet intermittent, rear wheel tire rub on a long steep climb where the subtle increase in friction every wheel rotation started to affect my pedaling. I was confused as to why this was happening, so I took it to the same shop that had replaced the rims this past January. They looked at it and concluded that the rear rim was bent, since they couldn't get it trued on the stand and also because of the intermittent nature of the rub. The rim is a Bontrager Race X-lite aluminum clincher, which I have so far been happy with - my last set of X-lite rims had to be replaced because the rim walls were finally worn down from braking. I don't recall riding over any potholes or bumps that could have damaged my rim - a question that the shop guy asked when looking at the wheel. Also, its not like I'm riding anywhere that I haven't ridden in the past 15 years with no rims getting bent. Do I have any standing to push for a warranty of the rim (which now has around 5000 miles on it) or is it just bad luck on my part as the shop person has suggested? If I have to suck it up and replace the rim, should I go with totally different brand (which would also require replacing the front rim for aesthetic reasons - silly, I know) or stick with Bontrager?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

5000 miles? Sorry, no warranty imho. Plenty of nice rims out there. BIG fan of DT, also H+Son and Velocity.

[bikinchris]

Shoulda bought Rolf.

[Tony]

DT Swiss R460, $37.00 ea. Great rim for the money.

[charliedid]

DT Swiss R460, $37.00 ea. Great rim for the money.

This is true. Currently riding them.

[cloudguy]

Sounds like your "wheel guy" is being a bit lazy, or doesn't know his stuff. He should probably be able to tell you what's going on based on a good visual inspection and spoke tension measurement.

Yeah, my wheel guy is apparently lazy. Took the wheel back to him, after his initial attempt at spoke adjustment didn't really help. The latter was just two minutes of work at no cost while I was standing there in my kit after a ride. He didn't tell me this initially, but apparently one of the spokes wasn't turning because it was frozen, so he soaked the nipples in something and was then able to true the wheel properly. Wish he would of told me about that to begin with. My hope for warranty after 5000 miles was based on my experience with my first set of X-lite rims, which were warrantied after several years of use due to cracks developing around the spoke holes - apparently a systematic problem for that early generation of rims.

Thanks for all the input.

[unterhausen]

I would say cracking is a lot more commonly replaced under warranty than a bent rim.

[Mark McM]

My hope for warranty after 5000 miles was based on my experience with my first set of X-lite rims, which were warrantied after several years of use due to cracks developing around the spoke holes - apparently a systematic problem for that early generation of rims.

Rim cracks are a different issue. Rim cracks caused by fatigue (without extenuating incidents) are generally due to problems in material and/or design & construction. Fatigue cracked rims should be warranty-able in most situations.

[cloudguy]

Well, the wheel rub didn't go away, even after truing of the wheel. The shop guy was adamant that the hub was too wide for the frame (a 2009ish litespeed), because hubs have apparently been getting wider with time. He suggested switching to a 23 mm tire, instead of the 25mm I had on there, which I did, but still the rubbing came back. An important piece of information, to my mind, was that the rubbing was only happening during sustained climbing and I had no problems during the past 9 months with the 25 mm tires I had on there previously. A kudos will be given to the forum member who can identify what the ultimate problem was.

[echelon_john]

broken axle

Well, the wheel rub didn't go away, even after truing of the wheel. The shop guy was adamant that the hub was too wide for the frame (a 2009ish litespeed), because hubs have apparently been getting wider with time. He suggested switching to a 23 mm tire, instead of the 25mm I had on there, which I did, but still the rubbing came back. An important piece of information, to my mind, was that the rubbing was only happening during sustained climbing and I had no problems during the past 9 months with the 25 mm tires I had on there previously. A kudos will be given to the forum member who can identify what the ultimate problem was.

[cloudguy]

broken axle

Ding-ding-ding. We have a winner. Many kudos to you. Wish you had been my mechanic instead of the guy who made me feel like an idiot for coming back multiple times and forcing me to buy a 23 mm tire, in spite of the fact that 25 mm worked fine before. So what would cause an axle to break without any other substantial damage to the wheel?

[echelon_john]

Harder to answer. Poor design, DS bearing placement/support, weak material/material defect, rider weight, bumpy roads, a big hit, all of the above?

Much more common on old non-cassette hubs where the DS axle would hang WAY over the DS bearing, but it can still happen.

Ding-ding-ding. We have a winner. Many kudos to you. Wish you had been my mechanic instead of the guy who made me feel like an idiot for coming back multiple times and forcing me to buy a 23 mm tire, in spite of the fact that 25 mm worked fine before. So what would cause an axle to break without any other substantial damage to the wheel?