Shimano Crankset Recall

[palincss]

Originally Posted by sjbraun

Received this message from Canyon earlier today:

"Hello Steve Braun,

We are contacting you regarding a recent recall of Shimano 11-speed bonded Hollowtech II road cranksets on bikes produced priot to July 2019. According to our records you have purchased a Canyon Bicycle which may be affected. [If you returned your bike for a refund or your bike did not come with a Shimano drivetrain, you may disregard this email.]

LOL, I'd have thought Canyon would know the bike they sold me didn't come with a Shimano crank.

Probably easier to just send an email to every name in the customer database.

[oldpotatoe]

Two interesting threads..one about shimano cranks and one about a dead Campagnolo rear der..I guess I could find the one about sram's first gen disc brakes, or their exploding Rd Wifii rear der or their famous 'folding chainrings'..

I guess pay yer money, take yer chances..I've always said people buy 'the company' more than they buy the gadget.

IMHO, and YMMV and all that.

For right below..when in the trenches, I dealt with all 3 companies and warranties. Yup, sram would warranty anything, for any reason, at any time(used to anyway, not any longer). shimano was sometimes more difficult but generally OK...as was Campagnolo. What Campagnolo was and is always battling is grey/black market stuff.

But, I never had an issue dealing with Campagnolo, NA..or the other two..except for those two phone calls from TacoEd at sram....but like I said, sometimes you buy the 'company'..not a fan of sram for that reason.

[mcteague]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Two interesting threads..one about shimano cranks and one about a dead Campagnolo rear der..I guess I could find the one about sram's first gen disc brakes, or their exploding Rd Wifii rear der or their famous 'folding chainrings'..

I guess pay yer money, take yer chances..I've always said people buy 'the company' more than they buy the gadget.

IMHO, and YMMV and all that.

From all I have read SRAM, while they had quite a few issues over the years, has always seemed to replace broken stuff with little or no push back. Campy. OTOH....

Tim

[NYCfixie]

I think my wife and I both with 6800 cranks on the list are screwed because ...

• We purchased my wife's bike in NJ and the store closed a few years ago.
• We purchased my bike in Boston and the shop has turned into a mobile van operation.
• We are now back living in NYC.
• I would agree that NYC shops are not going to do this for $75.
• I think NYC and surrounding area shops will turn away anyone if they did not initially sell the bike because why take on the liability.

... I may try the local Trek store because my wife owns a Trek Silque SL but I am not hopeful ...

Originally Posted by peanutgallery

The bike biz is so dysfunctional

A multi-billion $$$, publicly traded company is leaning on hourly shop rats working for small businesses to facilitate a product recall stretching back to 2012, on the cheap. For free. What a terrible plan

Dealers should bill shimano...or not participate

Originally Posted by bikinchris

Labor rates around the country vary widely. A shop in NYC will not be happy with the $75 Shimano is offering. One somewhere in a small town would be fine with that amount.
Most people don't know that these multibillion dollar companies pay dealers NOTHING for warranty work.

Originally Posted by mcteague

BikeRadar has an interesting article on this subject. Coming from a mainstream website, I find it's candor refreshing.

https://www.bikeradar.com/features/o...call-analysis/

I particularly liked this comment:

Tommy Barse, owner of Cutlass Velo in Baltimore, Mayland, believes Shimano is asking too much of shops for the $75 fee.

“An inspection involves greeting the customer, getting their information, removing and cleaning the cranks for inspection, producing documentation and photographs and… submitting information through a portal on the B2B site with nine fields,” says Barse.

He believes “$75 is a slap in the face”.

“I’ve always thought Shimano viewed bike brands as their priority, whereas SRAM and Campagnolo view the rider as the customer.

“As a result, [Shimano’s] baseline approach to warranty and customer care are vastly different,” he says.

Tim

This also from the BikeRadar article: "It’s worth pointing out that not all retailers are obligated to participate in the recall programme..."

[jcs7282]

[*]We purchased my bike in Boston and the shop has turned into a mobile van operation.[*]

I may be stating the obvious here (but i find many local Boston area folks don't even know this...):

Ride Studio Cafe & Ride Headquarters (which was in Sherborn, MA for a brief time) are just Seven Cycles factory stores. As is that van-based shop.

So worst case scenario, I would try leaning on Seven for help if you must. Ultimately, they're all owned by the same company...

Seven is not exactly transparent about it, and in fact, it seems to me that in their marketing materials, social media channels, etc. that they actively try to spin the (former) shops and van as being unrelated entities...but they're not. But that is another discussion for another thread/day.

[AngryScientist]

Yea, as I mentioned upthread, the need to use a LBS is problematic for me. I do not have a LBS that I use regularly for anything. I do all my own work on bikes.

The inspection part by the LBS is a joke, and a waste of both their time and mine. I know I am at least as qualified as anyone at a local shop to inspect my own equipment.

I still want to know, if a shop OKs a replacement and they send the old one back to Shimano, who denies the claim and sends it back - do they still pay the LBS for labor?

At the end of the day, what this means for me is I will continue to use my cranks and inspect them regularly. At any sign of debonding or failure, I'll just replace them with something not shimano.

[GregL]

Originally Posted by NYCfixie

I may try the local Trek store because my wife owns a Trek Silque SL but I am not hopeful ...

Trek states they will not only inspect any brand of bike with an affected Shimano crank, but will provide loaner bikes: https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/s...Bu53np4DCQQnTM

Greg

[charliedid]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Yea, as I mentioned upthread, the need to use a LBS is problematic for me. I do not have a LBS that I use regularly for anything. I do all my own work on bikes.

The inspection part by the LBS is a joke, and a waste of both their time and mine. I know I am at least as qualified as anyone at a local shop to inspect my own equipment.

I still want to know, if a shop OKs a replacement and they send the old one back to Shimano, who denies the claim and sends it back - do they still pay the LBS for labor?

At the end of the day, what this means for me is I will continue to use my cranks and inspect them regularly. At any sign of debonding or failure, I'll just replace them with something not shimano.

Sure but the other 650,000 people may not feel as self qualified as you. In that case how do you suggest a consumer handle this?

[NYCfixie]

Technically, they were (and I believe still are) operating as separate businesses well before Rob and Patria became Mr. and Ms. (even if Rob V. owned a portion of RSC and RHQ as far as I know).

I was not speaking/writing ill of RSC, RHQ, or the new mobile van operation but I cannot imagine how they are going to do recalls via a van.

I did know "the were closely aligned" and that was the reason I chose RSC (over shops closer to where I lived) when we lived in the area for a few years:
- Rob V did my initial fitting (on a Sunday)
- Craig G. (no longer with Seven) did my final fitting
- Patria (now a V. on her last name and runs the mobile operation) was amazingly helpful
- The bike was completed very quickly but that was also pre-pandemic (circa 2016).


My main point being: what do people like me and my wife do when the original shop has closed forever and/or you are a few hundred miles away from the original shop where you bought your bike if a local dealer (or dealers) does not (or do not) want to help you with the recall?

Originally Posted by jcs7282

[*]We purchased my bike in Boston and the shop has turned into a mobile van operation.[*]

I may be stating the obvious here (but i find many local Boston area folks don't even know this...):

Ride Studio Cafe & Ride Headquarters (which was in Sherborn, MA for a brief time) are just Seven Cycles factory stores. As is that van-based shop.

So worst case scenario, I would try leaning on Seven for help if you must. Ultimately, they're all owned by the same company...

Seven is not exactly transparent about it, and in fact, it seems to me that in their marketing materials, social media channels, etc. that they actively try to spin the (former) shops and van as being unrelated entities...but they're not. But that is another discussion for another thread/day.

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by charliedid

Sure but the other 650,000 people may not feel as self qualified as you. In that case how do you suggest a consumer handle this?

I just think it would be nice to have an option to work with Shimano direct on this recall. I dont need to waste a shop's time.

As I mentioned though, the actual failure rate on these is still really, really low, and the super bottom line is that I almost certainly dont ride enough miles to wind up breaking one of them, so in the end it really doenst matter to me.

[Ed-B]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

I just think it would be nice to have an option to work with Shimano direct on this recall. I dont need to waste a shop's time.

As I mentioned though, the actual failure rate on these is still really, really low, and the super bottom line is that I almost certainly dont ride enough miles to wind up breaking one of them, so in the end it really doenst matter to me.

I'm with you on this. I have a full Ultegra 6800 group on one of my better bikes and I examined the crank for faults. (FaUltegra crank, anyone?) I can't see any problems. I thought about buying a different crank to set aside for the potential for future troubles, but I'm just going to chill, keep an eye on it and keep riding it.

The real issue for many of us is the certain loss of value for any of these cranks and the bikes they're attached to. Nobody is going to want these things going forward. I thought about posting my bike in that "peak rim brake" thread we have going on in the forum, but I don't want to have to say something about it being one of my best bikes "except for that FaUltegra crank..."

[peanutgallery]

Broke down and took the training...ended up getting a few questions answered but it also brought up a few more questions and definitely keeps an LBS between the customer and Shimano. The training was exceptionally boring and I may have fast forwarded to the quiz for several of the videos

*participation isn't obligatory, but if a dealer chooses to participate they have to take the S-Tec training and to have purchased more than $5k worth of product from shimano in the last 12 months (that last part was vague and mentioned the dealer locater map or something)

*there is a convoluted process where both the customer and the retailer become deputized metallurgists and conduct an inspection

*If the deputized metallurgists find something askew, the LBS is obligated to remove the crankset, clean it with dawn and inspect more closely. If an abnormality is confirmed, then and only then can a retailer contact shimano via the portal on their B2B website and fill out a form. No phone calls, etc. Shimano will provide a call tag and the crank goes to them for further inspection

*If the shimano inspection confirms what was suspected at the LBS level, a new crankset in the closest configuration available will be provided to the consumer via the LBS and at this this point the LBS hits the lotto (sarcasm) and gets their $75

*things will get backordered

*$ compensation will be provided to folks with 3rd party power meters

*If there's a 3rd party chainring, no need to send that in, just send the crank

*the retailer is indemnified if they follow the process

*everything is provided at no charge to the customer

End of the Shimano BS, my thoughts:
1) The whole thing is super convoluted IMHO
2) The retailer is in a situation where they are in the middle when it comes to delivering bad news. If Shimano was more customer facing, they'd handle this differently. The the way this process is set up is strategic on the part of shimano, twas not an accident to put the LBS in the middle
3) If a customer presents a crank...they're probably not going to be cool with a "we just had our best high skool shop rat do the the inspection, all good, just go ride it"
4) retailers are not going to be cool with situations where they could get pitted against strong-willed customers throwing tantrums over this process. Roadies can be an interesting bunch
5) I feel that each crank presented should be sent in for a replacement and the dealer should be compensated for labor for each one
6) If shimano is going to reject cranks, they're going to have to face the customers affected themselves and not put the LBS in the middle. If this involves boots on the ground, so be it

Assuming there will be some blowback that is well deserved

[charliedid]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

I just think it would be nice to have an option to work with Shimano direct on this recall. I dont need to waste a shop's time.

As I mentioned though, the actual failure rate on these is still really, really low, and the super bottom line is that I almost certainly dont ride enough miles to wind up breaking one of them, so in the end it really doenst matter to me.

I agree it would be nice, however my years in and out of the Industry has taught me that most people don't know @#$% about the bikes they ride regardless of cost associated. That would be an absolute nightmare for Shimano.

Good shops will see it as another job and the really good ones will see it just as much of an opportunity. Yin/Yang of the industry.

And I agree on the low # of cranks....upside and downside of the internet for ya right there.

[mjf]

Originally Posted by peanutgallery

6) If shimano is going to reject cranks, they're going to have to face the customers affected themselves and not put the LBS in the middle. If this involves boots on the ground, so be it

This is the main justification where I don't actually believe Shimano will reject any cranks.

If this turns into, something where Shimano is rejecting cranks with any sort of regularity, they will end up in court for running the recall in bad faith. Even one short court case will eclipse any sort of monetary loss they would have from replacing a ton of cranks outright.

[Waldo62]

Both cranks I've checked have codes that make the cranks subject to the recall, but they've seen too little use to show signs of deterioration. Have to check a couple more.
I had much higher hopes for this thread -- expected it to reach 50 pages by now.