A cautionary tale - along with some bad customer service

[weiwentg]

Originally Posted by Blown Reek

You're right... if you were the original owner, that is, and that's the rub...

I was wondering about that. The OP did say this:

Originally Posted by morrisericd

...
Side note - this bike was built up for a marketing guy at Enve named Colby from Argonaut and was featured in some photo shoots. I bought it from him maybe two years ago.
...

So, if he bought it and it was advertised as coming with a warranty, then this does seem to be a warranty sort of issue. However, it's unclear what the warranty status is.

If the OP doesn't have a warranty, then we might fault Enve for bad design, but not necessarily for blowing the OP off. They certainly could elect to say that we'll waive the requirement that you're the original owner, but I don't think that's standard practice.

[redir]

As pretty much everyone here has said.... Wow!

If I were you I would simply move on. You are right and I agree with you, that is some bad service for sure and if you were out on the road when that happens you could either be missing all your teeth or dead.

Go get yourself some good old fashion tubular wheels or even jsut a set of clinchers and move on. Forget about that tubeless garbage.

[oldguy00]

Funny, they will likely lose more $$ from posts like this than had they just given you a free replacement wheel.

I've seen many posts about enve rim failures/cracks over the years, more than other big companies. Enough that even though they usually seemed good about warranty, I always steered clear. Even if warranty service -is- good, I'd rather not have to deal with it in the first place.
Knock on wood, 20+ years of using various HED wheels, I've never had to deal with a warranty issue..

[Davist]

wow! glad you weren't hurt, that looks awful. With ENVE's track record lately, "tiregate" and now this, I would think they'd be (at least) be willing to be cooperative with repair/replace. Or maybe ship everyone who's on the warranty list a couple of those pressure relief valve nuts...

[vespasianus]

That seems like a significant flaw that could honestly have killed someone.

On the older wheel designs - with regular spokes and tape, when there was a pressure leak, it would blow out a spoke. Easy to see and easy to fix. New wheels that appear completely "sealed" might be causing more problems.

[morrisericd]

Thanks for the replies.

Of course, the important thing is that it happened in my shop and not on the road where I would have been seriously injured.

As far as the second hand warranty goes - I get it, their warranty policy is clear. I was hoping for some help from their employee (hoping, not assuming), as this was an Enve bike. Bought and shown around for marketing. It never really had a first owner. But, I did buy it used and the policy is clear.

My thinking is that this isn't a broken spoke, or cosmetic warranty issue. This is a big deal. If nothing else, I would think that a company the size of Enve wouldn't want me running all over the internet shouting from the rooftops about their rims and their customer service. Is that a threat? I guess. It's not the money. It's the fact that there is a serious safety issue that people need to hear about. At a minimum, as someone else suggested, they need to figure out who their customers are and ship them these blow off valves. If I had another set of Enve tubeless wheels, I would certainly be calling them right now.

As a coworker said when I showed him the pictures, Enve has been a bit full of themselves for awhile now.

There are so many other options out there for carbon wheels. Why would you buy Enve's at a premium when they do not take care of their customers?

[bumknees]

Glad to hear that this didn’t happen on the road! Are there any similar situations to look out for with tubes and clinchers or tubulars in carbon rims?

[fa63]

Originally Posted by morrisericd

Why would you buy Enve's at a premium when they do not take care of their customers?

I think this is the core of the issue here; you were technically not one of their customers since you weren't the original owner. Not trying to defend Enve (I think they are overpriced and I wouldn't buy their wheels), but as you pointed out, Enve has a clear policy and the outcome would have most likely been very different if you were the original owner.

Glad you weren't injured.

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by morrisericd

this was an Enve bike. Bought and shown around for marketing.

haha, that would have been some spectacular marketing if this happened on the floor of a bike show!

[Velocipede]

Originally Posted by ChristianWong

Is it really fair to say Enve has poor customer service because they didn't honour a warranty on a wheelset the OP purchased second hand? I'd say what they're offering him in terms of a rim replacement is about par for the course.

Sucks, for sure. But this is why I won't buy used carbon. Enve basically has a 'no questions asked' warranty for original owners which would certainly come in handy here.

Glad you're okay, OP. A good cautionary tale, if nothing else.

As someone who worked for manufacturers and still does, I know that it's normal for employees or companies to sell bikes or parts to consumers WITH a full factory warranty. I do it all the time. There's a couple bikes/frames on this forum alone.

If it was a wheelset made for a display bike/photoshoot, why wouldn't they honor a full warranty? And many times when it's an employees personal bike, unless its a super abused downhill bike or something they will honor the normal warranty. They don't want to get a bad rep from selling something that dies later on. Well, at least I didn't.

All of that said, I have never been a fan of Enve wheels and products. I think they try too hard to be the best cause they've claimed it so long. I don't think they are. I really don't like the ride and braking on their wheels. I've seen way too many problems or things I would call problems that they say is totally fine. Things I would consider a defect in manufacturing and they are like, nope, totally fine. Nothing to see here. You can find those all over the web. There's a bunch of here. I guess it's just me. But I love the Mavic/Enve QR's. But that's about it.

[colker]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

haha, that would have been some spectacular marketing if this happened on the floor of a bike show!

The blame should be on the show organizers. Maybe the carpenter who built the stand?

[pjbaz]

Fascinating ... and yet another reason for me to be stoopidly content with rim brakes and alu wheelsets.

Glad you're okay- that's some wild stuff fo sho

[colker]

Originally Posted by fa63

I think this is the core of the issue here; you were technically not one of their customers since you weren't the original owner. Not trying to defend Enve (I think they are overpriced and I wouldn't buy their wheels), but as you pointed out, Enve has a clear policy and the outcome would have most likely been very different if you were the original owner.

Glad you weren't injured.

The company should go out of their way and pamper the OP no matter what´s written in their warranty. Do whatever it takes to avoid a thread like this. It doesn´t even matter what the warranty says: it´s about containing the damage to the company´s stock value. It´s business 101 in the age of mass media.

[joosttx]

Originally Posted by colker

The company should go out of their way and pamper the OP no matter what´s written in their warranty. Do whatever it takes to avoid a thread like this. It doesn´t even matter what the warranty says: it´s about containing the damage to the company´s stock value. It´s business 101 in the age of mass media.

Enve isnt publicly traded.

[Caballero]

It seems that since I bought a set of tubeless bora wto wheels (still on their way) I’ve noticed five threads So far on various forums regarding tyres blowing off rims due to latex tubes, and tubeless flats at speed leading to blow offs and now total failure of the rim due to excess pressure !

I bought clinchers as I have some hand issue due to being hit by a car 2 years ago. But now I think I’m gonna send the wheels back and keep rolling tubulars. Doesn’t seem worth the risk...

Btw. Not afraid of tech, I was running tubeless back in early 2000’s on my Xc race bikes.