Tune Schwarzbrenner 25 Cautionary Tale

Back by popular demand, the general all-things Road forum!

Moderator: robbosmans

da123
Posts: 455
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:42 am

by da123

aaric wrote:Wouldn't an overtensioned spoke that stressed/cracked the carbon eventually become a low tension spoke as the carbon around the nipple gives way, and also throw most of the other tensions in the wheel off? Especially if there was truing done after the rim started to give way around the nipples.


Don't know, but I don't believe that the spokes were ever highly tensioned when the wheels were in my possession. Like I say above, they always seemed subjectively low tensioned when compared (by an admittedly primitive 'squeeze the spokes' test) with my Zipp, HED, Shimano and Ritchey wheels. Of course it is possible that the damage had already been done before I even got them (i.e. at the point they were built), but that seems pretty unlikely, given it would mean Tune distributing a product they knew to be faulty / dangerous.

Whether it was poor quality rims, bad build or whatever, the point of the post remains the same - if you're thinking of buying a pair, think very carefully before spending your hard - earned!

jmartpr
Shop Owner
Posts: 963
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:07 am
Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Contact:

by jmartpr

These wheelsets used Tune hubs which under their various variants Mig 70/45 and Mag 180/170 have proven pretty good in terms of strength (talking about flanges and/shell) and with decent geometry. The spokes are by Sapin...either CX-Ray or Superspokes, please correct me if I got this wrong. So the only missing piece is the rims. Xentis higher-profiled rims may fare better but these 25 mm were not very strong and with the flex put a lot of stress on everything. If you indeed had the Superspokes even worst! You couldn't bring the tension up as the rims wouldn't tolerate it....the rear specially was very hard to keep true. As for other Tune build I had excellent results with them with the few we order built from them......except the Xentis 25 clinchers.

by Weenie


Visit starbike.com Online Retailer for HighEnd cycling components
Great Prices ✓    Broad Selection ✓    Worldwide Delivery ✓

www.starbike.com



da123
Posts: 455
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:42 am

by da123

jmartpr wrote:These wheelsets used Tune hubs which under their various variants Mig 70/45 and Mag 180/170 have proven pretty good in terms of strength (talking about flanges and/shell) and with decent geometry. The spokes are by Sapin...either CX-Ray or Superspokes, please correct me if I got this wrong. So the only missing piece is the rims. Xentis higher-profiled rims may fare better but these 25 mm were not very strong and with the flex put a lot of stress on everything. If you indeed had the Superspokes even worst! You couldn't bring the tension up as the rims wouldn't tolerate it....the rear specially was very hard to keep true. As for other Tune build I had excellent results with them with the few we order built from them......except the Xentis 25 clinchers.


The hubs are Mig 70 / Mag 180, which I still have (now built up with Enve classic 25 rims) and which have been reliable so far. The spokes were CX-Rays. From what you're saying, it sounds like the rim almost made a 'good build' impossible. I guess that's always a challenge with a superlight rim, but as my Enve build came up 60g lighter (with the same spokes, brass as opposed to alloy nipples (so heavier by approx 30g) and the same hubs, I don't think the rims were that superlight (approx 290g each on that calculation).

On the positive side, the aluminium woven into the carbon on the braking surface was very effective!

jmartpr
Shop Owner
Posts: 963
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:07 am
Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Contact:

by jmartpr

I agree on the braking surface performance......plus they were also nice looking with a rubber grommet on the valve hole to minimize any rattle. Let's see how the new Tune built rims do

konky
Posts: 830
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 6:26 pm

by konky

It does worry me sometimes when people rubbish a company or product on line. The damage to the company is usually disproportionate to the complaint. I don't think for a minute it's true in da123's case but it can be tantamount to blackmail.

In my experience on the whole Tune make excellent products. In fact I don't think many would disagree with the fact that for many years now Tune have produced hubs with one of the best combinations of weight and reliability, possibly the best. Among many other great products are their incomparable skewers. They don't get everything right but when you are pushing the boundaries you are not going to.

So one guy who is not happy with a product and bad mouths a company can unfairly damage the reputation of that company. There will be quite some number of people following this thread that will bewrongfully put off Tune. Poshbikes are also trashed unfairly. Distributors don't usually get involved in warranty claims. The damn wheels were outside the guarantee period anyway.

User avatar
mr_tim
Posts: 957
Joined: Sun May 31, 2009 8:47 pm
Location: durp durp durp

by mr_tim

@ konky - you are forgetting that about 8-5yrs ago the Tune rear hub were one of the more epic examples of a) how not to do it & b) how to be dreadful in dealing with customer problems / complaints / duff product.

As much as the new tune hubs are better & seem more reliable, a lot of LBS's & wheel specialists got their fingers burnt having to mess about dealing with non-stop creaking tune rear hubs, which is why I think you won't see them being pushed all that strongly (that & customers have moved across to the lower end now its more available) & so why a 'good' product isn't being seen more.

User avatar
bearsdidit
Shop Owner
Posts: 320
Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2011 7:56 am
Location: California
Contact:

by bearsdidit

konky wrote:It does worry me sometimes when people rubbish a company or product on line. The damage to the company is usually disproportionate to the complaint. I don't think for a minute it's true in da123's case but it can be tantamount to blackmail.

In my experience on the whole Tune make excellent products. In fact I don't think many would disagree with the fact that for many years now Tune have produced hubs with one of the best combinations of weight and reliability, possibly the best. Among many other great products are their incomparable skewers. They don't get everything right but when you are pushing the boundaries you are not going to.

So one guy who is not happy with a product and bad mouths a company can unfairly damage the reputation of that company. There will be quite some number of people following this thread that will bewrongfully put off Tune. Poshbikes are also trashed unfairly. Distributors don't usually get involved in warranty claims. The damn wheels were outside the guarantee period anyway.


I'm going to disagree with you on that one. In general, the role of a distributor is to be the liason between a manufacturer who doesn't want to deal with 5,000 different accounts and the LBS. We do a lot of ordering direct but all of the distributors that we use (QBP, Hawely, GITA and HW2) deal with warranties in house. After taking care of the the LBS/customer the distributor can then deal direct with the manufacturer.

Secondly, a warranty time frame is simply a guideline. If the customer had issues early in the life of the product, a good company will take that into consideration. It's simply BS to wipe your hands clear of an ongoing problem once it passes a certain threshold.

User avatar
Mario Jr.
Posts: 2174
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2004 8:49 am
Location: Denmark
Contact:

by Mario Jr.

:goodpost: Exactly. And this from a distributor.

da123
Posts: 455
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:42 am

by da123

konky wrote:It does worry me sometimes when people rubbish a company or product on line. The damage to the company is usually disproportionate to the complaint. I don't think for a minute it's true in da123's case but it can be tantamount to blackmail.

In my experience on the whole Tune make excellent products. In fact I don't think many would disagree with the fact that for many years now Tune have produced hubs with one of the best combinations of weight and reliability, possibly the best. Among many other great products are their incomparable skewers. They don't get everything right but when you are pushing the boundaries you are not going to.

So one guy who is not happy with a product and bad mouths a company can unfairly damage the reputation of that company. There will be quite some number of people following this thread that will bewrongfully put off Tune. Poshbikes are also trashed unfairly. Distributors don't usually get involved in warranty claims. The damn wheels were outside the guarantee period anyway.


I think you are going overboard with this post Konky.

If you read my post carefully, you should see that I haven't 'rubbished' anyone. I've presented a factual set of circumstances about a specific product that I owned. I was very careful to say that the comments applied to the specific product, and made it clear that I had no experience of different Schwarzbrenner models. Presumably one of the purposes behind a forum such as this is that the people who buy lightweight products can share experiences, good or bad, to help others make informed decisions. It would appear from the replies that at least some other people (including shop owners) have had similar problems. If that means that I'm just needlessly repeating information that people already know then I apologise. Otherwise then if reading my experience and the responses assists someone in the market for a second had set of lightweight hoops then surely that's a good thing.

I agree with you on one thing, Tune do make some excellent products. The hubs from the Schwarzbrenners I still have (now built onto different wheels) and have been very reliable. I have Mig 70/Mag 170 hubs built onto a set of Zipp rims which have also been fantastic. I have Tune bottle cages, which are great and I would definitely buy certain Tune products again. Just because an organisation makes good products however doesn't IMO mean that some sort of omerta should then exist in relation to mistakes they may make or bad products they may produce, particularly where, as in this case, the product is (according not to me but to the wheel builder I sent them to) potentially dangerous. No organisation gets everything right all of the time, and I think that most people are sufficiently intelligent to realise that and take the information for what it is without thinking 'they've produced one poor product so I'll make sure I never buy from them again'.

As far as Poshbikes are concerned, I said I didn't think their response 'demonstrated a great deal of customer service'. I don't think I'm unreasonable in this or that this is 'trashing' them unfairly, but you obviously disagree which is fair enough. I made it clear that the product was 6 months out of warranty and that therefore I appreciated that neither they nor Tune were 'obliged' to do anything. I would be interested to know what your response would be if you'd just been told that a product you'd spent well over £1,000 on 18 months previously was too dangerous to ride through no fault of your own and would have to be binned. Maybe that sort of expense doesn't matter to you, but I'm sure it does to others.

As to your 'blackmail' comment, I've no idea what you're talking about here. Perhaps you mean libel, which would possibly make more sense. If you do mean blackmail then I think it is clear from my posts that I'm not asking for or expecting anything here, not a refund, not compensation, not even an apology. Hey, I'm not going to pretend it was a great experience, but believe me, following extensive therapy I'm over it now.

The purpose of the post, at the risk of repeating myself for about the fourth time, was to share information, not to enter into a slanging match, write off a company based on one negative experience or somehow angle for compensation. I've re-read my posts and I don't think I've been un-balanced, unfair, hysterical or over the top. Others may disagree and I'm sure like you they will say so if they think that is the case, but I think you're making something out of nothing with your post.

da123
Posts: 455
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:42 am

by da123

jmartpr wrote:I agree on the braking surface performance......plus they were also nice looking with a rubber grommet on the valve hole to minimize any rattle. Let's see how the new Tune built rims do


Agreed. If the new Skyliner wheel proves reliable and at least adequately stiff, it will be extremely tempting, especially the clincher :D

mattr
Posts: 4671
Joined: Fri May 25, 2007 6:43 pm
Location: The Grim North.

by mattr

konky wrote:The damn wheels were outside the guarantee period anyway.
Read the second post in the thread.

Valbrona
Posts: 1629
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:25 am
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

by Valbrona

1415chris wrote:
da123 wrote:but they are both right, the wheels only had a 12 month warranty which had expired

I know it's a bit too late. But they were not right. By giving only 12 months warranty, they still had to comply with the EU directive 1999/44/EC which says: "A two-year guarantee applies for the sale of all consumer goods everywhere in the EU".


Exactly. All goods come with a two year warranty. When in 2011 did you buy them? Contact the UK European Consumer Advice Centre in Basildon (part of UK Trading Standards) if the goods were from another EC country or your local trading standards department if the goods were purchased in the UK.

User avatar
madcow
Shop Owner
Posts: 3745
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:22 pm
Location: Tucson, Az.
Contact:

by madcow

I don't think it's totally fair to overly generalize about anyone in the chain and say "distributors" or "manufacturers" etc... It's more fair to say SOME distributors, or SOME manufacturers. Not saying that you didn't have a legitimate warranty claim, but we've been known to replace things for customers that clearly aren't warranty, and we do this knowing that the manufacturer is not going to replace it for us. It's just something we do because we believe in taking care of people. I know we're not the only shop that takes cares of customers like this. On the other hand I also know there are plenty of others that seem like they go out of their way to be as un-helpful as possible.

As for Tune we've never had a problem processing a warranty through them, they are quite responsive and take very good care of us and our customers. We had a customer return a 7 year old hub recently which had a crack in the flange. Of course Tune can't be expected to replace a hub that old under warranty, but they did offer to send a replacement flange at no charge, so the only cost to the customer was the cost of relacing the wheel after replacing the flange, which seemed very reasonable to both us and the customer.

konky
Posts: 830
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 6:26 pm

by konky

da123 you're right in what you say and I wasn't having a go at you. I do think your argument was balanced. I did say 'I don't think for a minute' there was any attempt to blackmail in your case. I still think that people will be put off Tune as a result of this thread, or certainly would have been before your penultimate thread where you compliment the brand. I don't think you set out to put people off Tune.

I have no idea if Tune had/has bad customer services. What I do know is that most people looking to put together a super light road bike will probably end up with a Tune product. I did and on my WW bike. I've got bottle cages, hubs, and skewers. They are all fantastically light but also beautiful to look at. I like them for that. They certainly aren't perfect but there are few brands in the light bike world that give as much as they do.

Not you but some people who have had a bad experience with a product just want to get back at the brand and the damage done to the brand is disproportionate. Sometimes one suspects a complainant may have even caused the product to fail and think by attacking the producer on a website like this one they can gain some advantage. I've seen it here on WW and it's really that which I find distasteful.

I can see how it may have seemed I was having a go at you but I wasn't.

User avatar
stephen@fibre-lyte
in the industry
Posts: 605
Joined: Thu May 29, 2008 12:22 am
Contact:

by stephen@fibre-lyte

Valbrona wrote:
1415chris wrote:
da123 wrote:but they are both right, the wheels only had a 12 month warranty which had expired

I know it's a bit too late. But they were not right. By giving only 12 months warranty, they still had to comply with the EU directive 1999/44/EC which says: "A two-year guarantee applies for the sale of all consumer goods everywhere in the EU".


Exactly. All goods come with a two year warranty. When in 2011 did you buy them? Contact the UK European Consumer Advice Centre in Basildon (part of UK Trading Standards) if the goods were from another EC country or your local trading standards department if the goods were purchased in the UK.


Don't bank on that. From what I've read, UK companies only need to comply with the Sale of Goods Act which differs from the European directive. Apparently it's a very grey area but UK companies at least can choose to follow the Sale of Goods act, I don't know about other European countries. Also, a warranty applies to a faulty item which should be returned immediately to the manufacturer upon discovery of the fault. I don't know whether truing and retensioning a wheel by another company would negate that warranty. This is worth a read http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1677034/Two-year-warranty-EU-law.html

In these kinds of situations it comes more down to what the individual company will do for you rather than relying on the law. Some companies will go above and beyond to help you out, others may simply do what they have to and others may not want to help at all. If they're the latter then you may have to follow that long and winding road that is the law and hope for the best. With any luck, they'll be the former. :D

by Weenie


Visit starbike.com Online Retailer for HighEnd cycling components
Great Prices ✓    Broad Selection ✓    Worldwide Delivery ✓

www.starbike.com



Post Reply