MAVIC - why their new rims are rubbish, wheel building skills non-existent and why you shouldn't buy from them

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c60rider
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by c60rider

The reason for my title is as a result of the picture below and how Mavic dealt with it. If they had been honest/fair/genuine in all of their handling of it then I would never have posted this rant/experience.
The picture is of the latest Open Pro rim that was built onto a wheel for me. If you wish to look at the wheels then they are visible on this link.... http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=113&t=144325&start=105

Image

So what happened? Never before have I had such difficulty in getting a tyre on a rim. Though these are tubeless ready my plan is to use Veloflex Master 25mm with vittoria latex tubes. I had to use every trick I could think of to get the rear tyre on that eventually required washing up liquid under the tyre bead and brutal force. There was no way I was going to be able to change a tube if I had a puncture so naturally tyres get easier to remove and remount if you take them off and on 2-3 times. I used campagnolo tyre levers. Inserted the first one and on levering the second one over the rim the above happened. No one I know of has ever seen this happen and we're talking many hundreds of year of cumulative experience. I've smashed through pot holes and all sorts of crashes and not so much as put a small dent in a rim. Mavic requested the whole wheel back which they duly collected, this was at the end of July. There was no feedback at all from them until a wheel arrived with a replacement rim in the middle of September. Condor who supplied the rims have been great throughout.

The one above was the rear wheel however a brand new Veloflex tyre went on the front fairly tough but manageable so a totally different experience. There was clearly something not right with the rear rim. The replacement from Mavic was out of true out of the box which says a lot about Mavic's wheel building skills but more on that shortly. The tyre went on as easily as the front, tough but reasonable for a new tyre. The problems came after I was completing the bike build and I discovered the wheel had come out of true even more. Purely from sitting on and off the bike a few times! Prior to the original wheel being collected by Mavic I had used my Park spoke tension meter on the wheel to check drive and non-drive side spokes. My builder (Jonny at Noble wheels http://www.noble-wheels.com/) had done an excellent job and they were within 0.5 all round. On testing the Mavic built wheel....

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Yes you're reading that correct! There is no tension at all on that spoke along with several others. Obviously there are others that are way out. So I'm pretty disgusted with their wheel building skills and it's gone back to Jonny for a complete retension. Mavic's response overall? Eventually it was "too much force was used to remove the tyre". Of course you can only use as little or as much force as it takes for the tyre to come off. My own feeling on these rims is that the side walls are rather on the thin side. They're clearly weak. Whether the one I had was just faulty generally when compared with the front the difficulty/ease of getting the tyre off/on was like chalk and cheese. I would urge people not to buy them. Mavic clearly aren't bothered at all and just did the bare minimum they needed to which was supply a replacement rim. But built up onto a wheel that wasn't safe. Thanks.

bm0p700f
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by bm0p700f

These are tubeless rims and best run with tubeless tyres. I can think of other rims which the veloflex tyres wont mount to or if they do they are very tight. In fact I can think of many rim/tyre combo that are problem. While the issues you have encountered are not good damaging a rim trying to get a tyre on is not mavics fault. While there wheel building may not be up to scratch I think you are being unfair. If the tyres were too tight orginally stop and try different tyres and this would have not happened.

I feel that I must play devils advocate here.

by Weenie


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wheelbuilder
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by wheelbuilder

Never seen that before, and I have seriously wrestled with several different brands/makes of tires hundreds of times. Totally sucks. To be fair though, some tubeless ready wheels can lose an awful lot of tension after mounting and seating the bead of a tire. That is non-drive side, correct?

One more quick thought.......you own a tensiometer but can't re-tension/true that wheel? Not being a dick.....curious.
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F45
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by F45

Never seen that!

One key piece of data that would really help your post is a wall thickness measurement on either side of the buckle point and at a few points around the rim. As it stands now all we see is a buckled rim with no context. Anyone can write a post, but for a bunch of skeptical strangers you need to build a story with data.

The subject promises to show WHY their new rims are rubbish. I see little supporting evidence of that claim.

TobinHatesYou
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by TobinHatesYou

I have had Velocity Aileron rims compress to zero spoke tension after tubeless inflation. In fact, I’ve seen micro wrinkles develop on the walls of the rim.

beeatnik
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by beeatnik

Someone bought Open Pros in 2017?

whosatthewheel
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by whosatthewheel

Worrying that the brake track is so thin that you can bend it and crack it with a plastic tyre lever... it begs the question how long do they last if one brakes on them.
I was tempted, but I think I'll stick to my reliable DT 460

Admittedly I was suspicious when I read an internal width of 19 mm combined with an external width of 23... doesn't leave much material to brake on
Last edited by whosatthewheel on Sat Nov 04, 2017 8:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

whosatthewheel
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by whosatthewheel

beeatnik wrote:Someone bought Open Pros in 2017?


These are the new wide and UST ones... all the rage at the moment

bm0p700f
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by bm0p700f

Any rim brand can have a manufacturing defect. The wall filled because of a weakness. Qc does not remove the possibility of a defect getting through. I have seen plenty from various brands over time.

TobinHatesYou
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by TobinHatesYou

4mm is standard. Velocity Quills are 21/24.5mm. The Pacenti Forza is 20/24mm.

I'm seeing 420g and 430g claimed weight for the rims. That's borderline too light for 23mm wide and ~24.5mm deep rims. The rims mentioned above weight 465g and 470g respectively. That's the key difference.

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ergott
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by ergott

TobinHatesYou wrote:4mm is standard. Velocity Quills are 21/24.5mm. The Pacenti Forza is 20/24mm.

I'm seeing 420g and 430g claimed weight for the rims. That's borderline too light for 23mm wide and ~24.5mm deep rims. The rims mentioned above weight 465g and 470g respectively. That's the key difference.


You can't include the hook if you are to measure the thickness of the brake track.

Image

TobinHatesYou
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by TobinHatesYou

My point is however they are measuring widths seems consistent with every other brand.

kulivontot
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by kulivontot

I had a similar experience with pacentis before i got a kool stop bead jack. I think some rims just require too much force to use regular tire levers to mount.

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Lelandjt
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by Lelandjt

There is a very specific technique to mounting and removing tires from tubeless rims and I've seen many very experienced riders who are new to tubeless not doing it right. It must be done differently than how you've done it your entire life. Not saying that's definitely the case here but based on the number of times that I've had people say a tire is impossible to mount and then I show them how easy it is.....

by Weenie


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AJS914
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by AJS914

What is your technique? I think if one gets both beads in the center channel you'll have success.

I wonder if talc will hinder tubeless sealant. Talc has always been my go-to lubricant for easy installation of non-tubeless tires.

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