Weight Weenies

afalts wrote:In Canada it is more like 9 time out of 10 that it takes longer than a week with Cannondale. I have worked at a shop that sells Cannondale for over 5 years now, if they have the frame in-stock it's there quick, but rarely do they have the right colour/size in stock. One of my co-workers waited 3 months for a warranty supersix only to have a different colour shipped out, and no fork to match. Eventually did get the fork after some phone calls.

I've had Cannondale MTB's the past 4 years and each of the 3 warranties I've had with them have taken over a month.

I can understand it being a little slow on a warranty several months in. This is barely a week in that an obvious fault is apparent. Just because a frame is not available is not an excuse. Specialized and Trek have both stripped a bike down to sort customers out for me.

afalts wrote:I've had Cannondale MTB's the past 4 years and each of the 3 warranties I've had with them have taken over a month.

I dont know what's worse, the time taken to sort out your issue or the fact you have had to do it three times!

Ive heard about some very very piss poor service from Cracknfail here in Australia. Enough to scare me off from even considering the brand now

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I don't get it, in Portugal they gave a new frame under in 2 weeks, and all it took was some photos from my shop to the importer. And Portugal must represent 0.001% of Cannondale sales worldwide. It's probably the best brand you can buy when it come to warranty's.
I think the problem must be the LBS.

My speculation is that the chainstays are bonded and since one of the stays was not fully inserted it ended up being slightly longer, which means the structural integrity could be compromised at the bond.

So definitely a QC issue in my mind. How well the warranty is handled depends on a combination of factory, distributor, LBS, available stock, etc...

Good luck.

Yikes. Hate to see that kind of defect on an $8000 dollar bike.

If you think a month is bad, I had a Giant TCR Advanced frame take 2 1/2 months to get sorted out with warranty and replaced. Turns out it was the LBS that was dragging their feet, not Giant.

Finally, my replacement frameset arrived today.
I'll be finishing my bike within the next few days.
Thanks all for sharing your opinions.

That is very poor service IMO.
Glad to here you frame finally arrived though

Hi

Here is an addition to all this for you, which I am going through right now...

I had a 2012 SuperSix Evo mechanical gear frameset.

I was perfect.

Decided I wanted to go Di2, so ordered a SuperSix Evo Di2 frameset in the new Grey/Green colour.

It arrived fairly quickly from Cannondale at my LBS.

All good.

But...

Started building it up in the shop, and as we were putting the rear brake cable through the top tube, we found one of the inflation bags they use to make the tubes still jammed in the frame. Not such a biggy, but when pulling it out and looking closer at the frame, we noticed the upper head tube bearing seat was not formed correctly and had a split in it!

What!!

Called Cannondale and they sent a replacement.

Replacement arrived, with no bag jammed in the top tube. Started building it up, and noticed a big dip/lump in the top tube where the carbon had not been laid up straight / finished properly. Again, what!!! I am not paying that much money for a frame and having a weird misshapen top tube that is so bent I can see it from a distance.

Called Cannondale, who then sent ANOTHER replacement.

Got the replacement in the shop and before I had even opened the box, the staff there shook his head and said he had already checked it out and it was even worse than the previous one.

I got it out the box and found the following;

-Stickers all misaligned, all over the frame
-Loads of little rub / scratch marks on the matte finish
-More bumps and lumps in the top tube, including a 2 inch long gash that looked like it had been filled in, but not even done well, so it was not smooth

What the hell is going on!!!

Has anyone else had issues like this? As I said, my 2012 Evo was absolutely spot on and perfectly smooth, with all decals completely OCD straight.

THREE Di2 frames in a row have come through completely unacceptably screwed up.

This can not be down to bad luck...

Well, not sure about the first two frames, that seems bunk. But the last one, not uncommon under clear coat to see what "appears" to be impressions/imperfections. My Scott Foil Team Red/Black version had many of those, including "gashes", but they were just carbon layup and resin filling. Not big deal. And carbon tends to have very minor waves at times, particularly the way they make frames. It is likely structural sound and filled in with epoxy, which is what really gives carbon its strength when combined. Rubs/marks on a matte paint?? Yeah, no kidding, you will always have that with matte paint and no clear coat. You will always have that if something rubs against it. I use quick spray detailer and clean my frame, that usually removes any rub marks from the matte finish, plus it puts a small layer of waxy/polish coating on top, just barely though, it mostly evaporates, but does the job to remove the rub marks generally. I've had 3 matte frames, they all do that.

Stickers misalinged, ok, that is shoddy.

Since only like 3 companies make frames with these enormous factories in Asia and many brands come through there, not surprised at some of these issues. These are factories that are pumping out a product for as little money as possible, then mark up the price by 3000% to profit.

I've seen Pinerello have poor alignment on drops, as well as Cannondale frames previously as well. Just your average poor QC I suppose.

Maybe time to change brands??? Never had this issue with Cannondale personally, and have had 3 Scott Foil frames now, all solid.

Good luck.

That sucks

I had a 2012 EVO Hi-Mod for 4 months before the drive side chain stay imploded on itself. I'm not a particularly powerful/heavy guy by any means, but the cannondale dealer I used to work for heard of several cases of failure at that point.

Not to say my experience is typical, but I find that some brands have a disproportionate rate of warranty issues compared to others (I didn't come up with the name crack n fail)

Hey

Thanks for the response.

Yeah, this is a ridiculous situation. I have asked Cannondale to send more framesets to the dealer, so I can look at a few of them, and choose the best one.

The quality really is shoddy.

Other stuff I noticed on the latest one they sent;

-Brake bridge between seat stays is not symmetrical
-Brake boss on bridge is extremely scrappily cut, with bits of carbon sticking off it
-Every single sticker is not straight; total rush job with no care taken in application
-There are sections where it looks like they have used touch up paint to paint over areas

It really is absolutely shoddy work, especially for a frame that is so expensive.

I've experienced quality issues with Cannondale over the last few yrs. All items got resolved, but I don't think I'll be buying this brands bikes again.

I totally agree.
Cost reductions is what companies are after but when it affects end customer that simply sucks.
I don't have any C'dale experience but I base my opinion on Time shoes - when I had the eye-attacking yellow World Cup model (made in France) the finish was superb - they lasted approx. 5 years I think.
Then I got MXS model that was made in China - not necessarily bad, but didn't come even close to the French ones.
That's "made in China" for me and I try to avoid it whenever I can.

Jarek

Do the EVO HI MOD 'dales come from China?
I thought all top end models of the big brands are produced in house (USA-Europe)

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