Brought my bike for a tune up to my LBS which includes a complete rebuild. The damage happened on the first rider after the service. One of the bolts in the chainring came loose and popped out until it hit the frame and also resulted in a sucked chain.
At first I only noticed a few scratches in the top of the chainstay. I was a little pissed but it happens so didn’t pay too much attention. I went back and asked them to put it back and continued my ride. Honestly, I only went back because I didn’t have a multi-tool with me.
Many days passed and I noticed that there was deeper a damage in the bottom side of the chainstay. It seems it reached the carbon.
I’m not sure how to approach this. Is it reasonable to bring this up to the store? They didn’t damage it but I’m sure the loose bolt was the cause. However, it’s been a while. I don’t know if they’ll remember or have a record I went back because of this. It was a quick stop.
Is it reasonable to ask them to inspect it and fix it? (Hoping is fixable).
Obviously, the only way to know is to ask them but I wanted to check what’s a reasonable in this situation before I ask too much or too little.
by turandoto
10 Comments
Some of those look pretty bad. I would bring it back and ask for them to either replace the frame or send it to the manufacturer for assessment and possible repair.
*cries in carbon*
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i would get this checked out by a carbon repair company and/or try to get a crash replacement on the frame. that looks really bad and is reason No1 I will never buy carbon bike again.
Weird that you didn’t hear creaking or some sort of feedback before it loosened enough to break and cause major chain suck. The shop should have records on their services provided. If they did in fact remove the chainrings for cleaning I would be surprised. Most shops will just remove the entire crankset and clean with rings still installed. If they had removed them and over torqued resulting in stripping the bolt this could happen. This is quite catastrophic and I would not ride this frame until either it is replaced or repaired. Might I ask the brand of frame and location if the shop?
Yikes.
So, the following is what *should* happen. Take the bike back to the shop, the shop should strip the frame down to a bare frame, and mail it to there carbon guy (any reputable shop worth patroning will have a carbon guy). That carbon guy does his NDT, determines what needs repaired, repairs the bike, gets it repainted, and back to the shop.
Then, the shop rebuilds it for you. All at ZERO expense to you. Either that, or gets you a new comparable frame.
Now, what will actually happen depends entirely on the shop. What I’ve described is what my shop would do. What yours does… who knows.
Good luck, but this is on the shop. Depending on how much that frame is worth and how your shop handles this, you are looking at a small claims court battle.
What you are describing:
> The damage happened on the first rider after the service. One of the bolts in the chainring came loose and popped out until it hit the frame and also resulted in a sucked chain.
…is gross negligence. The shop should be lucky you were not injured. Its not going to take a jury of your peers to get a judge to rule in your favor on this. This is summery judgement territory in your favor.
Go back to the shop. Bring it up and do so before too much time passes. Mistakes happen and unfortunately this would appear to be a kind of expensive one. Try not to go in mad. If they don’t own their responsibility then you can consider escalating but most decent shops accept that unfortunately oversights in repairs happen to all service businesses.
If you have pictures pre-service that’s great. Pictures of the bolt damage and bolt positioning at time of figuring out the issue is also great.
From a shop perspective this is also a new frame level of damage so if it was their error that is likely the solution…
I’d talk to the shop about finding an agreeable solution to remedy this. To be honest, I personally wouldn’t ride this frame in this condition.
Why do people still go to bike shops lol. If you’re gonna buy an expensive bike learn how to work on it.
You can see damaged carbon plies in the photo. Hard to tell how much loading is in the region or the total thickness of the laminate, so no idea whether there is margin. Time to send to a reputable carbon repair shop.
Of course you should take it back to the shop. Not as a confrontation, but to get their take on the whole thing and see what they recommend for next steps.
Send it to Calfee.