People speak highly of ortleib but the way they are assembled seems to be rubbish? Proprieatary screws going into plastic nuts? I've had them slowly disassemble a few times and have to regularly retighten, but sometimes am too late and they ping apart (losing the screw in the process and leaving me slightly stranded) I'm midway through a 3 month tour and beyond frustrated
I've bought a spare screw set but have now got all the way through it . I will be replacing with standard nuts and bolts but why do they do this?
by Dicksebson
2 Comments
They used to make great panniers. Then the shareholders wanted more money. How do you make more money?
– pricing panniers for people willing to pay a lot highly: bike packing gear
– making poorly tested products: the convertible bags both first and 2nd generation had massive flaws. For the bad hooks on gen 2 they do actually give you an upgrade if you send them in for free.
– reducing the quality of ingredients, doing less Quality Control. I’ve had a hook snap on bad roads in Central Asia, and everyone I’ve met had a broken hood on one of their front panniers. They’re going to do fine on what 95% of customers use them for: going to work, doing shopping, short week long tours.
However, if you’re in Europe, do consider using the 5 year long warranty. After your trip on any broken parts.
And yes, if you feel confident, I recommend melting nuts into the plastic dish nuts with a temperature adjustable soldering iron (around 220-240 degrees Celsius will melt most plastics but not damage them). If you don’t feel like that: hex socket nuts, big washers and nyloc nuts will do perfectly fine too, maybe add a piece of plastic (like the wall of food packaging or plastic bottles) to not scratch the plastic on the inside, a bit of rubber from an old inner tube will work too.
Like all screws on your bike, these need to be checked/tightened and potentially loctite applied.
As for why they use proprietary screws? Because there was nothing off the shelf that met the precise need. Manufacturers do this all the time. The torx screws have a slot across so you can use a flathead in a pinch, which is nice. The internal plastic bits are flat and smooth so they don’t catch or rub against the bag components or contents.