Originally Posted by Trakhak

If anyone has wondered why aluminum took over the market from steel so quickly (despite the understandable initial reluctance of bike companies to invest in such a massive transposition), one clue comes from a chance conversation I had with a Trek sales rep in the early '90s. I asked what the effect of introducing their aluminum frames had had on Trek. The rep immediately said, "Warranty costs are down. We're spending much less money replacing frames under warranty because the failure rate is much lower with our aluminum frames."