Jtsweeep

Hey everyone. I've been out of biking for a while and just picked up a brand new out of the box Trek Fx 3 from a local shop this weekend. I've gone on one ride on it and noticed today that the front tire is off center. There's a gap of about 1/2" on one side and 3/4" on the other (from the fork).

I'm not sure how serious this is considering it's a brand new bike and what it says about the shop that sold it to me. (shouldn't they have caught this during an inspection after putting it together?). Should I have them fix it? Ask for a different bike? Get a refund and buy a bike somewhere else? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Tony P.

It's probably a very easy fix but I'd bring it back. The bike's not the problem.

Moe Zhoost

It may be that the axle is not fully seated in the fork ends. Do this: With the bike on the ground, unclamp the front wheel quick release. Then reclamp it while pushing down a bit on fork. If the axle was not seated you should feel it fall into place. If this does not resolve the issue, take it back to the shop.

Also, and this is very important: The lever on the quick release is NOT like a wing nut, it is connected to a cam that adds tension to the spindle to hold the axle firmly in place. Avail yourself of the many videos on the internet that show proper use. .

blamester

Bring the bike back. Let them look at it.
And when your there get them to show you how to install a wheel.

berner

There are two possibilities I can see. The first is a poor wheel build which results when the spokes on one side are tighter than the other side. You can check this by flipping the wheel around left side to right. If the gap is due to incorrect spoke tension, the gap then would be on the opposite side. If this is the case, bring the wheel back to the shop for truing.

The other possibility which I now about because I had the problem when I first bought my bike. My bike at first would pull to one side and could not be ridden no hands. After much pondering, then much measuring with a carpenter's level and string, I discovered that the dropouts at the bottom of the fork were incorrectly inserted into the forks so that one was a bit higher than the other. This results in the wheel not being plumb and the point of contact with the road surface was offset to one side. The geometry is such that the dropout being off by, say one mm, the rim would be off about 5 or 6 times that. I was able to solve the problem by very carefully filing the dropout with a round file until the wheel was plumb. If this is the case with your bike you should still bring it back to the shop.

Crankycrank

Another vote for taking it back to the shop after checking to see if the wheel and quick release have been installed correctly. Don't try to make any repairs yourself as the shop can claim you are at fault.

Iride01 

It's a new bike, you are a new bike owner. Take it back and let them either fix it or show you first hand what you might be doing incorrectly.

You bought it from a LBS, local bike shop, right? If big box discount store or big box sporting goods store, they will be very hit and miss to have a decent bike person that knows his stuff much less can devote time to your issue. So in that case, find a LBS.

cpach

If you check and find that the front axle isn't fully seated in the dropouts, it's likely that the QR wasn't tight enough. Disc brakes create forces that try to pull the axle out of the left dropout. Most bikes unfortunately come with inexpensive open cam skewers that are difficult to get up clamp with enough force. Lightly grease the surfaces of the skewer cam and get it as tight as you possibly can by hand.

If that's not the problem, take it back to the shop. Either the wheel isn't dished, which I'd relatively easy to fix, or there's something wrong with the forks manufacturing tolerances.

Jtsweeep

Yep, I got it from a LBS. I want to clarify that I didn't put the bike together, they did. When I said new out of the box, I just meant it wasn't sitting out on the show room floor being test ridden.

It sounds like the consensus is to mess with the axle a bit to see if it's a simple fix before taking it back, which is what I'll do. I was concerned that if I undid anything, they'd blame me for it.

I'll post a few pictures later.

Jtsweeep

I'll do that and watch the video. Will report back. Thanks!

cpach

Removing the front wheel is an ordinary thing to do to transport the bike, and no shop expects you to not do so (also for flat repair).

Iride01 

I was/am thinking this is a non-disc bike with QR's . If you don't have previous experience with them, and the bike has had the wheel in there cockeyed from the start, then they may not give you proper clamping force when you straighten the axles in the fork. So the QR will need to be adjusted. A simple thing to do, but slightly different for different skewers and some might seem correctly clamped when not. So it wouldn't hurt to have someone else check and show you how that particular skewer is adjusted and clamped. Unless you have some past experience with QR's.

Retro Grouch 

Have you by chance removed the front wheel for transport? Here's why I ask:

A decade or so ago at the start of an organized ride I saw a fellow who was experiencing the problem which you describe. A friend was helping him so I just stood back to watch. When the friend got to the point of pulling out a spoke wrench to redish the wheel (this really happened) I decided I'd better step in.

1. Stand your bike up on it's two wheels. Believe it or not, this is actually the important part.
2. Release the QR.
3. Push straight down with your hand on the stem until the axle bottoms in both dropouts.
4. Re-tighten the QR.

Jtsweeep

The bike has disc brakes with QR.

After looking at it closer, the quick release skewer goes through a hole so there's no room for it to adjust/move (sorry for the improper terminology).

It looks like one side of the wheel protrudes out more than the other side (like a tent). Is this what you guys mean by dish? Will it be an issue if I ride the bike like this until I can get it back to the LBS?

Tried to post some pictures but I can't do that just yet because I'm new.

Edit: forgot to say that I have not taken off the front wheel for transport or done anything mechanical other than ride it.

Retro Grouch 

I'm going to recommend not riding it until a mechanic has the opportunity to look at it.

Litespud

sounds like a thru-axle rather than a QR. in this case, the axle, which consists of a metal shaft with threads at one end and a “handle” at the other end, passes through a hole in one fork end, through the wheel hub, and into a second threaded hole in the other fork end. You remove the wheel by simply unscrewing the axle by turning the “handle” counterclockwise until the threads at the other end of the axle disengage, and you pull the axle out. The wheel is now free to simply drop out of the fork.
Any time a wheel hub is asymmetrical, because there are gears or a brake disk on one side only, the wheel is dished, generally using longer spokes on one side, so the wheel rim sits along the center line of the bike. You look at your rear wheel, with a big cassette on one side of the hub, the dish or offset will be obvious. Front disk wheels also require some dish to account for the asymmetrical hub - the question is, is your wheel dished correctly? Easiest way to check is to unscrew the thru-axle, drop out the wheel, reinstall it backwards and reinstall the thru-axle (it’ll install the same way even if the wheel is in backwards). What has happened to the uneven gap? Has it moved to the other side? If so, it’s a dish issue, if not, it’s a fork issue. Either way, back to the shop. Remember to reinstall the wheel the right way around, and don’t ride it or pull the front brake lever until the wheel is in and the front disk is back in the caliper.
There are almost certainly some YouTube’s showing how to remove/install a thru-axle, if this is what you have. YouTube is your friend.
Follow up - looks like your bike has a “ThruSkew” system - a thin QR-like thru-axle. Not sure if this behaves exactly like a regular thru-axle. Take it to the shop 😟

cpach

Ok, its nice that they're using a a thru axle on that model now. So yeah, it's not the installation of the front wheel, and is either the wheel dish or the fork tolerances. If the bike handles ok you can certainly ride it without worry but what you describe sounds too far out of tolerance and the shop should sort it out.

katsup

Here is the OP's gallery with his photos - https://www.bikeforums.net/g/album/17956174 He didn't include a photo of the drop outs though.

According to the Trek website, the 2020 FX3 has QR
Watch this video about installing a front wheel. Your part starts at 30 seconds.

Trevtassie

It has a Trek Thru Skew. Like a combination of QR and through axle. The lever end goes through a hole in the fork. The other end goes into a bolted on retainer with a captive nut. Theoretically it shouldn't be able to go out of alignment. I've never seen one in the flesh, but I think the captive nut could come out of the holder. But even then the wheel would still sit in the drop outs and the QR couldn't be tightened. The other thing I guess is that the retainer could be missing the 5mm bolt that holds it in place, so the QR could still be tightened but not be located right.
In all the above, it's something the shop has done wrong and should fix.

Jtsweeep

Thanks for all the info and the diagnosis guys. Sorry I didn't provide all the details ahead of time but I didn't really know what any of it meant (thru skew, down bolt, etc.). Now that I know you can see the gallery, I'll take more pictures tomorrow.

Unfortunately, I can't take the bike back until the weekend because of work and I need to borrow a bigger car to haul it. Is this something that is fairly common to miss or a gross oversight by the LBS? I want to know ahead of time how mad I should be at them.

Thomas15

52 years ago, when I was a wee lad of 10, I knew how to remove bike wheels and fix flats properly. If something on my bike broke or was out of adjustment, I fixed it.

Take from this statement whatever you may.

Phil_gretz

I'm sure that you didn't mean "mad" at them, but rather "disappointed" that this type of error crept through.

As to "common miss", this type of issue is uncommon. First, the through axle is more common on certain kinds of bikes and more so each year, but your bike build mechanic may not be as familiar with them. Second, if due to a misalignment of your dropout(s) or a fork that was not manufactured to spec, then it is indeed an uncommon thing for a Trek.

Also, initial building is the entry-level job as a mechanic (right after sweeping up floors and taking out recycles and trash), so this person may have noticed the misalignment, fiddled with the disc caliper alignment to make it work and said to himself/herself "good enough". Or, it may be that he/she called the boss over and said "look at this...what gives?" And they may have decided to pass it on to you with out correcting it. That would have been the worst case scenario, and you cannot know what really happened.

I think that "hopeful disappointment" is the right tone to strike. Heck, everyone is under stress these days for one reason or another. Let the shop correct the problem once you've shown them that it is apparent. In all likelihood, they'll do right by you. Good luck.

Iride01 

I wouldn't be mad at all. Mistakes happen. However you should keep track of how many mistakes you get from them and let them know about each one so they can see that maybe they need to address something in their operation. When the mistakes get to be too many for you, then change to another shop. Still, we don't know for certain this is an issue.

jp911

Another potential diagnosis: the axle end cap on the brake side of the hub is either missing or the incorrect size. I saw this firsthand when a wheelset showed up for my MTB with the wrong end caps. It was a head scratcher because the wheel would fit in the frame, and the threading of the thu axle would compress the fame slightly (this was a rear wheel), but the disc brake caliper was way out of alignment. I never rode it this way (in the rear you're also messing with the cassette), but in this case I could see how the end caps could cause this issue.

Jtsweeep

It might be a different story if I had owned the bike for more than 5 days.

By mad I mean from a safety standpoint. Like if their carelessness could have led to some sort of accident where the wheel broke causing me to crash. Or something like that.

So I flipped the wheel over and it was offset on the opposite side by a lot. I flipped it back and tightened the QR and it's not as off center as before but still off.

Interestingly, while I had the bike flipped over, I noticed scuffs on the bottoms of both sides of the fork and it was metallic. Is it normal for carbon forks to have metal on the ends? Also how did the scuffs get there??? I didn't hit anything.

I uploaded some more pictures to my gallery (listed in one of the previous posts).