davidad

I would guess that the crack originated in the heat affected zone at the toe of the weld.

Kovkov

When you braze it. With lugs.

dscheidt

It's a marketing expense. The number of frames replaced under the extended warranty is small, compared to the good will generated by standing behind the product. QBP don'tt care about the good will, they think they're a monopoly.

2old

That's the problem with Surly. Even when they were smaller they pretended to be independent, but were just part of a monster.

WizardOfBoz

reueladhikari are you going to check with Surly?

Leebo

That pine marin is 2k. And in the fine print, some of those aluminum frames only cover the main triangle, not the rear sus part.

Leebo

Big business is bad? Got 4 Surly frames, no issues. Used and abused, beyond spec. I ain't no lightweight either. ( 230 lbs) For me the advantage is being a jack of all trades, specialty of none. My 1x1 has seen rigid fork and sus. Fits 3" tires. Drivetrains? 1x1, 1x9, 3x9, dingle speed, double dingle speed, rim brakes and disk brakes. Currently running 29 x 2" tires. On a 26er frame.

hokiefyd 

You asked about lifetime warranties on $400-700 steel frames. Jamis offers that. One of their most popular bikes, the Coda series, is a fully rigid steel bike. Some of the models use carbon forks, and some use steel forks; their lifetime warranty includes rigid forks. Their Dragonslayer series is a steel hardtail bikepacking bike with a suspension fork, very similar to the Krampus or Karate Monkey, both in price and in intended use. Jamis' lifetime warranty would cover the Dragonslayer's frame, but its fork would be covered by Rock Shox.

WizardOfBoz

A quality steel frame should not break in one's lifetime. That's one reason why folks buy quality steel frames. It sounds like Surly does make some good, durable frames. But they make thousands of them I suspect. Surly frames breaking may be super rare due to a fault that's very hard to avoid (like the supplier giving you tens of thousands of feet of tubing with only one fault over about 3 inches of tubing). Or this break might be more common (but still rare) due to poor manufacturing processes and QC.

In either case, if faults were pretty rare, it would be expected that most Surly owners would say "Never had any problems". But it does look like the OP has a cracked Surly frame. If its truly a super rare event, I would think Surly would replace the frame, no questions asked, even if its out of warranty. If its more prevalent then I'd think they might hem and haw and offer a useless "credit" for a new bike. My point is that your sample of 4 bikes out of tens of thousands sold gives very very little information about the prevalence of fairly rare frame breaks.

Wilfred Laurier

That may be a reason people have for buying steel frames, but it is not necessarily true. When steel frames were the norm, they broke all the time, especially very lightweight ones.

Yes, it is unusual that a heavier steel frame like a Surly would break - almost definitely a manufacturing defect, unfortunately not revealed until well after the warranty period is over, but if the loads put on a non-defective frame introduce stresses above the materials fatigue limit, the bike will eventually break. One of the reasons you see old 10-speeds and other old steel bike rolling around is that many of them sat unused for decades and got pulled out to give to grandkids or sold at garage and estate sales.

HillRider

Yes indeed.

Now that we have two pages of mostly debate on the durability of steel frames and whether Surly will offer an extended warranty, I have to ask the OP, did you contact Surly about this failure and what was the outcome?

Yes,. their stated warranty is 3 years and few Surly frames break but what did they say?

WizardOfBoz

I agree. If we make a racing bike, in which the tube walls are reduced to lower weight, this increases stress, all other things being equal. Higher cyclic stress leads to earlier fatigue failure. Which tells me that I, as a 240 pounder, should not buy a vintage frame of Columbus EL, for example. And back in the day, when I could leg press 1000 pounds, I could put pretty good stress on the BB and chainstays. So heavy riders and riders who can really graunch can fail a super-optimized low weight racing bike frame.

At the same time, horses for courses. The Surly in question is touted as a commuter. It should be substantive enough to not fail in normal use, IMHO. Most bike frames were not so super-optimized as to susceptible to failure in normal use, if for no other reason than to avoid warranty costs.

In the case of this frame, unless the OP is a 250 lb weight lifter with massive legs whose commute is over rocky trails up and down steep inclines, the frame should not have failed in use.

Still waiting to hear if the OP has contacted Surly.

Leebo

My take on Surly is that they are basic, over built frames. 6 year old steel frame set up singlespeed. Nothing lasts forever. I've broken 2 steel frames, 2 aluminum frames, cranks, handlebars, pedals, rims, wheels, and a bb. Stuff breaks. And 2 helmets doing their job.

CliffordK

If I was going to ressurect the frame, it does depend a bit on the inside of the bottom bracket, but I don't think replacing the bottom bracket would be my course of action.

There is some grunge and decals that give a false sense of lugs that aren't there.

The frame appears to be purely TIG welded. So, one could, in theory, clean it up, grind off some of the welds, and weld over the top, and maybe get another 6 years of use.

Or perhaps Fillet Braze the seat tube, and gusset braze the downtube.

A forensic analysis of the cracks would be interesting. In particular, the crack along the bottom of the seat tube. The crack appears to go between the weld and the bottom bracket.

Assuming a thick tube bottom bracket and thin tube seat tube, is there any sign that the weld broke through the inside of the bottom bracket?

To me it looks like basic weld separation.

Thus NOT FATIGUE. But, rather poor welding, and poor penetration.

If it is a poor weld that showed up, assuming the original owner, I'd push for a warranty repair.

WizardOfBoz

Clifford, Agree on all points - I thought that there was a lug. That said, it does seem that the crack proceeds axially up the tube. I've underlined the crack, as I see it. But that "crack" could be a partial lug (?) or something. Not sure.

The frame is supposed to be 4130 Chrome-moly and so should be plenty strong, If there is an axial crack I'd want that tube replaced.

And I'd check with Surly in any case. If there was a problem I'll bet that they want to know about it.