Marcus_Ti

On BF.net...and I'm having an I'm-an-idiot moment remembering who. Could someone point me in the right direction, or if they are you just PM me? I have a service/warranty issue...and Campagnolo USA has yet to acknowledge my email after a week. Quite frankly, I'll chat with anyone at Campagnolo if they speak English at this point.

PS-I'm not spilling the topical beans until Campagnolo have a chance to look into it and make it (hopefully) right...

fietsbob

FB, Francis Used to Be , Have you tried any of the High End Colorado Mail order sellers Or Branford bike in Seattle?

But generally Service flows Upstream from the Dealer so, Go Back Thru Where You Bought It .. Start There..

Dealer contacts Their distributors , they would be speaking to Campagnolo USA..

got your sales reciepts?

Marcus_Ti

Have my receipts, sure. Purchased through Ribble in the UK. Nearest "authorized" Campagnolo Pro Shop is 9+ hours away speeding on the Interstate. Was hoping to cut out middle-men and spare time-zones.

Campag's site said to first go to an authorized shop...of which there are none....then try emailing...which apparently no one is home (emailed a week ago as of tonight).


I suppose if I in the US midwest have to email Ribble in the UK to get someone in California to forward a request to Italy I can...seems asinine to have to do it that way however, and I'm loosing patience. Had a barely 4 month old Chorus 11s FD die.

fietsbob

Try Branford, ship your part , Maybe they can repair it.



My Campag stuff is all Old .. 80s the newest


Wolfsburg will not come and pick up Their cars for recall service of the VW 'feature' ..




Besides a lot of Campagnolo Moved lots of their shop to Romania to cut labor costs .

Same as It Ever Was..

only thing to rely on ...

Marcus_Ti

Aluminum FD cage failed, shearing at the front pivot flange and causing the FD tension spring to leave its home. It is done for I'm 99% certain:

https://www.dropbox.com/photos/share...ytPuzK1WlHuX8R

Emailed Ribble...they've been great to deal with thus far...see what they do. With how expensive shipping is, it is almost cheaper for me to buy a new ******** FD than to bother shipping it anywhere.

fietsbob

Designers Over did the weight consciousness IMHO .. For you microgram counters ..

I think You should go downrange, get another <C>11v FD with a chromed Steel cage ,

or have them put a steel one on your FD, when they Fix It .

too much Superleggero, not enough Durability .. My Campag Triomphe & Euclid FD are fine 30 years on.

Marcus_Ti

RE: Weight, IKR

You can't AFAIK go downrange. Chorus 2015 and up use a different cable pull and lever arm on the FD compared to Athena and below....or compared to Chorus 2014 and up or down.

Shoot if lever arm and pull weren't problems I'd try using my Centaur 10s FD I have laying around...after 10 years it still works.

fietsbob

Well the pull ratio (math) is the parallelogram lengths pivot to pivot and the arm to the nearest pivot.

maybe the cage itself will, fit from 1 thing to another..

Dont talk to Me I got off the bandwagon at 7 speeds and jumped ship to Rohloff. I need A drink , I recommend one for You too ,

take this Up with Branford , Monday ..Call on the phone and Use your voice.

Maybe 2016 will push the 11 speed down range further .. & you can get a Steel cage FD ..

Steve530

Did you call the office in Carlsbad (760) 931-0106?

shelbyfv

Looks like the Chorus is out of stock at Ribble, but only $75. Maybe another UK vendor has them. Record is under $100. I'd go that way, get back on the road.

FBinNY 

FYI- Campagnolo USA is a separate company from Campagnolo Italy. So any component you bought into the USA from outside is technically "gray market". That doesn't mean that Campy USA won't service it, nor does it mean that a USA dealer won't either, but it does mean that no one in the USA is obligated to.

When folks shop overseas to save money, some of the savings comes with a service issue price tag. I suggest that, since you purchased it from Ribble, they should be your initial contact point, and they can work back through their purchase channel if necessary.

You may mot like the answer, but think about if you worked for Ford, and were a knowledgeable Ford mechanic. Then your neighbor who happens to own a Ford, has a problem and asks you to fix it for him.

Marcus_Ti

This is more like VW refusing to fix your non-emission-compliant vehicle you bought from them because you bought from the dealership one county over not the overpriced guy up the street. Oh well, I'll see where it goes....Thankfully, US Amazon had a (major) pricing screwup and I managed to score a 2015 Record 11s FD for $50USD Prime from Amazon, after order went through they "fixed it".. So I can ride for now, ticked that I needed to blow $55 on a part that broke but at least not as ticked as I would have been had I needed to pay $250 to QBP to get a replacement.



Considering this looks and smells to my eye like a design weakness/flaw in the FD, I have a suspicion any/all of the Chorus+ 2015 FDs may be at risk of this break since they all use coated-aluminum inner-cages manufactured the same way (Record/SR use carbon outers, whereas Chorus use Al for the entire cage). Chorus 2015 and up use a wicked strong steel return spring, and I'm not too surprised that a cold-set aluminum FD pivot flange might not hold up.

fietsbob

IMHO Aluminum was not the best material choice .. but the market counts grams.. carbon bling.

I had some old Sun Tour FD , they mixed it up backplate where the spring anchored was steel , outside plate was aluminum .

gfk_velo

Just seen this thread ...

We've not seen any report of this in the UK yet, as far as I know.

Sometimes you do get odd, inexplicable failures in any production environment - also, someone has to be "first" ... but you have to bear in mind how many 100s of 1000s of real and simulated km these mechs have done before the final design goes out to market. Campagnolo (like Shimano) have around a six year lead time from concept to market and roughly half of that is field testing. At this stage we'd say it's overwhelmingly more likely to be a one-off than anything.

Fietsbob - assembly is the main job in Romania, not fabrication. There is fabrication done there but generally on bigger components using "heavier" processes like forging. The quality assurance etc. is all run by Italian teams - unlike many others we can mention, Campagnolo wholly own both factories in Romania - the average rates on warranty return have not shifted since the two plants in Romania took up responsibility for assembly.

Marcus_Ti ... Sending back to Ribble, as your vendor, may not be the most convenient thing to do but it is in reality the correct thing to do - in so far as to use any other retailer is asking them to take on an administrative load to look at the warranty for which they have no channel of recompense, whilst Ribble have at least the small margin they have made in compensation.

This leads us to the whole concept of "overpriced" ... the problem (that is widespread, getting worse and not unique to Campagnolo, nor yet even the cycle industry) is the slow leaching away of local expertise and knowledge, driven by ever-lower retail price points. There comes a point where it is simply not possible to fund good service at a low nett margin. Volume can't compensate for lack of profit, beacsue volume has it's own demands and selling twice as many parts at half the margin - you have to work harder to make the same amount of money. This is a massive problem in industries where product is technical, where it needs a level of knowledge and skill to assemble (and even to use - think how many LBSs used to exist, that ran rides for customers to learn at the very least, a little peloton etiquette). My other passions are HiFi and Photography - consumer durables, high cost, low margin - same problem. The level of service problem described here here is a microcosm of this issue, as FBinNY very correctly says ...