mack_turtle

a friend who works in a busy bike shop said that he's seen a lot more quality control issues over the past few months than he has in the previous decade+ of working in shops. hydraulic brakes that just won't cooperate, shocks that blow apart within 48 hours of leaving the sales floor, wheels with unusually under-tensioned spokes, etc. anyone have experience like that? nothing is perfect, but I get the impression that there are more problems-per-product hitting the store than usual. can anyone confirm the degree to which manufacturers are pushing production at the cost of consistency?

veganbikes

I don't know certainly I have had an uptick in warranties filed but we have also massively increased our buying and selling of bikes so is there more QC issues or is it amplified because everything has grown? Certainly I would hope that it is just being amplified and not actually becoming a larger problem but it could be. If I was a betting person I would probably say it is just amplified and more people are riding and noticing issues but thankfully I am not because I could be wrong.

Some manufacturers are certainly not able to or not willing to respond to warranty claims, some are more notorious for issues pre-covid but some seem to have adopted more issues because they can't get into office or something but it certainly has been tough, I have some that are taking months and months and months sometimes to just get back in touch with me with a real person. Most of it is getting parts.

CrowSeph

bought a new mountainbike (cannondale trail 5 2021) and i had a derailleur hanger defective , i had to replace with my own money. Km done , less than 300....

unterhausen

During the bike boom in the early '70s, quality really tanked. I think things are not as bad this time, but the supply hasn't increased to meet demand quite as much.

mack_turtle

I was inspired by this forum to read "No Hands" about this history of the Schwinn Bicycle Company. I had not been born yet, but it sounds like that period was pretty wild. Schwinn was slapping together bikes so badly that dealers had shops full of bikes with missing parts while Trek, Mongoose, and Specialized were starting up and they blew Schwinn away.

downhillmaster

That’s easy.
Since the pandemic started, all bicycle and parts manufacturers are operating at 1.47% below normal QC tolerances.

unterhausen

That must have been a later bike boom. AFAIK, Schwinn did okay during the one in the early '70s. I was mostly thinking of the European brands. Trek didn't exist until that boom had mostly died off, mid to late '70s. I don't know when Trek really started selling a lot of bikes, but I don't think it was until into the '80s.

Troul 

I agree that QA management has been very minimal.

Milton Keynes

It's not really surprising. When demand increases, manufacturers ramp up production, and therefore sometimes quality tends to get overlooked in the quest to increase output, whether intentional or not. When you're telling your workers to ramp up production and get more units out the door, sometimes mistakes happen.

blacknbluebikes 

I'd hate to be running a big factory floor during Covid.

JohnDThompson 

Trek started in 1974. When I joined Trek in 1980, we were making about 10,000 frames/year. When I left in 1986, production was over 180,000 frames/year.

veganbikes

If you bought the bike from an authorized dealer and the hanger was actually defective then they would have replaced it under warranty. I dislike Crackandfail but they aren't that bad in terms of warranty that they wouldn't support a warranty claim on a new bike like that unless of course it was not damage caused by manufacturing defects (hangers are designed to fail to save the actual derailleur). I would have just gone back to the authorized dealer I purchased the bike from and get it solved or if the shop was closed I would have contacted Crackandfail directly and they probably could have sent one if the requirements of warranty were met.

unterhausen

Is '74 counting Bevil Hogg's bike shop? I know Bevil had some dealings with the Burkes before the Waterloo days, mostly involving a bad contract involving chainsaws and the fact he was fluent in French. Vintage Trek says the first few hundred frames were built in '76, which lines up with the way I remember things. I got there very late in '77 IIRC.

mack_turtle

checking derailer hanger alignment on a new bike is part of the build process. it's the responsibility of the bike builder, whether that is in a shop or a home for direct-to-consumer. it's just like pumping up tires and torquing stem bolts. there is not guarantee that the hanger survived shipping unscathed, and new hangers almost ALWAYS need to be tweaked for alignment after they are installed. it's impossible to product a "perfect" hanger because it has to fit and be aligned on the bike where it is being used.

JohnDThompson 

'74 was when the corporate charter was granted. It took a while after that before production could begin.

skenry

Feeling very old now..... Thanks

mack_turtle

I'm rounding 40 soon and I have a pinched nerve in my neck that won't quit! does it get better from here?

Snotrub

Uh........NO!!

skenry

Nope. It's a fast downhill till the end

Paul Barnard

I think history will show that quality control in almost all manufacturing suffered during the Covid period.

dedhed

This.
I inspect incoming products for a living and can say I've seen more QC issues in the last year, often from manufacturers I've had little issue with in the past.
They tell me X% of the workforce is out at any given time and people are being shuffled into production roles who have no experience in it. Don't get me started on delivery and lead times.