oivavoi

Hey folks. First question here on the folding forum!

I bought a Tern Node D7i some months ago. Bought it used, I think it's probably from around 2016 (not sure), it's first generation. Really loved it. But then it nearly caused me to die.

I rode it in the middle of busy city traffic, and suddenly the bike disappeared under me. What happened was that the front hinge (for the head tube) had opened up, just like that. I fell down and got lots of scratches, but didn't hit my head or break anything. Luckily the car behind me managed to stop. Otherwise I'm not sure if I would be here to write these lines.

I assumed that it was human error, and that I had forgotten to properly lock the hinge. I rode it again, much more carefully and slowly this time. And lo and behold - same thing happened again. More scratches.

So the hinge doesn't seem to work properly. When I inspected it, it did seem looser than when I got the bike.

My question now: What to do? Can I try to tighten it and assume that I'm good, or is it possible that something in the hinge needs to be replaced?

I tried to tighten the hinge. Can't find anything about it in the manual. As far as I can see there is just one place I can tighten it. But I don't perceive the tightening to really work, the hinge is still not as tight as when I got it.

Does anybody know if there is an online tutorial for these hinges? And is this covered by the extended 10 year Tern warranty? (even though it's used, Tern warranty should still be in place, under the consumer laws of my country)

I took photos of the hinge, but apparently I need to write more posts on the forum before I can post them.