Ev0lutionz

I just bought a KMC Chain made in China on Taobao, is it legit? I hope there arent any fakes on Taobao right?

sch

KMC is a Taiwanese company that extensively manufactures in China so provenance is correct. As to fakes on Taobao, guaranteed, as it is an omnium
compendium chinese outlet. So is the chain a fake? No easy way to tell but the manufacturing cost versus sales price
ratio is such that there is not much incentive.

veganbikes

If you didn't buy it from a authorized reseller you obviously didn't care enough to buy the genuine article from the get go. If you look at just price you will get what you pay for and maybe you might get lucky and get the real thing and maybe not but that was your choice.

HillRider

There are a lot of things valuable enough to counterfeit but I don't think bike chains are one of them.

MudPie

I assume you could send a query to KMC and ask, maybe send them pics of the chain and box. (BTW, I'm a big fan of KMC chains)..

2_i 

It is not likely for someone to bother faking a KMC chain. The issue could be of the chain bypassing normal quality controls. However, KMC presumably knows too well the ins and outs of China operations to let it happen.

easyupbug 

I did vendor evaluations in the PRC for a few years. As said low value items like bike chains in my experience would not be fakes but easily can be end or over runs in the manufacturing process (good quality) or worse rejects for disposal. The Taiwanese would be able to control this well and if the packaging looks correct then I would not suspect a fake product.

dedhed

You already bought it so at this point it doesn't really matter. Put it on and run it.

Pop N Wood

A BF member named Papa Ado says he works for KMC. You might PM him and ask.

Last KMC chain I bought was 7 or 8 bucks on sale from a reputable retailer, so like someone said not sure how much there is to gain from bootlegging bike chains.

Sy Reene

My 11s KMC chain packaging (legit source) was clearly marked with made in Taiwan (not China). That said, I suppose it's possible that different chains are made in different locales.

Sy Reene

Then again, if you're already a PRC bike-chain manufacturing plant, you can sell your unbranded 8s chains on AliExpress for ~$5-6 a pop, or brand them in KMC packaging for 3x that much.

Move to 11s, and the unbranded silver chains go for about $14 each on Ali, while KMC lists their silver 11SLs at $70 on their storefront.

So, sure.. nobody's going to go build a chain factory to do this, but if they already exist?

70sSanO

It never ceases to amaze me how someone will buy something and then ask. Your sole reason for buying it was to save money.

If everyone here said it was a fake and would fail, would you toss it out?

No one here knows what you got, but I suppose the guesses will make you feel better.

John

Iride01 

I agree, why worry about authenticity if you bought it for cheap. Just see how many miles you get out of it and if you are happy with what you got out of it, then what else matters.

I don't think any of use routinely size up another cyclist by the chain they use on their bike.

veganbikes

People fake all number of things. To you it may not seem worth it to fake a chain but if there is a will there is a way. I have seen fakes of a lot of stuff online over the years some stuff you wouldn't think is worth it but there it is.

Iride01 What are you doing with your life then? Of course you need to size them up by the chain they are using...this is 'Murica and we notice little details like that and judge people for them.

momoman

I bought a KMC 8 sp chain from Amazon for my vintage De Rosa. I only put 200-300 miles on the chain when it separated as I was climbing a hill. I heard a clicking as the chain hit the cage on the derailleur and FD and immediately stopped. Maybe my De Rosa with all Italian parts didn’t want a non-Italian part on it.....

It’s the 1st chain I’ve ever had in 50 yrs of riding that separated. I assume it’s a genuine KMC, but who knows? I buy parts everywhere and have no idea if they are genuine but if they were bought from major retailers I feel more confident I’m getting the genuine product. I’m not sure what you would get from AliExpress or Taobao. I ordered Shimano Ultegra SPD-SL pedals from AliExpress and they were fakes. Not even close. It was a bait and switch. The ad showed Shimano Ultegra SPD-SL pedals but I got unlabeled pedals and they were SPD and not SPD-SL. They offered me an additional 30% discount so I kept the pedals for a bike I’ll hardly ride.

I have now bought a Campy chain to keep everything Italian on the De Rosa. I also bought the chain from Amazon, but it was a 3rd party bike shop in the USA that sold it.



Only 200-300 miles on the KMC chain. Yeah, I know my chain is dirty......

hokiefyd 

Wow -- that's an X8 (formerly called X8.93) and the X8 has mushroomed pins (you can see this on adjacent pins). Does the pin where the separation occured appear to have proper mushrooming? Or, does the outer plate that popped appear to have a split in it...for the hole in the plate to have walked over the pin's mushrooming? I would have thought it highly unlikely for a failure like this to happen on a chain with mushroomed pins like the KMC chains have. Very interesting.

momoman

Yes, it’s an X8.93 chain. I think it was a manufacturing defect. I wasn’t mashing up the hill but was trying to spin then started hearing a clicking sound and resistance so i immediately stopped. I was very surprised to see the link separating. I didn’t have a chain tool but fortunately one of the other 3 riders I was with had one. I removed the bad link and continued riding with my group.

I’ve already tossed the bad pin and bent plate. From what I remember everything looked normal and the plate wasn’t cracked.



The outer plate got bent and separated.

Papa Ado

KMC here. Thanks for the tag. Unfortunately there are Chinese-made counterfeit KMC chains out there, but we are doing all we can to track them down and put an end to it at the source. You could PM me photos of chain/packaging and I might be able to tell (some fakes looks pretty good but the quality is trash). A good way to check if it's authentic is our new packaging style (for the past few years) which looks like this:

Papa Ado

KMC here. Definitely not a normal break and sorry this happened. Glad to hear you got it sorted and were able to continue your ride. I can't tell if it's authentic or not from your photo. You could try contacting our European office regarding warranty but they may ask for the chain back to determine the cause: https://www.kmcchain.eu/Contact

Ev0lutionz

Pmed you with my photos Thanks alot !

trailangel

Sorry if I have to ask this... did you use the Quicklink to join the chain or did you push a pin out and then push it back.

2_i 

What about fewer speeds? Their packaging on Amazon has some similar tones, but is much more plain.

Papa Ado

X Series (1,8-12s) is in the darker blue package whereas Z series (1-9s) is in a lighter blue box shown in bottom left here:

zacster

I had an issue with a KMC chain that appeared to be fake so I sent it back and ordered another that was new but in the old packaging and it was clearly better quality. I said at the time that the packaging had become too generic looking and thought it strange they did that. All chains of a specific speed came in the same package but I see they now mark them more clearly with specific type.

Here is that thread: https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-m...ot-fake-3.html

And thank you Papa Ado for replying to my post as well. All has been good with it in the last year. I still use KMC chains on all of my bikes.

dantonvb

I just received a X9 chain bought online. The back of the package states a CL559R insteady of the correct CL566R missing link. Inside there are a 566R. Also the name of the manufacturer is KUELMENG insteady of KUEI MENG. Do you think it is fake? I am unable to post pictures as I have few posts.