Zipp 303 Firecrest freehub broken after 1 season on the road - anyone else?

[pmprego]

Basically what I have on the subject. My Zipp 303 Firecrest rear freehub broke entirely due to oxidation - totally rusted that just broke - after 1 summer season solely on the road. Zipp claimed is my fault and no warranty for me. 230 euros repair.

Anyone else had this experience? Thanks for the help.

[C36]

Sorry to read this, not all brands are equal in terms of support but difficult to see if they have a valid point.
Would you have any picture to share? any more details on what Zipp think you should have done? any particularly rainy conditions or cleaning that could explain water entries? how are the bearings? did you ever open the FH during the summer?

[Mr.Gib]

That is an unforgivable failure, and the denial of warranty is absurd. This industry is overloaded with shitty low end hubs that survive years of abuse and neglect. Zipp should be at the top of performance and service, not the bottom.

I vapourized the ratchet mechanism on a Zipp hub a few years ago on a steep uphill max effort, literally ground the pawls into chunks of metal. The alloy hub body was simply too weak to hold the pawls in place under the load. Pawls failed to properly engage the ratchet, and boom! I have refused to even consider a Zipp product since then.

[pmprego]

The wheel stopped freewheeling. I took it to the shop. They called saying that when they opened small bits started to fall into their hands. Things just got broken. Full of rust according to them.

No rainy conditions. Summer only. Never opened it myself. I'm not that fluent in it.

I was expecting zipp to cover this under warranty but no... They said rust is not covered in warranty.

Not going for zipp products ever again, that's for sure.

[C36]

Without pictures is difficult to guess and your LBS hasn't provided much feedback, but parts failing apart in a single summer it is a very fast pace failure and need to understand how water/solvent made it into the FH. Do you know if FH bearing were OK? I would have expected them to seize and fail before the FH turned into pieces.

[pmprego]

Without pictures is difficult to guess and your LBS hasn't provided much feedback, but parts failing apart in a single summer it is a very fast pace failure and need to understand how water/solvent made it into the FH. Do you know if FH bearing were OK? I would have expected them to seize and fail before the FH turned into pieces.

I didn't think of asking photos to the bike shop. One day I was about to take the bike out and realized that the wheel was not freewheeling. Took it to the store and this is what they said.

When they called me today they said that they have to replace freehub body, bearings and some other things I don't recall. Zipp denied to warrant the wheel and I know the final price will be 220 or 230euros.

I am now taking the front wheel to them because I didn't imagine the problem to be this bad. I just wanted to understand if this happened to someone else around here.

I was very happy with the wheels. Light, responsive. Very very easy to mount.

[Mr.Gib]

Yeah, I call BS on the bike shop. They might have seem some colour, but it wasn't rust. Is it the bike shop that is saying no warranty, or Zipp?

Bearings can rust, but I can't ever recall ever seeing rust not from bearings inside a hub, either mine or anyone else's, or even photos on the internet. And some surface rust is not going to result metal components destroying themselves. And if it was actual iron oxide, the hubs came with it, it didn't arise in your one season of summer riding. Someone in the chain of communications on this issue is perhaps a moron. Sorry your getting burned for a bunch of Euros.

[pmprego]

Yeah, I call BS on the bike shop. They might have seem some colour, but it wasn't rust. Is it the bike shop that is saying no warranty, or Zipp?

Bearings can rust, but I can't ever recall ever seeing rust not from bearings inside a hub, either mine or anyone else's, or even photos on the internet. And some surface rust is not going to result metal components destroying themselves. And if it was actual iron oxide, the hubs came with it, it didn't arise in your one season of summer riding. Someone in the chain of communications on this issue is perhaps a moron. Sorry your getting burned for a bunch of Euros.

I'm going there in a hour or so and they have the zipp reply from Spain. They actually mentioned oxidation of the freehub components. I'll ask for more details.

The store sold me the wheels but in this situation they just sens them to the Portuguese distributor who apparently sent them to Spain for repair.

I can tell you that it was summer only riding. No winter riding. The date of purchase was 1 year. I can even go further to say that the wheels have no more than 3000km for absolutely sure.

[pmprego]

Yeah, I call BS on the bike shop. They might have seem some colour, but it wasn't rust. Is it the bike shop that is saying no warranty, or Zipp?

Bearings can rust, but I can't ever recall ever seeing rust not from bearings inside a hub, either mine or anyone else's, or even photos on the internet. And some surface rust is not going to result metal components destroying themselves. And if it was actual iron oxide, the hubs came with it, it didn't arise in your one season of summer riding. Someone in the chain of communications on this issue is perhaps a moron. Sorry your getting burned for a bunch of Euros.

I'll try to explain... The wheels were sent to Spain technical service after the freehub broke 2 of the pawls that engage the system. The technical evaluation from sram states that the system broke due to oxidation of the components due to a lack of maintenance thus no warranty is provided.

The repair is a freehub, breaings and the axle (the axle where one puts the through axle through). 180e plus vat charged to the bike shop.

The bike shop asked for a reappreciation because they explained that the type of damage is not consistent with lack of maintance for a one year old wheel that only rode during the summer.

[zaykay]

The original bearings and hub design are garbage on these wheels. I needed to replace the first set of rear hub bearings in less than 1000k. In 3000k mark every single bearing (hub + freewheel) has been replaced, front and rear.

[pmprego]

The original bearings and hub design are garbage on these wheels. I needed to replace the first set of rear hub bearings in less than 1000k. In 3000k mark every single bearing (hub + freewheel) has been replaced, front and rear.

They became waaay more expensive really fast then

[goodboyr]

Do you use a pressure washer to clean your bike?

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[pmprego]

Do you use a pressure washer to clean your bike?

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No no. But case closed... I looked online and there are ton of people complaining about the exact same thing. Water ingress, corrosion, and bearings replacements every 3/4k km

Oh well... It is what it is

[zaykay]

Do you use a pressure washer to clean your bike?

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No. I don't even ride much in rain. These hubs just suck moisture in like nothing else

Only way to lenghten the service interval is to use high quality bearings like Koyo or NTN. Zipp does not even sell freehub bearings separately even though they are standard size and can be replaced.

[pmprego]

Do you use a pressure washer to clean your bike?

Sent from my SM-S918W using Tapatalk

No. I don't even ride much in rain. These hubs just suck moisture in like nothing else

Only way to lenghten the service interval is to use high quality bearings like Koyo or NTN. Zipp does not even sell freehub bearings separately even though they are standard size and can be replaced.

Can you please provide the bearings reference??


And zaykay, it seems the assumption is always user fault. Even when the Internet is plagued with the exact same reports from different people.