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Oh dear, just spotted this on the back wheel of my Whyte 901. It’s only eighteen months old so hopefully under warranty - it’s off to the shop today so fingers crossed.
The whole rim doesn’t look in great shape to honest but the cracks have only appeared in the last couple of weeks.
That looks like an over tensioned spoke. Have you trued the wheel at any point?
And ignoring the big cracks coming from the spoke hole....the whole surface of the rim seems to be covered in tiny cracks!
I'm just surprised the rims have lasted longer than the pile-o-shite hubs.
No, never touched any of the spokes. They all ring out nice and tight as well. There are multiple cracks around most of the nipples. Hubs are perfect. The other marks seem to just be in the anodising. The front wheel looks perfect by comparison.
The Whyte owners forum on Facebook suggests this is a fairly common problem.
Anyhow, I’m off to the shop now to see what they say. Update later on.
Is it a Whyte branded rim or WTB ?
It’s a WTB rim on a Whyte branded hub. The shop are confident it’s a warranty claim, just have to wait to get the bank holiday out of the way. Good service from JE James in Chesterfield.
So it seems that Whyte are going to send out a new rim then I have to pay the shop £40 to rebuild my wheel with the new rim.
Doesn't sound fair to me. Why should I be disadvantaged because of a warranty failure?
Thoughts?
They should provide a new wheel imo. It’s their product that has failed, why should that leave you out of pocket?
Is it warranty or goodwill? Seems a bit unfair if clear warranty case, unless you were getting upgraded rim at same time.
The only reasonable course of action here is to engage in a huge social media assault and then threaten to extradite them to the country of your choice for cruel and unusual punishment.
Its warranty. Two years on the rim, bike is eighteen months old.
Ordinarily I wouldn't have bothered and just bought a new set of wheels instead but at the moment £40 is a lot of money to me.
If that's the shop you bought the bike from then no they shouldn't be charging you for work covered by warranty imo. I guess their stance is it's a manufacturer warranty and if they offered a parts warranty with the bike it was probably only for 6 or 12 months?
Does vary. I've had to pay labour on warranty work, postage (but no labour) and nothing at all on a cracked frame, bike was stripped and rebuilt at no cost to me. RIP Farnham Cycles. They were ace.
Rim swap isn't hard. Just diy it.
As Nixie said. Assuming the replacement rim is identical, you can tape the spokes to keep them in the same place before you remove the old rim (making a note of valve position) and swap the new rim on. Doesn't take too long and you don't need to be an expert. My LBS charges £15 to true / tension the rim.
Paul
Update - Whyte supplied a new rim but have apparently refused to cover the shops labour to rebuild the wheel. JE James to their credit have agreed to do it for £20 instead of £40. I should be getting it back today with any luck!
Sounds like a decent outcome OP