Wheel rim failure

conor_mc

Looking for an opinion on what to do about a rim failure. Bike is a 2yo Focus Culebro 4.0 (Sora spec level, in-house brand cheap wheels), bought at lbs, used for daily commuting in city centre for past 12-15 months.

I’ve had the rear wheel trued up at same lbs about 4 times in the last year, most recently on Saturday. Did 70km on Sunday and back into regular commute on Monday. Tuesday morning was a right creaky spin into work then copped I had a broken spoke but still had to cycle home. On Wednesday I saw the spoke next to the broken spoke had ripped through the rim, and there are two other metal cracks along the rim in other places. In short, the wheel is disintegrating.

My question is this, should I return to lbs about this? Was it caused by the truing up with spokes being over-tensioned? Or is it even acceptable manufacturing quality of the wheel in the first place, and if so is there any comeback after 2 years?

dahat

I changed stock wheels after 3 weeks on with my first bike, stock wheels are generally poor quality I'm afraid.
To be still persisting with these after 2 years is something I'd never be able to do.

Cee-Jay-Cee

The fact you’ve had the bike 2 yrs and used it regularly sort of negates any chance you’d have of complaining. They’re cheap wheels and need replacing after considerable use.

If it were a high end bike with high end wheels then you might have some cause to complain but not for a low spec bike with cheap basic wheels.

triggermortis

The same happened to a cheap wheel of mine before, only the spikes pulled through the rim, the wheel buckled and my rear mech got eaten in the process, resulting in a long walk home.
Best to buy a new bike I reckon

cdaly_

Don't forget that wheel rims with rim brakes are also consumable items. They will wear out and need replacing.

If you're buying a new wheelset, take the opportunity to buy a hub dynamo front wheel to serve all your commute lighting needs...

conor_mc

Thanks for the wisdom guys, I kinda thought as much but didn’t want to be naive about it either if it was a “merchantable quality” issue.

So, n+1+hub dynamo it is!! :-)