Sram t type chain issues

[Paul Mac]

Sram t type chain problems
Mith race fitted with sram t type 70 chain from factory.
Got about 500 miles and chain snapped.
It was still well within its wear limits and is cleaned and lubed every ride.
Fitted new one and within 100 miles same thing has happened.
I have never had a chain snap on me before?
Also noticed several more cracks.
Any mith owners having similar issues?

 

[steve_sordy]

It seems defective to me. It is worth a claim to whoever supplied either the chain, or the bike the chain came on. Show the pics and state how many cracks there are. It looks totally unusable on safety grounds alone. Emphasis the word "safety", or "unsafe" to be more precise. Sending you a new chain will be cheaper than arguing the toss with you.

Lets face it, you are not going to risk riding with that chain again are you?

 

[Gila Man]

Sram t type chain problems
Mith race fitted with sram t type 70 chain from factory.
Got about 500 miles and chain snapped.
It was still well within its wear limits and is cleaned and lubed every ride.
Fitted new one and within 100 miles same thing has happened.
I have never had a chain snap on me before?
Also noticed several more cracks.
Any mith owners having similar issues?

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View attachment 180506

That looks like a manufacturing defect. Is it really a SRAM chain or a Chinese counterfeit. Either way, I think you are due a replacement. Good luck.

 

[steve_sordy]

Chains do "snap", I have had a few myself, but for me, they have always peeled apart rather than actually snapping.
With all those cracks, it does look like a manufacturing defect. The chain is probably dimensionally correct, so it will be some sort of heat treatment error of the plate raw material before stamping out of the links, or a bad batch of material. When you think how many miles of chain is pumped out on a daily basis it won't take much of a quality control error to produce a load of dodgy chain. You will not be the only one with this problem.

 

[Pyr0]

I'd try checking the alignment.

 

[Montana St Alum]

With the "arms race" of ever-increasing torque, I wonder if this sort of event will be on the increase.

 

[Astro66]

Have you turned Smoothshift on ? It will back power off when you shift.

Snapping chains is why Avinox added this software update.

 

[Paul Mac]

Have you turned Smoothshift on ? It will back power off when you shift.

Snapping chains is why Avinox added this software update.

Thanks, but yes it's on

 

[Stumpy]

I've had the same issue on the same chain (type) twice. Both times it was due to poor alignment and I believe as the tolerances on T-Type 12 speed are so tight on the cassette, if your indexing is not spot on, the outer links on the chain get compromised.

The misalignment in my case was not having the two horizontal marks on the derailleur lined up.

 

[JamisXLT]

Had a couple hinky shifts, less than 200M, no worries.
Better go look at my chain!

 

[Paul Mac]

Spoke to my dealer today, who states his warranty outbox for sram t type chains is over flowing.
Maybe a faulty batch?
But also stated they were all on dji powered bikes.

 

[Rod B.]

Sram t type chain problems
Mith race fitted with sram t type 70 chain from factory.
Got about 500 miles and chain snapped.
It was still well within its wear limits and is cleaned and lubed every ride.
Fitted new one and within 100 miles same thing has happened.
I have never had a chain snap on me before?
Also noticed several more cracks.
Any mith owners having similar issues?

View attachment 180505

View attachment 180506

Paul Mac,

I've snapped plenty of the old style AXS Eagle chains, but never a T-Type.

I've seen this before on a bike I worked on. The owner had installed a chainring on his bike with an incorrect offset. This altered the bike's chainline. In essence, the bike was doing an old school cross chaining at the low end of the cassette (Largest cog) and excessive binding and rubbing was occurring. The chain plate cracking occurred on only one side of the chain.

I don't know if this is your issue, just trying to help out with an idea of something to consider if your have replaced your chainring.

Cheers,
Rod

 

[randycpu]

Sram t type chain problems
Mith race fitted with sram t type 70 chain from factory.
Got about 500 miles and chain snapped.
It was still well within its wear limits and is cleaned and lubed every ride.
Fitted new one and within 100 miles same thing has happened.
I have never had a chain snap on me before?
Also noticed several more cracks.
Any mith owners having similar issues?

View attachment 180505

View attachment 180506

As many have said, I would try for a warranty replacement and replace that chain immediately. But I might move up the food chain to a GX level chain.

 

[Paul Mac]

Paul Mac,

I've snapped plenty of the old style AXS Eagle chains, but never a T-Type.

I've seen this before on a bike I worked on. The owner had installed a chainring on his bike with an incorrect offset. This altered the bike's chainline. In essence, the bike was doing an old school cross chaining at the low end of the cassette (Largest cog) and excessive binding and rubbing was occurring. The chain plate cracking occurred on only one side of the chain.

I don't know if this is your issue, just trying to help out with an idea of something to consider if your have replaced your chainring.

Cheers,
Rod

Thanks Rod, im still on the original one fitted to the unno, but it's their own brand not a sram one.
I've contacted unno asking that very question.
Thanks for taking the time

 

[RustyIron]

Got about 500 miles and chain snapped.

Fitted new one and within 100 miles same thing has happened.

The most obvious cause of chain failure, and I mean no disrespect, is slamming it gear-to-gear without letting up on the power. Sure, SRAM says you can do this--but you can't. I sometimes make bad shifts, but I know there are potential consequences.

But assuming you shift smooth like a gravy sandwich, have you checked chain length with the suspension fully compressed? A short chain will do exactly what you're experiencing.

 

[High Rock Ruti]

Sram t type chain problems
Mith race fitted with sram t type 70 chain from factory.
Got about 500 miles and chain snapped.
It was still well within its wear limits and is cleaned and lubed every ride.
Fitted new one and within 100 miles same thing has happened.
I have never had a chain snap on me before?
Also noticed several more cracks.
Any mith owners having similar issues?

View attachment 180505

View attachment 180506

High Rock Ruti

Great pictures. I've found chains and cassettes for old style drive trains last around 650 to 750 miles. I broke a T type yesterday tore a pin mid chain, always carry chain break and master links. I hade a new chain in the pack measured the old chain against the new chain cut installed and was on my way. The old chain sat outside and road salt had left a red rust color, was suspicious that a break was coming, suspicion confirmed.
Let's face it at nearly a horse power e bike wreck havoc on drives. Credit to that electric derailleur, so far, tough as nails of course at three times the price they should outcast three older style derailleurs.

Warm Regards Ruti

 

[GeorgesEBike]

I have over 20,000 miles on SRAM AXS Drivetrains and over 15,000 miles on SRAM Transmission Drivetrains and have never broken a chain. I ran my Bosch Gen4 Race Motors with 100% Race Mode and Avinox with Trail Mode 100%. I currently have 4,000 miles on my original chain, chainring and cassette and still going strong. These components are very legit!

 

[Paul Mac]

I have over 20,000 miles on SRAM AXS Drivetrains and over 15,000 miles on SRAM Transmission Drivetrains and have never broken a chain. I ran my Bosch Gen4 Race Motors with 100% Race Mode and Avinox with Trail Mode 100%. I currently have 4,000 miles on my original chain, chainring and cassette and still going strong. These components are very legit!

What t type version do you run?

 

[MZimelka]

Sram t type chain problems
Mith race fitted with sram t type 70 chain from factory.
Got about 500 miles and chain snapped.
It was still well within its wear limits and is cleaned and lubed every ride.
Fitted new one and within 100 miles same thing has happened.
I have never had a chain snap on me before?
Also noticed several more cracks.
Any mith owners having similar issues?

View attachment 180505

View attachment 180506

I've seen this with older NX Eagle chains and Apex Flattop chains from SRAM. Pure trash imho. I'm fairly new to Transmission, but I can say that my Levo 4R came with a Transmission 70 chain and it was terrible.

I've cycled a few hundred KM on the Transmission 70 chain with my Levo Gen 4R and it's been pretty terrible ever since the first ride. It became quite sloppy in its perpendicular direction after just one ride. ie, lie it flat (like in your images) off a counter and it would bend down a lot. It also sounded terrible in the 52T cog when light load was applied.

Total chain elongation over all 118 links so far was near zero compared to its length when new, and also compared to another new flattop chain. Just the lateral slop between links increased tremendously.

I took it off and replaced it with the older type Force road flattop chain (the ones with the solid pins and plates) The Force chain has been perfect. Fantastic shifting and no noise in any gear. On my Gravel bike I've done 8500km with rotating through 3 chains swapped every 1000km, and all three chains have zero elongation. Ok, I'm not going to expect that with the Levo 4 but still. The better chains make a huge difference in my experience.

The X70 chain reminds me of eagle NX and also Apex road chains. Terrible build quality. My wife's Apex chain was piss poor from new, also replaced with force, and it made a night and day difference to the shifting and drivetrain noise.

Moving forward, I will not use any chain for Transmission that isn't GX or better.
And if its any help, I emersion wax all my chains.

I would recommend you use GX or better, and rotate through a couple chains and keep an eye on elongation.

 

[Paul Mac]

I've seen this with older NX Eagle chains and Apex Flattop chains from SRAM. Pure trash imho. I'm fairly new to Transmission, but I can say that my Levo 4R came with a Transmission 70 chain and it was terrible.

I've cycled a few hundred KM on the Transmission 70 chain with my Levo Gen 4R and it's been pretty terrible ever since the first ride. It became quite sloppy in its perpendicular direction after just one ride. ie, lie it flat (like in your images) off a counter and it would bend down a lot. It also sounded terrible in the 52T cog when light load was applied.

Total chain elongation over all 118 links so far was near zero compared to its length when new, and also compared to another new flattop chain. Just the lateral slop between links increased tremendously.

I took it off and replaced it with the older type Force road flattop chain (the ones with the solid pins and plates) The Force chain has been perfect. Fantastic shifting and no noise in any gear. On my Gravel bike I've done 8500km with rotating through 3 chains swapped every 1000km, and all three chains have zero elongation. Ok, I'm not going to expect that with the Levo 4 but still. The better chains make a huge difference in my experience.

The X70 chain reminds me of eagle NX and also Apex road chains. Terrible build quality. My wife's Apex chain was piss poor from new, also replaced with force, and it made a night and day difference to the shifting and drivetrain noise.

Moving forward, I will not use any chain for Transmission that isn't GX or better.
And if its any help, I emersion wax all my chains.

I would recommend you use GX or better, and rotate through a couple chains and keep an eye on elongation.

Thanks for that, I've just bought a xo version and a new chain ring just incase.
I'll put that on when my 3rd 70 fails, got about 50 miles on it so far.

 

[OffitThatM8]

Make sure you're buying them from a reputable dealer who buys them from a reputable supplier, learned this the hard way on my analogue enduro bike which has sram GX

No issues touch wood on my eeb but only 300km on it so far, but I still degrease and use water dispersion spray after every ride if it's visually got a bit of crud on the jockey wheels n chain then relube before each ride

 

[GeorgesEBike]

What t type version do you run?

SRAM GX.

 

[Paul Mac]

4000 mikes Miles on a single chain!!!
I don't know anyone who gets over 2000, and that's with rotating 2 chains.
Do you hot dip in wax?

 

[randycpu]

I've seen this with older NX Eagle chains and Apex Flattop chains from SRAM. Pure trash imho. I'm fairly new to Transmission, but I can say that my Levo 4R came with a Transmission 70 chain and it was terrible.

I've cycled a few hundred KM on the Transmission 70 chain with my Levo Gen 4R and it's been pretty terrible ever since the first ride. It became quite sloppy in its perpendicular direction after just one ride. ie, lie it flat (like in your images) off a counter and it would bend down a lot. It also sounded terrible in the 52T cog when light load was applied.

Total chain elongation over all 118 links so far was near zero compared to its length when new, and also compared to another new flattop chain. Just the lateral slop between links increased tremendously.

I took it off and replaced it with the older type Force road flattop chain (the ones with the solid pins and plates) The Force chain has been perfect. Fantastic shifting and no noise in any gear. On my Gravel bike I've done 8500km with rotating through 3 chains swapped every 1000km, and all three chains have zero elongation. Ok, I'm not going to expect that with the Levo 4 but still. The better chains make a huge difference in my experience.

The X70 chain reminds me of eagle NX and also Apex road chains. Terrible build quality. My wife's Apex chain was piss poor from new, also replaced with force, and it made a night and day difference to the shifting and drivetrain noise.

Moving forward, I will not use any chain for Transmission that isn't GX or better.
And if its any help, I emersion wax all my chains.

I would recommend you use GX or better, and rotate through a couple chains and keep an eye on elongation.

Sooo, this thread has moved into which replacement chains to use. An X0 T-Type chain STARTS at US$100 on the secondary market (eBay). But a Force "Flattop" chain starts at $40, which is much more reasonable for a consumable part.
Questions:
- Are these comparable and compatible?
- Is it OK to go to the dark side (road) to scavenge for eMTB parts?
- Which is the sturdiest cheap(er) chain that works with MTB T-Type drivetrains?

PS: There is a bright purple version of the Force chain...

 

[Astro66]

I started using KMC chains during COVID, due to supply issues, and as the Merida E160 I bought new during that time, also had one installed. I have found them long lasting.

They have just released the KMC X Flat 12 Speed Flattop Chain for SRAM Transmission. About US$40 on Amazon and Aliexpress. I have had a gold version delivered from Amazon, to install on my new build Avinox Motored Enduro. So I haven't used it yet, as the bike hasn't turned up yet. But it does look a decent chain.

They do also have a silver version.

 

[Paul Mac]

Sooo, this thread has moved into which replacement chains to use. An X0 T-Type chain STARTS at US$100 on the secondary market (eBay). But a Force "Flattop" chain starts at $40, which is much more reasonable for a consumable part.
Questions:
- Are these comparable and compatible?
- Is it OK to go to the dark side (road) to scavenge for eMTB parts?
- Which is the sturdiest cheap(er) chain that works with MTB T-Type drivetrains?

PS: There is a bright purple version of the Force chain...

While researching this issue, I saw a youtube video that states that the road bike flat top chains are interchangeable with the mtb versions.
So might be a shout.

 

[Rob Rides EMTB]

I wonder how many different chains SRAM actually make?

eg
SRAM T-Type 70
SRAM T-Type GX
SRAM t-Type X0

Is there an actual material and strength difference to these chains, other than the logo/coating? Looking at the X0 - the only difference I can tell, is that is has the anti corrosion coating on it. Underneath that coating, is it the same chain? Would SRAM actually go to the lengths to manufacture 3 x different chains here?

SRAM quote the GX is the STRONGEST SRAM CHAIN EVER

SRAM also quote the XO as STRONGEST SRAM CHAIN EVER

From SRAM’s published data, the confirmed differences between T-Type 70, GX and X0 are mainly the finishes/coatings. SRAM does not publish tensile, fatigue, or breaking strength data that proves X0 is stronger than GX or 70.

Therefore, based on published SRAM data alone, we cannot claim a strength advantage for X0, but you also cannot prove the chains are /are not completely identical beneath the coating.

Personally i doubt SRAM are using three different base chain materials here. I think its more likely the arcitecture and materials are the same, and they differentiate them with surface tratment / finish and corrosion wear coating, and price them differently.

 

[Astro66]

I wonder how many different chains SRAM actually make?

eg
SRAM T-Type 70
SRAM T-Type GX
SRAM t-Type X0

Is there an actual material and strength difference to these chains, other than the logo/coating? Looking at the X0 - the only difference I can tell, is that is has the anti corrosion coating on it. Underneath that coating, is it the same chain? Would SRAM actually go to the lengths to manufacture 3 x different chains here?

SRAM quote the GX is the STRONGEST SRAM CHAIN EVER

SRAM also quote the XO as STRONGEST SRAM CHAIN EVER

From SRAM’s published data, the confirmed differences between T-Type 70, GX and X0 are mainly the finishes/coatings. SRAM does not publish tensile, fatigue, or breaking strength data that proves X0 is stronger than GX or 70.

Therefore, based on published SRAM data alone, we cannot claim a strength advantage for X0, but you also cannot prove the chains are /are not completely identical beneath the coating.

Personally i doubt SRAM are using three different base chain materials here. I think its more likely the arcitecture and materials are the same, and they differentiate them with surface tratment / finish and corrosion wear coating, and price them differently.

I did the maths on the weights. If you convert them all to 126 links.

SRAM T-Type 70 = 298 grams
SRAM T-Type GX = 285 grams
SRAM t-Type X0 = 283 grams

So I think the GX and X0 are identical, except for coatings. But the 70 must have something different. It does appear to be pinned differently.

End of the pins on the GX and X0 appear convex. End of the pins on the 70 appears concave.

 

[Paul Mac]

This is what I got from Gemini when asking the question:

It’s a common misconception that they are exactly the same underneath, but there is actually a fundamental difference in the metallurgy and heat treatment of the steel, not just the "paint" on top.
While they all start as steel alloys, SRAM uses different grades and processing for each tier to justify the price and performance gaps.
1. The Core Steel & Treatment
GX (and Eagle 70): These use a standard high-strength steel. The focus here is on cost-effective durability. It is tough, but it doesn't have the same surface hardness as the upper tiers.
XO and XX: These use a higher grade of steel alloy that undergoes a more intensive Hard Chrome heat-treatment process. This isn't just a coating; it’s a chemical transformation of the steel surface. This makes the metal itself much more resistant to "pin galling" (the actual cause of chain stretch).
2. SRAM Hierarchy of Coatings
The coatings are layered on top of those different steel bases:
Nickel (GX): Provides basic corrosion resistance. Once the nickel wears off the contact points, the softer steel underneath is exposed to friction.
PVD / Physical Vapor Deposition (XO): This is a high-tech "vapor" coating that is microscopically thin but incredibly hard. It is bonded to the steel at a molecular level. It’s significantly slicker and harder than Nickel, which is why XO chains often last 2x longer than GX chains in real-world testing.
Hard Chrome (XX): This is SRAM's most expensive finish. It’s designed specifically to reduce friction to the absolute minimum and provide the longest possible wear life.
3. Why it matters
If it were just the same steel with different colors, the "stretch" rate would be identical. However, independent testing (like from Zero Friction Cycling) consistently shows that the XO and XX chains stay within the 0.5% wear limit significantly longer than the GX.
Bottom Line: You aren't just paying for the "Dark Polar" look on the XO; you are paying for a harder base metal and a PVD finish that keeps that metal from grinding itself away. Even if you "shaved" the coatings off, the XO steel would still outperform the GX steel in a hardness test.

 

[Bear-uk]

I know from my findings on the standard type SRAM chains. The X01 chain outlasts the GX by quite a lot and doesn't damage the cassette anywhere like the cheaper chains do.
It's the only chain that I will fit.
With that in mind, my new bike came with a GX flattop and it got taken off instantly and a X0 chain fitted at a stupidly high price .
The funny thing about this thread is that a few people seem to be going for the cheapest pile of crap going from AliExpress etc and expect it to last