steve_sordy
Wedding Crasher
I broke my Shimano XT 8100 mech, Aug'21. It was caused by catching a pine sapling in the mech. Not Shimano's fault per se, but it broke through a small cross-section of the mech body that had a bolt embedded in that section. The break was through the centreline of the bolt.
I've just done it again! This time with an SLX 7100 (the replacement). This time, not obviously my fault. There was no debris in the mech, no obvious trail debris and I wasn't pedalling at the time. I was turning sharp right at the exit from a fast trail. I may have caught the mech arm on something, but by the time I had picked myself up (mech arm in the spokes) there was nothing to see. The break was in exactly the same place as the previous mech.
This suggests to me that there is a weak point in the mech design. There was no damage to the mech hanger. I will check it with my hanger alignment gauge just in case, but it looks OK.
Is it worth mentioning this to Shimano? The mech is a year old +/- a week or so. When I broke the first mech, the opinion of the LBS was that Shimano would just laugh at me if I tried to claim, after all it was a pine sapling that did the damage. But this time is different.
Anyone seen a mech break like this?
I had an off and bent one of the mech arm plates. The outer plate was bent outwards. The jockey wheel is end-on in the picture and parallel to the inner plate. You can see the outer plate flaring (and that is after @myapes had a go at straightening it. The shifting was still fine though, so we...
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I've just done it again! This time with an SLX 7100 (the replacement). This time, not obviously my fault. There was no debris in the mech, no obvious trail debris and I wasn't pedalling at the time. I was turning sharp right at the exit from a fast trail. I may have caught the mech arm on something, but by the time I had picked myself up (mech arm in the spokes) there was nothing to see. The break was in exactly the same place as the previous mech.
This suggests to me that there is a weak point in the mech design. There was no damage to the mech hanger. I will check it with my hanger alignment gauge just in case, but it looks OK.
Is it worth mentioning this to Shimano? The mech is a year old +/- a week or so. When I broke the first mech, the opinion of the LBS was that Shimano would just laugh at me if I tried to claim, after all it was a pine sapling that did the damage. But this time is different.