Dispute over Magura fork damage

[Grolsch]

Last year April I bought myself a Merida 96er 3000d which comes with a Magura Durin fork. In December 2011 I had the fork serviced for the first time at Yellowsaddle.

 

I rode the bike for while and it seemed fine. I had one noteable crash in December when I clipped a curb and rolled over, and of course the first thing you do after a crash is check that bike is ok. There was no visible damage and I carried on riding.

 

It was towards the end of Jan beginning of Feb that I noticed the fork was not behaving as it should. It was bottoming out with my full weight on the front on the steep downhills of Kingskloof's black route. This is scary. So I took it back to Yellowsaddle to have it repaired. They treated it as a new issue and charged me for the repair.

 

Soon after the repair I noticed black oil around the left stanchion (pic attached). I immediately emailed pics of this to Yellowsaddle. The bike went back in and this time Yellowsaddle indicated that a seal was not working correctly and will need to be replaced. They didn't have stock at the time so a temporary fix was made until the seal arrived end April. They replaced it free of charge.

 

Beginning of August the fork started bottoming out again. I checked the air pressure in the spring and it was to spec. So I took it back in to Yellowsaddle. We ended up taking the fork apart to see what the

problem might be. It appeared that oil was seeping from the top reservoir into the bottom reservoir of the dampener, hence the bottoming out and reduced travel. There was a small dent on the push rod of the dampener which may have been the cause of the leak (pics attached). Yellowsaddle claimed it was no fault of there's so I went with the assumption that it may have been due to the crash in December and decided I was going to claim from insurance and get a new fork so I could get this whole saga behind me and enjoy my riding. We took pictures of the damaged inner and Yellowsaddle wrote me a damage report.

 

I submitted my claim with insurance and ultimately the fork ended up with the Magura dealers to assess the damage. I also posted the pics on the international Magura forum and asked them to comment. http://www.support-english.magura.com/index.php?showtopic=5142. Basically they said either it came like that or dirt got in to cause the damage. I had 8 months of hassle free riding before the first service so it's not clear whether it came like that. I did a lot more riding last year compared to this year, I only ride for a few hours a weekend and this year it's been more sporadic which may explain the time spans between the problem presenting itself.

 

I got a phone call from insurance to say that they would not pay out as, according to the Magura dealers, the damage was not caused by an accident. I received a letter from the Magura dealers to say that the wrong type of oil had been used in the service and this is what had caused the damaged to the inside of the fork.

 

I asked Yellowsaddle to respond to the letter and the response was "Absolute rubbish. End of story"

 

The quote to repair the damage to my fork is now sitting at R2500 which is a bit beyond my means at the moment (also considering I've already spent somewhere between R1500 and R2000 on servicing and repairing the fork).

 

I'm not sure where to go from here as Yellowsaddle will not take responsibility and according to the Magura dealer it is not accident damage.

Magura Report.pdf

[ThePubSA]

Hmm tuff 1 man.Not shure exactly what your fork worth.I see they range between 400-600pondt.So soon you will have spent 4k on a fork that @ most worth 6k.Might be best to cut your losses,buy a new fork, lots of good 1's in the 4k + mark.Keep this 1 as spare & use it to tinker on & learn how to service yourself.Unless you actually saw sum1 damage the part its gonna be like drawing blood from a stone.....

Ive always had this same thought that, like my RStora only like a 2400k fork in the 1st place to pay sum1 800 bucks to service it is crazy,id sooner just buy a fresh tora for under 3k,keep the other as parts & learn to service myself.Cant c the justification unless its a 6k+ fork to start with.

Rear shocks apparently harder to service, so maybe they more worth the high service charge.

GL man

[HeartCoppi]

It looks like a clear impact mark; I am swayed to say that it is accident damage.

The hole in the story begins when the LBS didn't recognize this defect in the intermittent repairs. I consider that a serious oversight and therefore partial liability. This damage should have been an issue at service #1 end of Jan.

[(Deon)]

Hi grolsh,

 

First off sorry for the outcome, tough pill to swallow I bet.

 

I am wondering what your next course of action is, between the Magura report and what you posted online there is a link in what is being said... The service was carried out by a non authorized dealer, you state this online before the Fork was sent to the agents. My question is, if you had this knowledge, why would you continue with the service if it would result in the voiding of the 1 yr warranty? To turn around after the service and ask the international agent if it was dodgy workmanship by an unauthorized shop is shooting yourself in the foot. Then again, for yellow saddle to carry out the service is also crazy, knowing the fork was still under warranty.. They did know, right?? Did you explain this before work was started?

[Grolsch]

Hi grolsh,

 

First off sorry for the outcome, tough pill to swallow I bet.

 

I am wondering what your next course of action is, between the Magura report and what you posted online there is a link in what is being said... The service was carried out by a non authorized dealer, you state this online before the Fork was sent to the agents. My question is, if you had this knowledge, why would you continue with the service if it would result in the voiding of the 1 yr warranty? To turn around after the service and ask the international agent if it was dodgy workmanship by an unauthorized shop is shooting yourself in the foot. Then again, for yellow saddle to carry out the service is also crazy, knowing the fork was still under warranty.. They did know, right?? Did you explain this before work was started?

 

I was unaware of the warranty situation, I was unaware that the fork needed to be serviced at an authorised dealer, neither was I made aware of this or that the LBS was unauthorised. Lesson learnt!

[dev null]

Schoolfees. We all pay them at one time or another.

 

Also, when the Magura agents claim that the damage was caused by the wrong oil I would have a big re-think about their expertise. No way that those damage marks was caused by the wrong oil being used.

[Tumbleweed]

To turn around after the service and ask the international agent if it was dodgy workmanship by an unauthorized shop is shooting yourself in the foot. Then again, for yellow saddle to carry out the service is also crazy, knowing the fork was still under warranty..

 

Mmmmmm…I foresee a post about warranties, blah, blah…gooi them with the CPA, blah, blah…

Edited September 3, 2012 by Tumbleweed

[Niner]

How xan this impact damage be from the fall as clearly the damaged part is INSIDE a protected casing? Being the lowers.

 

The report does not say that the oil caused the impact damage.

 

To get to this part you clearly have to open the fork.

 

I can not believe that people here say just move on and accept this????

 

I bet you a techie dropped this part while servicing the fork.

 

Maybe Johan can explain here how a fall can cause THAT type of damage inside the fork ?

 

Johan??

Edited September 3, 2012 by Niner

[patches]

How xan this impact damage be from the fall as clearly the damaged part is INSIDE a protected casing? Being the lowers.

 

The report does not say that the oil caused the impact damage.

 

To get to this part you clearly have to open the fork.

 

I can not believe that people here say just move on and accept this????

 

I bet you a techie dropped this part while servicing the fork.

 

Maybe Johan can explain here how a fall can cause THAT type of damage inside the fork ?

 

Johan??

 

I'm not too sure on the workings of magura forks, but I've seen the internals of a Rock Shox Boxxer snap from bottoming out the fork too hard. So internal damage can be a result of use and not just servicing error

[Niner]

I'm not too sure on the workings of magura forks, but I've seen the internals of a Rock Shox Boxxer snap from bottoming out the fork too hard. So internal damage can be a result of use and not just servicing error

But this is not that type of damage, this is clearly impact damage......

 

Johan, any response ?

[(Deon)]

But this is not that type of damage, this is clearly impact damage......

 

Johan, any response ?

 

There are also scrapes around the damage.. Tough call as it has been shipped disassembled .

Edited September 3, 2012 by Pain or Shine

[(Deon)]

Mmmmmm…I foresee a post about warranties, blah, blah…gooi them with the CPA, blah, blah…

 

Oi! The rest of the sentence was really important...

 

Lets see, 1 year limited warranties, what does NOT come with one?

[Let's Ride]

Johan, any response ?

 

Waiting as well.

Another one bites the dust.

[Niner]

 

 

There are also scrapes around the damage.. Tough call as it has been shipped disassembled .

 

No tough call, the scrapes is one thing but the impact damage is NOT from the fall.

[dev null]

Yup, I also initialy thought that looked like a tool that slipped and made that impact mark.

[Hog_]

Could those be tool marks?

 

Either way, unless you used oil with rocks in it, that's not caused by using the wrong oil, and unless you had to replace the fork legs and/or stanchions after the crash, I highly doubt that was the cause.

 

The damage had to happen while the fork was disassembled.