[Brian Heiland]

@Marcella 12992 wrote:

I’m wondering how many people with carbon frames have had problems with cracks. And if so, what caused them?

I bought a Madone 4.7 WSD back in October 2010. Just over a year later, I discovered a crack in the top tube while I was cleaning the bike. I have no idea what caused it — I’ve never crashed, I haven’t dropped the bike or knocked it over or dropped anything on it. There has been no significant impact to the frame.

The LBS manager sent it to Trek, where they looked at it, scratched off a bit of paint at the end of the crack, and said they thought it was most likely caused by an impact (and therefore not covered by their warranty). In order to give me a definitive answer, they said they would have to cut off the top tube to look inside. After doing the math to determine the cost of buying a new frame under their replacement discount program (20% off) vs having the crack repaired, I asked the LBS manager to tell Trek to just return the bike to the shop so we could send it off to Calfee for repair.

I’m still waiting to get it back — apparently Calfee has finished their work and it’s in transit now.

I know carbon fiber can be very strong. But now I’m starting to wonder about the strength of mass-produced bike frames. Has anyone else had damage that was not caused by an obvious strong impact to the frame? Is this a fairly common problem or did I just get a lemon?

BTW the cost estimates were ~$1200 for a new frame, including replacing a few components that attach differently to a 2012 frame vs the 2010 model, vs < $400 for Calfee to repair the top tube and paint it gray to match the rest of the bike. For an extra $75 they would have repainted the Trek logo on it along with a white stripe that was part of the original design (but was actually painted off-center), but I saw no reason to pay extra for that.

Had a 2006 Madone 5.5
Started hearing and feeling creaking sounds while pedaling under load .
Problem worsened over time.
Adhesive joinery was starting to fail in bottom bracket area. The bottom bracket threads were cracking free of the carbon frame.
Frame was replaced by trek with a 2012 trek Madone 6 series frame.

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