"Banned" bike shop claims Shimano won't let it inspect Hollowtech cranksets as part of "inspection and replacement" programme due to failing 100% of them

levestane wrote:

These cranks are obviously not fit for purpose and should all be replaced, Mapdec are taking the right approach and the funding pays for their labour and shipping.

No it dosnt ,you get shipping labels from Madison to send them back .You get paid to follow their protocol to check them ,they admitted to not doing that yet taking the payments .They could have refused to be part of it .

Jaijai wrote:

No it dosnt ,you get shipping labels from Madison to send them back .You get paid to follow their protocol to check them ,they admitted to not doing that yet taking the payments .They could have refused to be part of it .

They're being paid to do work on behalf of Shimano effectively. If they're not doing this in a way Shimano approves of, then fair enough - they don't do the work, they don't get paid. That's fine.

But they should still be able to send any unreliable cranks to Shimano!!! Shimano should not be then refusing to take the cranks!

The root issue here is that Shimano - having already spent a decade denying there was an issue - is trying to avoid fully recalling these unsafe cranks. The root cause is that Shimano is trying to duck their responsibility for their own poor engineering and manufacturing. The root cause is Shimano insisting that LBSes take on a task that LBSes are *not* qualified to do - along with the liability arising from that inspection that some legal systems may not allow the inspecting party to get out of, regardless of what Shimano stick on a bit of paper.

The issue here is Shimano. They've behaved unreasonably in denying the issue. They're now behaving unreasonably in essentially refusing to do their own work, and refusing to take responsibility.

I hope they get hammered in law suits on this.

The root problem here is Paul literally admitted not following protocol .Him being banned is his fault and to go on you tube and whine about it is typical of the era were In.His statement saying his way is " industry norm " is also nonsense .Him.and a few shops he knows dosnt make it " industry norm " I'm in the trade and I don't know ow a single shop that does it his way.This is all on him noone else .A social media following dosnt give him right to claim money for not doing a job he agreed to do .

Jaijai wrote:

The root problem here is Paul literally admitted not following protocol

No, that can not be the root problem. There would be no such protocol if not for Shimano:

1. Making faulty cranks.
2. Worst of all, fobbing everyone off for over a decade.

Whether the shop did the work or not is another question, but it's not the root cause. The shop says they did the work required, but then always sent to Shimano for inspection regardless. Shimano say they didn't do the work (I guess) and have removed them from the programme.

However, this shop can not even _send faulty cranks to Shimano_ anymore.

That aside, the whole protocol is ridiculous. And the shop's behaviour is entirely reasonable, given the stupidity, unreasonableness, and shiftiness of Shimano's protocol. That is the root cause.

Paul J wrote:

Jaijai wrote:

The root problem here is Paul literally admitted not following protocol

No, that can not be the root problem. There would be no such protocol if not for Shimano: 1. Making faulty cranks. 2. Worst of all, fobbing everyone off for over a decade. Whether the shop did the work or not is another question, but it's not the root cause. The shop says they did the work required, but then always sent to Shimano for inspection regardless. Shimano say they didn't do the work (I guess) and have removed them from the programme. However, this shop can not even _send faulty cranks to Shimano_ anymore. That aside, the whole protocol is ridiculous. And the shop's behaviour is entirely reasonable, given the stupidity, unreasonableness, and shiftiness of Shimano's protocol. That is the root cause.

Seems to me like Shimano's protocol is just a way of trying to dodge replacing all of the faulty cranks. It's obviously a problem with their manufacturing method of glueing the cranks together and they must have made changes to their manufacturing as they don't include newer cranks in their program. So, they're just trying to dodge round their own mistakes, when they should just replace all of the dodgy batches and not keep dicking around and causing their customers to have crashes.

He made a video crying about being banned by Shimano after saying himself he didn't follow the protocol he agreed to by doing the work .
Shops were asked to make the inspection and mark them 2 ways, pass or fail ..
He admitted to not doing that and sending back 100% of cranks .He also suggested his way was " industry norm "
His claim he got all the cranks ge sent replaced is beyond stupid .
Shimano paid him to decide ,if he sent them back they were supposed to be failed .He expected Madison to do an inspection that he has already been paid for .
You don't get to sign up to it then make up your own rules. You just say no thanks and move on send customers to another shop .Shimanos failing cranks arnt the issue here ,this is their own doing .The way he's not saying no we do inspect them is just digging a bigger hole .

Jaijai wrote:

He made a video crying about being banned

Pretty sure there's no crying in that video. They both generally look quite smiley and cheerful to me.

Laughing on the outside...

Paul J wrote:

 I hope they get hammered in law suits on this.

Problem is Shimano will have deeper pockets than most LBS' so they will win.

Jaijai wrote:

levestane wrote:

These cranks are obviously not fit for purpose and should all be replaced, Mapdec are taking the right approach and the funding pays for their labour and shipping.

No it dosnt ,you get shipping labels from Madison to send them back .You get paid to follow their protocol to check them ,they admitted to not doing that yet taking the payments .They could have refused to be part of it .

Mapdec appears to have followed Shimano's protocols because otherwise they couldn't submit the photographs of the cleaned parts as required. My interpretation is that Mapdec is just not comfortable saying that this constitutes an inspection that could serve as a basis for certifying a part as defect-free, and I don't blame them. I would expect ultrasonic testing or at least dye penetrant for surface crack detection, and pass/fail criteria to be defined by Shimano's engineering team. The inspectors should also be certified in order to assure Shimano that they are qialified to perform the inspections to their requirements.
I'm not sure that they could simply refuse to do the work. If they are a Shimano retailer, they really need to accept returns of potentially faulty Shimano goods. I'm not familiar with British consumer protection law but in Australia, the retailer has an obligation to accept return of goods that are not fit for purpose.

He literally said it on video and has now changed his mind .He also said it was " industry norm " to send all back .That's a lie ,him and a couple of shops he knows isn't industry norm

cicchis0 wrote:

I'm not sure that they could simply refuse to do the work. If they are a Shimano retailer, they really need to accept returns of potentially faulty Shimano goods. I'm not familiar with British consumer protection law but in Australia, the retailer has an obligation to accept return of goods that are not fit for purpose.

Of course they can.  They are literally being paid to do the work.  They quit the scheme and stop doing the work.

The only things they then become liable for are cranks they have directly sold.  Even then - they pass that back to the suppliers - either the Bike Co's or Madison as Shimano's UK agents.

The problem comes when they want to have their cake (the payment) and eat it too (always send cranks back).

I don't disagree with you on what may /should be an inspection .
They agreed to be part of it then made up their own rules claiming its " industry norm " to then say when called out oh no we do inspect them .
It's a bad look for a shop like them who are so meticulous .At the least if they had issue with it they should have taken advice from shimano if what they were asking didn't seem right .They didn't, and it seems to me the You Tube stuff as usual he got a bit carried away by saying we just send them back .
We all agree shimano have handled this poorly in the EU ,but I can see exactly why they would do it .Going on You Tube to complain would get more publicity and it's worked a charm

The late recall was appalling. Not repeating the inspections seems weird - let's hope/assume Shimano knows why repetitions are not needed. 

Glueing the parts is a great idea for saving weight and seems to work well for parts from earlier and later batches. Nevertheless, Shimano would probably be wise to explain the cause for the failures.

Looking at the photographs of broken cranks, it seems that a thorough visual inspection of the bonds could have avoided (almost) all of the worst failures (depending on the glue they used).

Hollow parts from lower groupsets (105, Ultegra left crank) are not affected (as they are not glued).

Yeah, machined hollows are sort of fineish - if design-engineered with care (inc. validation testing) - fine. The machining can at least be repeatably done to the same quality quite reliably. There's a lot of cranks with machined out hollowing.

Hollow cause they glued completely different shell parts together - no! Even if the engineering is to a high standard, epoxying things in production has a lot more scope for hidden quality issues. It's a much harder process to reliably repeat to a precise, high standard of quality. Maybe fine for cosmetic stuff, but I don't want that slightly higher variance in a high-stress part, with potential catastrophic safety issues.

No thanks.

There is an inspection sheet, however they are limited in information and you can't see inside the cranks (where most failures actually start from). Without special equipment, or destroying the cranks in the process there is no guarantee that a passed crankset is actually safe, or how far away from failure.

Cranks have passed the inspection and subsequently failed shortly after, if that's not proof the inspections aren't fit for purpose then I don't know what is.

They do ,his claim that it's industry standard is a lie .It's him and all the You tube hero's he knows tgat made up their own set of rules.

Your point is valid but at least partially mooted by the fact that these cranks should have been fully recalled by the manufacturer. Even cranks that have passed inspections have gone on to fail shortly afterwards. I have seen the entire video, and Paul's cohost and fellow Mapdec mechanic had a set of affected cranks which were one of the first they inspected under the programming. They initially passed them only for the cranks to fail a week later, luckily he came away unscathed. Since then Mapdec's policy was to send the cranks off for further inspection, citing customer was dissatisfied by the product not outright failing. Shimano replaced any and all cranks they received without inspection. That's on Shimano.

Yes it was stupid to have said "we no longer inspect" and this was also covered - as it was not actually outright true. It would have been more accurate to claim "we no longer pass" as "any that do not fail outright we will discuss with the customer who is inclined to disagree with a potential pass findings." It might still have led to a ban, however it would have avoided accidentally misleading anyone.

But the fact there is a LIST means that other LBSs have the same inspection policy, and have been prevented from returning affected cranks. We know nothing of this list  - how many shops are on there, and whether any of them have public profiles in a similar manner. I suspect a number of these shops do not have a YT channel nor have been public about their inspection policy. That should be more concerning.

Add another spanner in the works: not mentioned here, Paul contacted a lawyer over Shimano's liability waiver following the incident as given above - and couldn't give a straight answer that it would hold up in court. Essentially, Shimano gave out a document to dealers stating that they, the manufacturer, hold full liability and that the dealers are exempt from any lawsuit or litigation regarding any set of cranks that fail following an inspection - however in UK courts as dealers are classed as professional individuals, they could still be found liable in court on the basis of neglect, declaring such document void. In other words, a shop could still be sued alongside Shimano if a set of cranks previously declared safe failed on somebody resulting in an injury or worse.

Shimano have, and still do, make some incredible and innovative products, but the handling of Crankgate falls far below what should be expected from a customer service standpoint. With the emergence of Chinese brands such as L-Twoo, Sensah and Wheeltop, Shimano have to do better to stay ahead of the emerging trend.

Are shops actually being prevented from returning cranks? What's preventing them returning the cranks independently of the "program", if they feel there are signs that something is wrong with them?

There is nothing preventing them from sending in a set of clearly failed cranks, per se, but Shimano, or in this case the UK distributor Madison, may not approve a replacement if it is not obvious there is a failure. Secondly there is a payment of £35 to cover the labour costs of the shop - who have taken their professional time to remove, clean and inspect the old cranks, filling in the form, sending them off, before fitting the new ones. The problem is that the going rate for labour charges is about £35/hour, and the sum of the active work involved in the process takes at least that long, so just covers that cost as if they were charging a customer to replace a crank. All the shops on the Banned list are no longer entitled to this payment meaning they do at least 1 hours work for nothing when they could be doing paid work for other customers. Considering many small independent bike shops are struggling, if they find themselves on the banned list they won't bother with accepting inspections.

You believe his friend sitting beside him ? I can tell you his " industry standard to send them all back " is a lie .

The fact that multiple shops have been blacklisted from the recall process suggests otherwise. It suggests multiple shops have adopted an automatic return policy for concern that the actions of Shimano not to issue a full recall leaves their legal position as professionals in an ambiguous state. At the end of the day the people being forced to make these decisions are the front line LBS mechanics - not structural engineers who have designed and built things using the construction method for these cranks. They do not have the knowledge or specialist equipment that could guarantee the safety of the affected cranks, and the mechanics who acknowledge this limitation have done the same as Vousen.

Yes, technically he broke Shimano's rules and thus gave them a reason to blacklist them. But the question posed by consumers and bike shops in general, as well as Mapdec is, are the rules fit for purpose?

The internet is awash with false conspiracy theories being masqueraded as critical thinking, and it has seriously impacted society's ability to do so efficiently on any subject.

In your own line of work, if your knowledge and expertise tells you something is wrong with the rules you have been instructed to follow, would you not question it? Would you not look to mitigate or change things? Especially if somebody else's health, wellbeing or worse life was at risk?

I'm in the bike trade Matt ,and yes I would question it .I wouldn't just make up my own rules and call it " industry norm " like he's done here .
That's why he got removed ,he didn't question anything ,he gave Shimano no option after admitting what he does. He wanted Madison to do an inspection he was already paid to do