# Boyd wheels warranty experience



## vontress (Jul 19, 2009)

I got my new Boyd carbon clinchers last week and took them on their maiden voyage yesterday. When I put them on and spun them they turned forever, never really checked if they were true. Just assumed they were. My first ride was very heavy climbing and long descents. They seemed to brake well and felt fine. However, when I started climbing, I was struggling. I didn't think of anything other than it being me because that section averages 15% with a max of 23%. everybody struggles. But I got left, still nothing odd about that. When I pulled out at the top, I realized my brake was dragging badly. I loosened the brake and rode home. When I pulled the wheel off today, the section that was rubbing looks melted from the rubbing. I don't know if this happened because of my braking or because they were out of true and just got worse as the wheel turned around and rubbed hard every rotation. My question is, does this sound like a warranty issue? I would think so, they have a 3 year warranty and I had 40 miles on them before noticing a problem. Even if they are warrantied, can I trust them on hilly rides?


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## SBH1973 (Nov 21, 2002)

Is this not a question you might first ask Boyd rather than to an online forum? He's got a great reputation for customer service. Give him a call and see what he says.


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## coachboyd (Jan 13, 2008)

I definitely think we have a good warranty in place, and we know that no matter how well a product is made there can be warranty issues that pop up. We definitely believe in taking care of the customer as quickly as we can.

I am very sorry that you had a problem with the wheels and we will definitely get it fixed for you. The best way to go forward would be sending me an email with some pictures and we'll immediately get started on getting you all fixed up.


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## killarbb (Apr 10, 2011)

awesome response from boyds already......hope all works out all the way around


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## vontress (Jul 19, 2009)

Wow! That was fast. I really wasn't complaining though. It's just my first time with carbon wheels and I was curious if I just should stay off doing hills. I probably should have posed question different and left Boyd out of it. I bought these wheels because of Boyds reputation.


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## vontress (Jul 19, 2009)

I feel bad for Boyd about making this post. He has been nothing but great to work with and the only error that has been made so far is mine for posting this without the thought of the damage it might do. I'm looking forward to detailing my experience and hopefully making his reputation even stronger. Too Boyd, my sincere apology for not thinking this through.


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## gmleonard (Jun 11, 2011)

As an innocent bystander and seeing Boyd's immediate response I can honestly say I am ADDING Boyd to the list of people I would buy wheels from. Kudos to you Boyd for your quick customer response time.


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## coachboyd (Jan 13, 2008)

No problem at all for this being posted. At first it scared me, but then I decided we could use this information to update our website to educate the consumer a bit. While I think the carbon clincher overheating problem can be a bit overhyped it is still possible (with any brand). 
So we put some information up about when carbon clinchers may not be the best idea and when they are a great option. Of course if any warranty issue pops up we want to immediately take care of it. We don't take out full page ads in Bicycling magazine, we rely on word of mouth for our advertising so keeping people happy is the most important thing for us.


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## vontress (Jul 19, 2009)

Boyd got these handled for me immediatly. It was evidently my fault for taking them on too steep of hills. I won't do that again. He even overnighted to get it faster. Great guys.


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## nightfend (Mar 15, 2009)

Amazing response and customer service. Kudos to Boyd.


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## Sebastionmerckx (Mar 6, 2008)

I was already going to ask my wife for a pair of Boyd Wheels for Christmas to be begin with and this just reinforces that decision.


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## pierre-san (Aug 19, 2010)

Boyd is one of those rare people in retail these days...He actually bends over backwards to make your experience a pleasurable one! He made me some 50mm tubs and the service I received from Boyd and his wife Nicole was nothing short of amazing.


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## dcorn (Sep 1, 2011)

Doesn't sound like you did anything wrong to me. You weren't bashing Boyd at all, just asking a basic question about your new wheels. By the title, I thought you were going to tell us your experience with Boyd wheels, and instead you were just asking about experience of others. 

The fact that Boyd actually came in here to respond and everything worked out well, just shows his loyalty to customer service. As I've seen in the car world, the online forums can be a huge market for vendors and I'm kind of surprised to not see many of them on here. I'm used to manufacturers as well as vendors being all over the forums and getting direct feedback straight from the users of their products. It shows everyone how great (or bad) their service really is.


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## OldChipper (May 15, 2011)

Thanks for posting. I wasn't aware of Boyd wheels, but will definitely give them a serious look next time I'm in the market. Actually, I'm bummed that I just sprung for a pair of SRAM S30s, and I think I would have gotten more for my money with Boyd. :^(


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## twiggy (Mar 23, 2004)

My only concern here is still that that the diagnosis was that you took them on 'too steep hills'... I'm not really aware of any wheels that shouldn't be taken on hills, even carbon clinchers.... was it a problem of riding the brakes too much on those hills maybe??


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## Cableguy (Jun 6, 2010)

twiggy said:


> My only concern here is still that that the diagnosis was that you took them on 'too steep hills'... I'm not really aware of any wheels that shouldn't be taken on hills, even carbon clinchers.... was it a problem of riding the brakes too much on those hills maybe??


I think the problem is going *down* steep hills. With a full carbon brake surface, excessive braking at high speeds will very easily melt and warp the carbon rim. A buldge can form on the rim at the most intense contact point with the pad, and this buldge can then catch on the brake pads every revolution. Also, when the rim is buldged any braking at all is not a good idea because the rim surface will be extremely uneven due to the warpage/buldge. 

Excessive braking is not exactly hard to do when going down, say, an 8% avg grade hill coasting at 40+. Anything at that speed which forces you to slow down dramatically such as a sharp turn or an obstacle (i.e. car infront of you slowing down) can do the trick. And it's not like you can necessarily avoid doing high speeds coming down a steep hill, you'd have to be on the brakes constantly trying to keep your speed down which would be worse.


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## MTBDad (Jan 27, 2003)

*I am resesarching new wheels and...*

had thought that the potential issue with carbon clinchers vis-a-vis overheating was not the formation of 'bulges' on the braking surface, but that excessive heating could cause a stuctural failure on the braking surface which is also the area of the tire/rim interface that experiences the greatest forces (i.e. tire bead at high pressue pushing out against rim) and this failure could cause the tire to blow off the rim, in a rather dramatic fashion.


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## Cableguy (Jun 6, 2010)

MTBDad said:


> had thought that the potential issue with carbon clinchers vis-a-vis overheating was not the formation of 'bulges' on the braking surface, but that excessive heating could cause a stuctural failure on the braking surface which is also the area of the tire/rim interface that experiences the greatest forces (i.e. tire bead at high pressue pushing out against rim) and this failure could cause the tire to blow off the rim, in a rather dramatic fashion.


That might be the next step after the rim warps/buldges if you keep braking hard or hit a bad pothole at just the right point. But after the rim starts to buldge out, you'll very quickly notice as the braking on that wheel will straight up feel terrible (and rightly so, as the rim will be jutting out). Hopefully at that point you can and will stop braking with that wheel before anything disasterous happens.


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## twiggy (Mar 23, 2004)

Cableguy said:


> I think the problem is going *down* steep hills. With a full carbon brake surface, excessive braking at high speeds will very easily melt and warp the carbon rim. A buldge can form on the rim at the most intense contact point with the pad, and this buldge can then catch on the brake pads every revolution. Also, when the rim is buldged any braking at all is not a good idea because the rim surface will be extremely uneven due to the warpage/buldge.
> 
> Excessive braking is not exactly hard to do when going down, say, an 8% avg grade hill coasting at 40+. Anything at that speed which forces you to slow down dramatically such as a sharp turn or an obstacle (i.e. car infront of you slowing down) can do the trick. And it's not like you can necessarily avoid doing high speeds coming down a steep hill, you'd have to be on the brakes constantly trying to keep your speed down which would be worse.



Okay, but this is kindof a pretty serious shortcoming of the product if you can never decend an 8% grade on the wheels. I know that most carbon clinchers come with some sort of a disclaimer to the extent that care needs to be exercised when decending for long periods on steep grades to brake strategically not to overheat the rim... but usually the cases that are brought forward as examples are pretty extreme...long Alpine decents for example. A wheel would be useless for me if I couldn't use it for 8% grade decents, and I live on the (relatively flat) Canadian prairies. Most of my rides are essentially flat or slight rolling hills, but there is almost always a decent of 8% or greater for at least a few hundred meters or a kilometer...and I've never had any problems in my 2+ years of riding on my Reynolds Attack wheels.... not even when I head into the Rockies and tackle 3+km steep, twisty and fast decents in the mountains!

I was considering moving to something deeper than my Reynolds wheels and Boyd's are on my list, but if this is a legitimate limitation I'll look elsewhere. That said, I have a feeling that they'll clarify that the wheels are actually fine for these riding conditions if care is given to how braking is applied....


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## nightfend (Mar 15, 2009)

Boyd's use the same Taiwanese spec'd rims that companies like Williams and host of other wheelbuilders use. This is not a problem just with Boyd clinchers, but with ALL carbon clinchers. The newest Zipps, Edge and the 2012 Reynold's supposedly address this, but I'm not sure how well the new rims work. And the newer Reynolds tech only applies to their high-end wheels, not the Attacks/Assaults.


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## Cableguy (Jun 6, 2010)

twiggy said:


> Okay, but this is kindof a pretty serious shortcoming of the product if you can never decend an 8% grade on the wheels.


It's the situations where you're braking unusually long and hard at high speed back to back (technical high speed turns, bad descender, fear of going fast and braking constantly), or if you must lock up the brakes dramatically from a high speed for an extended period. These are just a lot more likely to happen on epic descents, which are not only crazy steep but also twisty. On the short stuff, it's unlikely you'll be going high speed long enough to be able to cause damage. On long but straight descents the rim isn't likely to get aggravated enough either because any decelerations will be spread out a lot.

You can descend Mt. Lemmon day after day on carbon brake surface wheels just fine... however if one day you get in a situation where you need to do an emergency slow down from a very high speed - for example from 50mph to 15mph in 10 seconds - the rim could have a problem, especially if heat has been building up from previous braking.


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