Shimano Hollowtech crank failures, one year on
— how the component giant's handling of this dangerous debacle is continuing to damage its reputation
This meant users would take their cranks to a bike shop where a mechanic would check them using Shimano's inspection procedure and either pass or fail the component in question. It was a point raised recently by a director at Lake District bike shop Mapdec Cycle Works. The rider snapped his crank during an interval session shortly after it was passed, when inspected immediately after the inspection programme commenced.
"Our policy was always we don't want to be the one that says this is a pass, we always thought that, even though Shimano gave a liability release, that liability release in our mind wasn't strong enough," he explained. "That claim would come into me, I would say: 'Hey, I've got a liability release from Shimano, this is part of a crank recall'. But even if that played out, it is still a load of time and effort and stress and I've got better things to do than fight out a case... we're busy enough as it is I'm really proud of our stance, I will always put my customers first."
Whether you agree with its implementation in the first place or not, one minor plus does seem to be the inspection programme having worked fairly seamlessly for bike shops — Darren Lea-Grime of That Tiny Bike Shop in Manchester reporting"returns were dealt with in a timely way" and "we were paid pretty quickly for the work".
"Can a consumer really feel confident that their affected crank is 'safe' if it passes a bike shop inspection?" During the fallout to Shimano's announcement last September, the UK government's Office for Product Safety and Standards published a product safety report that concluded the affected Shimano cranksets"do not meet the requirements of the General Product Safety Regulations 2005".
"Is the message reaching all affected riders? Shimano should hold the keys to that data and they should consider publishing that material if they are confident it has worked. I won't be holding my breath that they will however. Since the initial announcement, the brand has revealed the cost of the crank inspection programme, its financial report for 2023 stating itas a result and the"extraordinary losses" cost the company around 2,762 million Japanese yen .
Debonding often occurs on the driveside, where there is cracking on the arms of the spider, and then the crank arm fully detaches as the outer shell comes away. Another common fault location is cracking on the inside of the driveside crank arm. Non-driveside crankarm failures have also been reported, but there are far fewer documented to our knowledge.
Ultimately, whatever the reason for the failures, Shimano's handling of the situation has impressed few. From customers, to bike shops, mechanics, other industry figures and legal professionals, we've heard, more often than not , that people feel the lack of recall and instead opting for an inspection programme was an unsatisfactory response. In fact, we'd go as far as to say the response has been unsatisfactory to everyone other than the brand itself.
Editor's note: A special thanks to Leigh Day Solicitors, bike shop representatives and road.cc readers who contributed to this article. Almost all of us at road.cc continue to use Shimano products, and the brand rightly receives regular praise for the reliability and effectiveness of its current product line-up in our coverage. This makes it all the more disappointing that a company we otherwise respect and trust is continuing to let its customers down.
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