Di2 Meltdown

Triathlon Forum
1

I borrowed a bike off a friend just over a year ago, long story an old athlete of ours who completed IM then it sat in her garage for a year, so she let me borrow it for IMNZ in 2016.

Recently the right base bar mounted Di2 changer stopped working. Everything else was still 100% functional, so took the bike into the LBS for them to have a look.

It’s been there a week now, LBS is being overly helpful, running diagnostics, updating etc the week leading into IMNZ when they’re crazy busy already, can’t talk highly enough of them. However, when they updated the firmware it transpired that it’s prob not been updated in 2 years, and everything else stopped working. LBS can’t get a single thing to function now.

Called Shimano into the equation today and they’re saying as the bike is out of warranty and the firmware hasn’t been updated in so long, I have to purchase a whole new group.

The firmware hasn’t been updated as the bike ran perfect, regular as clockwork, I’ve never had to update a thing…this thing was the Toyota Corolla of bikes for the year I had it.

I understand the bike is out of warranty, I understand that the firmware hasn’t been updated, but it kinda sticks in the throat a bit that the bike was 90% functional when it was taken into the shop and now I’m being told I have to purchase a new group.

It feels a little bit like Shimano have a licence to print money with this one - or am I being unreasonable?

2

It is like with the Apple iphone:

If you don’t update the OS, new Aps won’t run and the phone will lose functionality if ther esi a software issue = dead.
If you update the OS, your perfectly good 2yo phone will run slow as molasses at best, or cede to work at worst = dead.

Either way, you need a new phone.

You are not unreasonable (by traditional standards), but this now is the pace of the new age.
You better get used to being taken for a ride… .or use a traditional mechanic system (traditional cell phone).

Enough ranting:
What you could try:
Roll back the software, if you can get your hands on it…

I borrowed a bike off a friend just over a year ago, long story an old athlete of ours who completed IM then it sat in her garage for a year, so she let me borrow it for IMNZ in 2016.

Recently the right base bar mounted Di2 changer stopped working. Everything else was still 100% functional, so took the bike into the LBS for them to have a look.

It’s been there a week now, LBS is being overly helpful, running diagnostics, updating etc the week leading into IMNZ when they’re crazy busy already, can’t talk highly enough of them. However, when they updated the firmware it transpired that it’s prob not been updated in 2 years, and everything else stopped working. LBS can’t get a single thing to function now.

Called Shimano into the equation today and they’re saying as the bike is out of warranty and the firmware hasn’t been updated in so long, I have to purchase a whole new group.

The firmware hasn’t been updated as the bike ran perfect, regular as clockwork, I’ve never had to update a thing…this thing was the Toyota Corolla of bikes for the year I had it.

I understand the bike is out of warranty, I understand that the firmware hasn’t been updated, but it kinda sticks in the throat a bit that the bike was 90% functional when it was taken into the shop and now I’m being told I have to purchase a new group.

It feels a little bit like Shimano have a licence to print money with this one - or am I being unreasonable?

3

It is probably a mix of groups that once worked together but with updates compatibility has been knocked on the head.
Any decent bike shop knows this and should not have updated the firmware.
I’d put it back onto the shop shoulders and maybe suggest that their mechanics run through some online Shimano training so they actually know what they are doing.
All they needed to do was separately test the malfunctioning button unit if no go replace it, as the rest of the system was proven good as your tt bar shifters were working.

4

This is probably pretty straightforward.

Older shimano firmware versions allowed you to mix / match components and it all just got on with it and worked, now with later firmware if the system detects a “version” of something that hasn’t been tested then it just shuts the whole system down - you get nothing.

For example if you have a 10 speed front derailleur and plugged an 11 speed rear in - it used to work, with the latest firmware you’ll get nothing. There’s a flowchart on the Shimano website showing what does / doesn’t work together now.

The easy way is to unplug one component at a time and see if it comes back to life (start with the derailleurs) - then you’ll need to replace that component with a compatible one from the flow chart.

When you plug the bike into the etube software it’ll tell you what every component in the system is - if you like post that up with the firmware versions and I’m sure we can work out the issue.

this is the page for the flowchart

http://e-tubeproject.shimano.com/guide/#guide_list