Customer service reviews both positive and negative help me make purchasing decisions, so I thought I would post this review for the benefit of others.
I was looking at my wheels (2013 Zipp 404 CC’s) and noticed that there is ~half an inch of “delamination” at the top of the brake track on the rear wheel. After removing the tire, you can see that the delamination is actually “splintering” or “separating” on the inside of the brake track (around the bead hook). The splintering was digging into my tire when I removed it. These wheels are clearly not safe to ride. Given that these wheels have only been used for ~500 miles, never crashed, never ridden flat, never used a tire lever on them (easy to change tires with my thumbs on these wheels), always used Zipp issued brake pads, this seems like a pretty simple warranty issue that they should take care of.
I brought the wheels to my local Zipp dealer who was very professional and turned them around to Zipp quickly. According to the dealer, Zipp reviewed the wheel and said that this wasn’t a warranty issue and didn’t impact the integrity of the wheel. They offered to rebuild the wheel with a new rim at my expense ($340). I had the dealer ask them again, but the response didn’t change.
Regardless of whether they will warranty the wheel, their response is pretty scary from a liability standpoint. These wheels are splintering inside the brake track and could lead to a really dangerous blowout. I am not going to risk riding these wheels in their current state regardless of wether Zipp says they are safe (they aren’t), so I am forced to pay for the rebuild. The cost of the rebuild is not the issue, but the fact that they will not stand behind their product, and would actually let me ride these wheels in their current state is concerning.
I tried calling Zipp directly and it is nearly impossible to get anybody there. The answer is always “go through a dealer”. Just adds to the frustration.
Write a professional letter to Zipp stating what happened and what you want. There’s a decent chance your LBS just didn’t go to bat for you.
I got the Heisman from Zipp via an LBS/dealer on a cracked base bar. It was the wrong decision and I had no intention of going away quietly. So I ordered the crash replacement and paid the $60 overnight charge (IMMOO in 5 days). After the race I wrote a fact-based letter and detailed the cost of the bar and overnight charges and did my best to appeal to their sense of good customer service. About a week later I got an AMEX credit for the full amount (including the overnight charge).
Sorry to hear about your wheel and Zipp’s response. I appreciate all the customer feed back on this forum both positive and negative because it allows all of us to help make better informed decisions when purchasing products. My customer service meter still pegs to the maximum positive side with Quarq and to the negative side with Shimano.
Since being taken over by SRAM, Zipp’s customer service has done a nosedive. They refuse to talk to customers about repairs underway, insisting that you communicate with them through a dealer. I’ve had 2 404 firecrest tubular rims fail and neither was crashed. They offered me the same rebuild deal on the rear that they offered you, and I gritted my teeth and paid for it because I really needed the wheel. They only took 7 weeks to rebuild and return that one. When the front rim failed they rebuilt it free of charge “as a gesture of good faith,” as if honoring the warranty on their $2400 wheelset was some kind of gallant act on their part.
If I sound annoyed it’s because I am. I have a lot of Zipp stuff and I like the way it works most of the time, but god help you if you need warranty support.
Write a professional letter to Zipp stating what happened and what you want. There’s a decent chance your LBS just didn’t go to bat for you.
I got the Heisman from Zipp via an LBS/dealer on a cracked base bar. It was the wrong decision and I had no intention of going away quietly. So I ordered the crash replacement and paid the $60 overnight charge (IMMOO in 5 days). After the race I wrote a fact-based letter and detailed the cost of the bar and overnight charges and did my best to appeal to their sense of good customer service. About a week later I got an AMEX credit for the full amount (including the overnight charge).
It is too bad that you had to do that (write a detailed letter) to them just to get them to give you reasonable customer service on a cracked item. It sounds like they should have done that without a letter.
No question about that. They should have responded more positively to the LBS. Fact is, the LBS did a shitty job of representing my issue. “Yeah, base bar cracked, probably over-torqued the bolts…uh, okay, I’ll let him know” “Sorry dude, Zipp won’t replace cracked carbon if the customer over-torqued the bolts”. And there’s no way he could have known I over-torqued the bolts. And the reality is I didn’t.
I guess my experience with Zipp FWIW was neutral, although in the end they made things right, just a lengthy process.
Last June, going downhill 40+ mph, right hub on my front Zipp 101 structurally fails (metal literally splits in half). 4 spokes immediately fly out and flail downtube and fork of carbon tri bike. Somehow, miraculously, I don’t crash. LBS is awesome, tell me they will deal with warranty. Call me next day and say Zipp gives you two options. They will replace wheels immediately, or evaluate damage to bike (LBS assessment is fork too damaged to be safe) if I send it in to them. Will not give any timetable on when it will come back. Only event I was training for was Vegas in Sep to I figure I can do without the tri bike for a month and maybe get everything fixed free. End of July, I have heard nothing. LBS calls them and they don’t return calls, but bike just shows up at LBS 4 days later. New Zipp wheels but my Easton EC90 aero fork has been replaced with a Ritchey road fork. WTF? Hate to bitch about a new fork, but that’s not what I had or want. Several calls to Zipp by myself and LBS. Leave messages, they never return calls. In the meantime, I am riding the bike with Ritchey fork so at least I can train. End of Aug, Zipp sends bike shop approval to give me new aero fork. LBS orders me nice 3T fork, but gets in too late to install before Vegas (my bike split was the least of my worries during that death march). Bottom line, I finally end up happy–new wheels, new aero fork, but weird how long it took and why they sucked so bad at communicating. I still really like their products. I did tell my story to the guys at the Zipp tent in Vegas and they apologized and said they had some personnel turnover in the warranty department.
Write a professional letter to Zipp stating what happened and what you want. There’s a decent chance your LBS just didn’t go to bat for you.
I got the Heisman from Zipp via an LBS/dealer on a cracked base bar. It was the wrong decision and I had no intention of going away quietly. So I ordered the crash replacement and paid the $60 overnight charge (IMMOO in 5 days). After the race I wrote a fact-based letter and detailed the cost of the bar and overnight charges and did my best to appeal to their sense of good customer service. About a week later I got an AMEX credit for the full amount (including the overnight charge).
It is too bad that you had to do that (write a detailed letter) to them just to get them to give you reasonable customer service on a cracked item. It sounds like they should have done that without a letter.
Three pairs (maybe four) of Chinese full carbon wheels = one pair of Zipps from a pricing POV. Problem with one of the Chinese wheels (which seems to be rarely reported)? Discard and bring in the replacement. x3. Or x4. I can see the argument of buying Zipps v Chinese wheels for better customer service (after sale customer service from Chinese wheel vendors is likely to be near zero). But if you’re buying Zipps and can’t get satisfaction - or the benefit of reasonable attention (go through my dealer, pond scum) - then perhaps other options are attractive alternatives.
I have a pair of Farsports full carbon clinchers. Perfect in every way, multiple races. Best aerodynamically? Probably not, so if that’s what you’re after, well, the number of choices drops to one. But overall? Totally satisfied.
Having a problem with my R2C shifters and warranty issues now. My bike shop called and they were supposed to call back. which they never did. i told my bike shop guy i would call. So I did and Got put on hold for a half hour and when I hung up and called back they were closed. Left a not so happy message to which I never got a reply and called back. Finally got to talk to a person and they were supposed to call my bike shop. I called him right after and now he is on vacation. I can’t freakin win. I just want to ride my blue :0(
Three pairs (maybe four) of Chinese full carbon wheels = one pair of Zipps from a pricing POV. Problem with one of the Chinese wheels (which seems to be rarely reported)? Discard and bring in the replacement. x3. Or x4. I can see the argument of buying Zipps v Chinese wheels for better customer service (after sale customer service from Chinese wheel vendors is likely to be near zero). But if you’re buying Zipps and can’t get satisfaction - or the benefit of reasonable attention (go through my dealer, pond scum) - then perhaps other options are attractive alternatives.
I have a pair of Farsports full carbon clinchers. Perfect in every way, multiple races. Best aerodynamically? Probably not, so if that’s what you’re after, well, the number of choices drops to one. But overall? Totally satisfied.
Or… buy a pair of November Rails. Get nearly 404FC performance for half the price, plus the ability to email or FB the owners directly with any issues or questions. Ditto for Boyd, as I understand it, though I haven’t worked with them.
I did get in touch with Zipp directly and they would not move off of their stance that the delamination and splintering are NOT covered by the warranty. They claim that this was caused by impact. I can say with certainty that there was never any impact on these wheels, so it comes down to an issue of my word vs theirs. Of course as the customer, I lose and end up paying $340 for the new rim. When I brought up their statement that the “wheel was safe to ride” they denied it entirely, going so far as to tell me that the wheel was compromised, so I don’t know if my dealer just made that up or what (I have it in writing from the dealer).
All-in-all, this experience has really turned me off to buying anything from Zipp in the future. When you spend that kind of $, you expect that the company will stand behind it and they did not. Zipp is charging their customers a premium price and they earn that pricing (at least from me) through (i) R&D, (ii) quality, and (iii) warranty. They absolutely failed me on two of these factors. Buyer beware.
To add insult to injury, the dealer lost the cassette that was on the wheel when I left it with them…
We never saw pictures and really it would be hard to judge but just as an outside observer based on your description, it wouldnt surprise me that it was an impact. I’ve never heard of Zipps delaminating near the brake track, but your explanation of the damage is common to impacts on rear wheels when tire pressure is too low. I’ve done it myself to an aluminum rim, and honestly I didn’t know it happened at the time of impact but about two weeks later I noticed the damage for the first time when I was pumping up my wheel and that was the only reasonable explanation.
I guess my experience with Zipp FWIW was neutral, although in the end they made things right, just a lengthy process.
Last June, going downhill 40+ mph, right hub on my front Zipp 101 structurally fails (metal literally splits in half). 4 spokes immediately fly out and flail downtube and fork of carbon tri bike. Somehow, miraculously, I don’t crash. LBS is awesome, tell me they will deal with warranty. Call me next day and say Zipp gives you two options. They will replace wheels immediately, or evaluate damage to bike (LBS assessment is fork too damaged to be safe) if I send it in to them. Will not give any timetable on when it will come back. Only event I was training for was Vegas in Sep to I figure I can do without the tri bike for a month and maybe get everything fixed free. End of July, I have heard nothing. LBS calls them and they don’t return calls, but bike just shows up at LBS 4 days later. New Zipp wheels but my Easton EC90 aero fork has been replaced with a Ritchey road fork. WTF? Hate to bitch about a new fork, but that’s not what I had or want. Several calls to Zipp by myself and LBS. Leave messages, they never return calls. In the meantime, I am riding the bike with Ritchey fork so at least I can train. End of Aug, Zipp sends bike shop approval to give me new aero fork. LBS orders me nice 3T fork, but gets in too late to install before Vegas (my bike split was the least of my worries during that death march). Bottom line, I finally end up happy–new wheels, new aero fork, but weird how long it took and why they sucked so bad at communicating. I still really like their products. I did tell my story to the guys at the Zipp tent in Vegas and they apologized and said they had some personnel turnover in the warranty department.
I had a hub issue last week with my 2012 front 808 FC. I was on the trainer and I notice something hanging off the left hub. It’s the hub retainer ring, cracked and loose. I call zipp to see if I can get a replacement. They tell me the piece is structural and cant be ridden without it, plus i have to go thru the dealer. This is Tuesday and I’m leaving for Vegas WC on Friday morning. I play the “$2500 wheel failing card” and they agree to overnight the ring to the lbs. Got it next morning and I had to pay the lbs to instal the ring and re true the wheel. Little hectic but they followed through.