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Yeti 575 frame ... Fantastic support


donal's picture

By donal - Posted on 15 August 2010

NB: Originally posted elsewhere on the Global Riders Network and appears via syndication.

I have been a yeti 575 owner for about two and a half years; absolutely love the bike. Recently, after a fantastic biking trip in Scotland ,upon return I put the bike in for a badly needed service and received the bad news that the frame was cracked down near the bottom bracket. However, I have just had the most fantastic support from yeti: within 3 days of the bike being picked up by Paul Rowney himself, I was in possession of a brand new 2010 frame fully rigged up ready to ride......how's that for unbelievable service !!!! I have just had two rides this weekend and the new bike is even more of a dream than the previous one....Yeti rocks (and so does Paul Rowney !)

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philberesford's picture

My 575 doesn't fall foul of this. Good on Yeti and Paul for sorting you out!

Love that car Yeti

CB's picture

A while back I noticed what looked like a hairline crack near one of the clamping screws on the dogbone of my 575. I showed it to the guys at CBD at around 4pm. By lunchtime the next day, Paul Rowney had come in and fitted a new dogbone !

I have heard of situations where Rowney has seen a Yeti on the trails with 'sub optimal ' cable routing and has asked the rider which shop it was bought from. He then called the shop to 'politely' suggest that they do it better ....

This level of support from both Rowney and CBD is a large part of the reason I just bought another Yeti !

I just built up a ARC as a commuter..... I'll post some pics soon. After tormenting the CBD guys for weeks as I deliberated what frame to get ( very nearly went for a Big Top 29er ) I decided to go for the ARC. By 10am the next morning, Rowney had dropped in and delivered the frame ! Sensational....

CB

Alexd's picture

Yes..I had a part fail twice. That dampened my yeti love. But both times I had the part replace within about 3 calender days..really amazing support service which reinvigorated my Yeti love.

And no matter what..i still love the damned thing..so raw..so much fun to ride Laughing out loud

Chitts's picture

.... a Scott.... then nobody needs to pay you a visit as they are bullet-proof Eye-wink

philberesford's picture

Those Scotts are bullet proof cough cough Sticking out tongue

lol

philberesford's picture

Hey Alex, what part failed on you?

Rob's picture

There's this one part on my Yeti that fails all the time. It's just not strong enough, or light enough.

It's that big squashy bit that makes the junction between bars, seat and pedals! Eye-wink

obmal's picture

Having cracked a frame a couple weeks ago, I have been looking into a replacement, after researching various brands and finding some alarming comments on alloy frames and their longevity, some people even state that most alloy MTB frames will eventually crack?!?!

Great service like this tells me that it’s perhaps a good enough reason for me to buy a Yeti from a LBS, even though a cracked frame posting should scare me away from the brand and that my selection criteria should be weighted to favor brands that are known to quickly warrant/replace a cracked frame.

Alexd's picture

Phil,

Carbon rear triangle on my 575. It cracked in the same place, 1/3 of the way back from the pivot on the cassette side chain stay.

To put it in context here is some relevant info:
First time I cant think of any particular incident other than a couple of light stacks over time (no specific impact on that section..no marks etc)
Second time I was pulling a-non ideal gear up a steep hill out of the saddle.
I am 100 KG so not a light bunny.
I am definatley not gentle on her.
Was told they had a bad batch of triangles early on. Who knows! (my first replacement was straight of a bike sitting in Yeti here in australia hence the speed)

I have the one with the alloy chainstays now, and in hindsight I should have done that at the start given my weight and riding style and my need to push my limits of my skill level. She is now Strong as OX. I would still have her in my bed if my wife wasnt there.

philberesford's picture

Thanks Alex
I have the alloy stays on mine and it's always been rock solid. I abuse mine too, that's what I got her for, but I am 40kg lighter than you so it probably doesn't get the same kind of punishment.

BTW Paul is over in Durango the Yeti 25yr Anniversary tribe meet. He tweeted a pic of a cool anniversary edition 575 here:

@yetioz says:

You had me at Anniversary... http://twitpic.com/2ffw0z

@yeticycles says:

Chris is sporting some YETI history here at the tribe! http://twitpic.com/2eovl0

Not sure if it'll ever come down here tho Yes it is!!!

@yetioz say:

We are taking orders on limited new 25th anniversary 575 frame/fork/king sets. See your dealer. http://twitpic.com/2g21ah

Phil

davis_jnr's picture

By the sounds of this thread i would be avoiding Yeti.....so what is the percentage fail rate of imported yeti's?

Sounds quite high!!!

Do you hear of many/any Giants, Specalized, Santa Cruz, Norco....bikes breaking on this forum?

I must say when i was looking at buying just over a year ago, i considered a yeti but my lbs said come over here and look in these two boxes......two yeati's missing rear triangles.....

Rob's picture

Good grief... that's a bit strong sammy.

Touch wood and all that - no issues whatsoever with my 575 (carbon rear triangle) and it's not had an easy life by any means.

Any manufacturer will have issues, the difference is how they deal with them. The good ones do the right thing by the buyer and that certainly sounds like the case here.

Fatboy's picture

Yeah a bit strong. Most manufacturers experience something turning south and those that step in quickly to resolve are the ones I'd always do business with. I've never had a Yeti but this forum has certainly left me with a very positive feeling about the brand and Paul Rowney as the distributor.

By the way, one of those popular brands mentioned above as a quality brand has had a big problem this year with frames cracking around the bottom bracket area. They too have replaced frames quickly.

Great service produces brand loyalty.

davis_jnr's picture

It may be a bit strong, all I am trying to do is highlight the fact that there appears to be a quiality control problem with Yetis that come into AU and its a reason to think about your purchase, after all there are plenty of other bike manufacturers out there.

Yes i have ridden one and they are amazing to ride......i'm not sure i would consider buying one though.

philberesford's picture

Why I wouldn't consider riding anything else Smiling

Would love to give a tricked-up ASR a go over a good distance say at the Angry Doctor or Fling.

CB's picture

As was said here some time ago, it's astounding that we have any warranties at all, given the punishment that we dish out to our equipment.
Particularly as we are so obsessed with maximising performance and minimising weight.

It would be very easy for all the bike companies to simply put disclaimers everywhere saying that it's not their fault if something breaks. Alternatively they would just overbuild everything until the joy was taken out of the development of new stuff.

My 575 has nearly 6 inches of travel and is lighter than the hardtail I was riding 5 years ago..... Fantastic ! ( The new all carbon ASR 5c is even lighter still).

I suppose I'm just saying that I like companies which aim to increase perfomance levels and push things forward. If the envelope gets pushed a little too far, then the measure of the company is in it's response and support for it's customers. I think this is all goes to build brand loyalty.

As an aside, before I had kids, I used to drive a 1970 Lotus Elan. It was a car built by a company which excelled at pushing the envelope.... Colin Chapman was truly the 'Prince of Lightness...' It's after sales service though was a little less than stellar. As any Lotus owner will tell you, the name stands for 'Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious' and mine was no different. It needed constant work and money to keep it on the road but that was the price you paid to go round corners better than any other car. Now if only Chapman had paid a little more attention to customer support, the company wouldn't have gone down the tubes ( although it's back now...). The reputation for mechanical problems never stopped people buying the cars.... it was the lack of after sales support which really put them off.

Anyway, I'd still get another Lotus if the chance came up and I imagine I will probably be buying more Yeti's in the future....

CB

Flynny's picture
Do you hear of many/any Giants, Specalized, Santa Cruz, Norco....bikes breaking on this forum?

You're joking right?

I've had 3 giants, all of them broke, I of them I broke a few times, Warranty was great. Specialized had a frame recall on the epic(? I think it was the epic) this year as the brain was snapping off, from what I hear they had great replacement service. Nocro had a massive frame recall on 2009 DH and shore bikes. Massive voluntary recall and very well done.

Cannodale didn't earn the nic name crack'n'fail because they never ever broke.

But remember these bikes are among the most popular brands and thus there is a lot of them out there, often being ridden a little more extremely then the designers intended

LadyToast's picture

My Yeti gets punished pretty hard and I've not had any problems with it. other than me breaking wheels. I think their quality control is top notch. I wouldn't be discounting one just because of what you hear on-line. If you were to start a thread on any bike you would get a number of posts about horror stories (not that any of these are), because of the large reader base.

It's still Yeti all the way for me, although I wouldn't consider taking mine to bed Eye-wink

obmal's picture

Well said, its after sales service and support that establishes brand loyalty and a cult following.. sometimes even blind faith Cool

But also consider this, in my case a frame cracked, now if I was in the US, the reputable manufacturer "A" would replace the frame quick sticks no questions asked, now here in AUS the brand "A" is imported by an importer/marketing company that imports anything they can that will make them a profit (underwear, beds, shoes, cloths, homewares..) they sign up some bike stores to sell their product, market it well (its of course brand "A" that's reputable in the US) and then when the economic winds change (currency fluctuations, tax break, cheaper product elsewhere.. whatever) they stop importing manufacturer "A" and import crappy brand "B". Now the consumer breaks bike brand "A", the importer/marketer no longer imports brand "A".. LBS does all they can but they are in the middle and the consumer has fat chance of getting a replacement brand "A" (who by now are aware of a frame problem and have corrected the design) and they are offered brand "B" as a replacement.

Now the consumer thinks bike brand "A" and the the LBS suck for selling him the bike in the first place, but the problem is really the importer/marketing company that's got no real product affiliation at all.

My point is that if I assume that all alloy MTB frames will eventually fail (ridden hard enough and the interweb tells me they most probably will) and I ride a bike enough (Im not talking about just a weekly lap or two around the dam) then its pretty important for me to get a bike from brand that's known to stand behind their frame warranty locally and have a long history of selling bikes in Australia.

I think Yeti have done a wonderful job building brand loyalty and they are on my list for my next bike.

Sinkes's picture

I could afford one! Maybe one day, if I'm good boy. Eye-wink
That's what makes the product (Yeti) a success......after sales service.
All power to Yeti!

D-on's picture

I recently put my trusty 575 in for a service and then received the dreaded phone call from the LBS and had a "the frame has cracked" conversation. Turns out there was a fracture near the BB. Probably due to 3 years of torturous riding I'd say - mostly rider error. I have lost count of the amount of times I have picked the wrong line down a nasty decent and just 'hung on' with the bike having to compensate for my lack of skills ! Within a week of the LBS phone call they had spoken with the distributor, sorted a new frame and then swapped 'all the bits' over to the new frame. All under warranty. All without fuss. All good. My 575 has been a sweet sweet ride and with this kind of after sales service I have no hesitation in recommending Yeti .... in fact once the Minister of Finance approves the funds I shall be looking to upgrade ... to another Yeti !

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