Mavic Aksium knackered after 2600km

[Shearwater Missile]

As Yellow saddle said possibly impact damage. The first picture with the tyre on looks like the tyre is cracked on it`s casing, I may be wrong. Although the Aksium is at the lower end of the Mavic line up I would not call them budget. I have a pair and were an upgrade over stock wheels. These are on my winter bike and have done over 7000 miles without issue, despite curbing them when I had a fall. Evans must be your first port of call as photos are not easy to take of problems like this. Good luck anyway.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

As Yellow saddle said possibly impact damage. The first picture with the tyre on looks like the tyre is cracked on it`s casing, I may be wrong.

I scrolled to the end of the thread to put just that

 

[straas]

It does appear cracked actually, I've not knowingly hit anything hard but I suppose it could be an unfortunately shaped pothole. I'll go down the warranty route and see how much goodwill I get. I'm not overly on the heavy side (78kg)

Swapped the tyre out anyway, it'd done 8000km and was badly slashed by all the bike lane glass I come across. Annoyingly found that when you "retire" a component in strava it deletes your previously "retired" component, so you can't track general longevity :-(

 

[Shearwater Missile]

It does appear cracked actually, I've not knowingly hit anything hard but I suppose it could be an unfortunately shaped pothole. I'll go down the warranty route and see how much goodwill I get. I'm not overly on the heavy side (78kg)

Swapped the tyre out anyway, it'd done 8000km and was badly slashed by all the bike lane glass I come across. Annoyingly found that when you "retire" a component in strava it deletes your previously "retired" component, so you can't track general longevity :-(

Is it a crack or is it on the seam ? Hitting potholes is always a nightmare but usually with no problem but of course never say never. I would`nt have said that it was a crack unless it had really been stressed but you would have really felt that at the time of impact I would have thought. Let us know how you get on anyway.

 

[Shadow121]

What I see from the OP ‘s first image is a rim worn thin about 3 mm above the wear line,
which resulted in the rim above the worn area bending out.

Brakes most likely caused the wear, but how would one misalign a brake pad
so badly that it could wear, I don’t think it possible unless you shaped the pad
to do this, OR, the rim was actually flawed / weak / thin, and gradually moved out due to the
heat and friction of braking, which would result in what I see in the image.

I think you have a genuinely flawed rim there.

 

[davidphilips]

Looks a bit like the brakes have been rubbing for a long time if so then it would not mater what wheels you had (apart from disc) .

 

[MountainSide]

I can't tell anything from the photos but have you taken the rim tape off? My Mavic rim cracked around the valve hole. Very obvious when you remove the tape. Same symptom - brakes would lock at that point where the crack made the rim wider around the valve. In my case, I had only just started to use that wheel (no potholes, no dropping kerbs etc) when it failed but the rim was already out of warranty so Mavic basically told me, "tough, sh!t happens, rims fail".

 

[rogerzilla]

Machined rims often have thin spots in the sidewall. Machining is a bit of a kludge so that rims can be hard anodised but the brakes still bite in the wet (wet braking on anodising is bad until the anodising wears off, and hard black anodising looks terrible as it gradually disappears, due to spoke tension - see photo). Ideally rims should just be lightly silver anodised to prevent powdery corrosion of the alloy - this wears off the braking surfaces in short order and doesn't cause a problem so doesn't need machining. But, fashion and marketing.

 

[Drago]

2600km. That's, like, 17 miles.

 

[straas]

I can't tell anything from the photos but have you taken the rim tape off? My Mavic rim cracked around the valve hole. Very obvious when you remove the tape. Same symptom - brakes would lock at that point where the crack made the rim wider around the valve. In my case, I had only just started to use that wheel (no potholes, no dropping kerbs etc) when it failed but the rim was already out of warranty so Mavic basically told me, "tough, sh!t happens, rims fail".

Not yet, waiting to hear back from mavic - not sure what they'll say though as it's pretty difficult to photograph the problem so they might want to see the wheel.

2600km. That's, like, 17 miles.

LOL I know, I'm pretty tight and expect things to last a while, but that distance is just taking the mick!

 

[goo_mason]

I once bought a set of Aksiums (I was quite skint back then, and they were a serious investment for me), and just a year on they got very out-of-true so I took them to a shop to be trued (the bladed spokes meant trying myself was a no-no). However, the shop called to say they couldn't do it either as both rims had cracks around almost every spoke-hole.

Just out of warranty after a year, they were fit only for the bin.

Vowed never to spend a penny on Mavic products ever again. YMMV.

 

[Milkfloat]

I once bought a set of Aksiums (I was quite skint back then, and they were a serious investment for me), and just a year on they got very out-of-true so I took them to a shop to be trued (the bladed spokes meant trying myself was a no-no). However, the shop called to say they couldn't do it either as both rims had cracks around almost every spoke-hole.

Just out of warranty after a year, they were fit only for the bin.

Vowed never to spend a penny on Mavic products ever again. YMMV.

Too late now, but Mavic have a 2 year warranty (3 in some cases).

 

[MountainSide]

I once bought a set of Aksiums (I was quite skint back then, and they were a serious investment for me), and just a year on they got very out-of-true so I took them to a shop to be trued (the bladed spokes meant trying myself was a no-no). However, the shop called to say they couldn't do it either as both rims had cracks around almost every spoke-hole.

Just out of warranty after a year, they were fit only for the bin.

Vowed never to spend a penny on Mavic products ever again. YMMV.

Same here, with my cracked Mavic rims after just a few weeks of careful use. For me it was Mavic's total lack of interest in investigating or providing any kind of customer support other than to say along the lines of "tough, Mavic rims crack. It happens.".

 

[Shearwater Missile]

Same here, with my cracked Mavic rims after just a few weeks of careful use. For me it was Mavic's total lack of interest in investigating or providing any kind of customer support other than to say along the lines of "tough, Mavic rims crack. It happens.".

I will keep a very close eye on mine as now you have got me worried. When I think back at wheels I have had on bikes and they just went on for ever or so it seemed. Many have said in the past of how bullet proof they are so is it a batch problem I wonder or have they just gone down hill ? Interesting and annoying to say the least.

 

[davidphilips]

I will keep a very close eye on mine as now you have got me worried. When I think back at wheels I have had on bikes and they just went on for ever or so it seemed. Many have said in the past of how bullet proof they are so is it a batch problem I wonder or have they just gone down hill ? Interesting and annoying to say the least.

Dont worry to much over Mavic wheels they are great wheels but like any mass produced product there may be some that will have an issue, i use Aksium wheels on training bikes and cover at least 10,000 miles a year on them and have never had a problem with them or do i expect to have a problem with them.