To Norco Australia warranty department... Cheers!

[SouthYarraSage]

I just wanted to say a big 'thanks' to Norco Australia and their warranty department in particular.

The back brake on my Fluid LT One warbled like a bastard from new. Neither pads, nor alignment, nor moving the calipers a few mm radially outwards (as recommended by some internet sources) made any difference. Short of spraying them with WD-40 I was stuffed for ideas.

My LBS owner took it up with Norco Australia. I have to say my expectations were not high, as it would have been oh-so-easy to blame alignment / contaminated pads / space aliens / what have you.

So I was delighted when they:
1. Knew about the problem
2. Had a fix for it
3. Had the parts in their warehouse and delivered them overnight.

It wasn't exactly a trivial fix either, at least not for Norco, since it involved replacing the oval-section 'seat stay' wishbone of the suspension with a square-section one. Needless to say it worked, completely and instantly.

Nice one Norco, thanks.

 

[downhiller_1]

well its always nice when bike companys can help out there investors... with out us they will be nothing... i had a simalar account with mongoose with a cracked frame... it was all settled when my lbs rang mongoose... i got a new frame

 

[U.D.O]

By chance you weren't at Beach Rd Cycles whilst fixing that were you?
If so, Hi I was the tall lanky young guy there watching/helping you fix that and other issues.

I'm assuming the problem is fixed now?


Daniel.

 

[SouthYarraSage]

By chance you weren't at Beach Rd Cycles whilst fixing that were you?
If so, Hi I was the tall lanky young guy there watching/helping you fix that and other issues.

I'm assuming the problem is fixed now?


Daniel.

Yup, that's me. And yes, it's all sweet now.
You'll have to take me out and show me how to ride some time

 

[Live2DieTrying]

Makes you wonder how it got through to production, when the fix is a whole new seat stay section.
I would guess the issue was the disc brake mounting tab wasn't perpendicular, and the holes not parallel to the axle... ?

 

[RangaRMX]

Not entirely related to the problem the OP stated, but I too own a Norco and have had pleasant dealings with their warranty dept.

My 08 Six1 decided that it would rip the thread out of the holes the derailleur hanger bolts to when I crashed. In other words the hanger was fine, but the bolts which hold it to the frame come out, as well as some metal which the bolts threaded into, leaving large holes and ripped metal from the dropouts. Bad design in my opinion, obviously they thought so too, no questions asked replaced chainstay/dropout section. Nice turn around of a week and a half too.

 

[SouthYarraSage]

Makes you wonder how it got through to production, when the fix is a whole new seat stay section.
I would guess the issue was the disc brake mounting tab wasn't perpendicular, and the holes not parallel to the axle... ?

I'm pretty sure the issue was with the bending stiffness of the seat stay section. Being an FSR design, the section is flexibly mounted (in the plane in which the brake force loads it) at each end - hence probably just an unfortunate resonance. A square-section seat stay would be stiffer in that plane for the same weight.

The alignment should have been close to spot-on, as the brakes have that Avid stack-of-spherical-washers arrangement (which, incidentally, I hate as it offends my sense of good engineering) and I spent a lot of time dicking with it.

In any case, all is good now...

 

[Lube]

The alignment should have been close to spot-on, as the brakes have that Avid stack-of-spherical-washers arrangement (w.....

Tri-Align System

 

[Ugboot]

Just out of curiosity was this the new 09 Fluid One?

You mentioned warbling like a bastard, did the rest of the bike also vibrate whilst this was going on?

If so then I have read about some similar accounts, apparently (after consulting with the GF who is an engineer) the problem is that the resonance of the brakes is of a sound frequency that when in contact with the new Fluid One frame shape becomes amplified...

For a comparison think of that bridge you always see black and white video footage of that is twisting and moving meters one way and then the other like a wave...same thing, wind combined with the bridges design was creating a wave frequency that became amplified and resulted in huge movements.

Solution for the fluid seems to be either to change the brand of brakes or change the seat stay section as they did for yours. Really something that should have been picked up during the design phase... but at least they are good about fixing it and not just denying there is a problem as some companies would probably do!