Reynolds wheels warranty experience?

I bought a Canyon Lux CF SL 8.0 a week or so ago. First ride and thrown over the handlebars cracking my Reynolds carbon front wheel in the process. Apparently there is a lifetime warranty on Reynolds wheels which means if you break the wheel while riding your bike, they will repair or replace it for free. There is even a YouTube video from someone at Reynolds clarifying the warranty to avoid uncertainty. However, in practice I am being given the runaround by everyone from Upgrade Bikes in the UK, to Canyon, to Reynolds. It seems the Reynolds lifetime warranty is not worth anything.

I’m not sure if anyone else has had a successful a warranty claim with Reynolds, but my experience has been disappointing and they certainly won’t feature on my list when next looking for an expensive wheelset. Sorry for the rant, the amount of time spent trying on this claim is unnecessary given it should be straightforward.

Hi,
I can’t say anything about the warranty process. But the experience with their customer support is really bad.
They never answered me to my emails and my national distributor is B2B only and didn’t feel responsible for me.
I would never recommend or buy another wheelset from them (my wheels came with my bike).

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Thanks for the reply, it has been the most frustrating experience. No-one, including Hayes/Reynolds and their distributors, seem to either know and/or honour their own warranty.

It is also disappointing that Canyon also don’t understand the warranties that come with components, even thought they have support links to the main manufacturers on their website (DT Swiss, Fox etc). Even though it is not their warranty, I would have hoped for some assistance from them.

Lesson learnt, I won’t touch Reynolds with a 10 foot pole in future and while Canyon works out for some people, I’ll stick to buying LBS bikes in future. When the derailleur cable was too long and scratched my rim, Specialized sent a voucher for a replacement rim without question. They pick up responsibility when it’s not necessarily even their fault.

that’s sad to hear. I got a set of reynolds wheels on the lifetime warranty promise but not sure how much use a warranty will be if you don’t get a response when you’re inquiring about how to claim it.

good luck to you sir! you’ve also made me reconsider that i might not want to get another reynolds in the future.

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lifetime warranties are a joke.
They will claim anything to not give it to you.
My felt has a lifetime frame warranty. But apparently if you dont clean you bike every day or you sweat on it…it voids the warranty…even when it obviously a design flaw!
/rant

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Can you go into more detail about the runaround that they’re giving you? I’m currently riding a pair of Reynolds wheels and this is concerning.

I feel your pain. That’s a tough pill to swallow, especially on the first ride. With that said, from their website, “Hayes Bicycle Group (HBG) warrants Reynolds carbon rims against manufacturing defects with a limited lifetime warranty. This limited lifetime warranty covers the Reynolds branded carbon rim if damage occurs while riding in normal and intended use.”

I’m not a lawyer but I could make a pretty good argument that a bad crash which involved sending you over the bars is not a “normal or intended use” incident resulting from a manufacturing defect. Zipp for example specifically exempts crashes from their warranty.

I remember reading before I bought my Reynolds that their warranty changed recently. I don’t recall the specifics, but that was early this year. That youtube video is from two years ago.

It is poor form to not respond though, I’d be interested in hearing what sort of run around you’re getting as well because while I own Reynolds wheels, I haven’t had to interact with them yet.

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I was thinking the same thing - I believe Reynolds has an optional extra warranty you can buy when you first register the wheels that is more of a no-fault crash coverage, but the standard warranty doesn’t cover crashing the bike.

edit - got response - will update in new post

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Yup, this does sound right and jolted my memory a bit. They may have terminated that deal as well because I now remember having a similar offer pamphlet in my packaging when receiving the wheels, but then being unable to actually get to that offer. I think the website was deleted or something.

I have the paperwork lying around somewhere, I will try to get the actual wording for us.

EDIT: They make it very clear that crash events are outside of the normal warranty. Additionally, and interestingly, the material and defects warranty is only listed as 2 years from date of purchase. This does differ from what the website shows currently, quoted above.

The ability to upgrade to the no questions asked warranty is the “Reynolds Assurance Program”, but as I said, that option was nowhere to be found when I registered my wheels In February… It is still unable to be found as I just tried again.

Reynolds came through fine for me today - so updating my comment earlier about two days for a response to a separate question - (in fact, I had two that I raised)

  1. one of the included sealed brake pad packs had two R pads, no L pad - factory error
  2. I felt the thread engagement on my rear skewer was rather minimal - only about 6 threads until tight - this seemed to just barely fully utilize where the threads end inside the nut, but it was not fully protruding through the nut as most skewers do.

Got a reply today - they are shipping out replacement brake pads, and they shared my concern that the skewer should more engagement, so they are also sending a 135 mm version of the same lightweight “performance” rear skewer with the thought being I may have a slightly thicker than normal dropout. (2013 Trek) No charge for either, no hassle - done in one e-mail through the website. (I did reference my wheels’ serial numbers)

Can’t complain about that for service! (and I do really like the new wheels… mounting GP5000TL by hand - wow!)

Which Reynolds wheels did you put the GP5K on by hand? I am considering moving to TL and have AR58’s
Mike

Aero 65 blacklabel. I used to have the 2018-era Assault SLGs (17mm inner diam) and they required every trick in the book to mount, so it’s not any reflection of my skill level :slight_smile: They really are a totally different ballgame. I suspect the wider inside channel might be making it easier. I also saw a video of a guy online who did the Aero 65s by hand and that is what inspired me to try.

@hvvelo & @User67890 - really appreciate it - gonna have to make the leap

Wow, I’m not claiming under a minute… :grinning: Took me probably 3 mins per wheel by hand, but my previous PR on assaults was about 15 mins including levers, bead jack and soapy beads none of which I needed on the aero 65s! With a lever I could have probably done it in a minute.

Sorry for the late reply, I’m not on the forums that regularly and only saw your reply now. Around 18-24 months ago Reynolds changed their warranty to simply if you break your wheels while riding your bike, they would repair or replace it for free. No doubt done to match the crash damage warranties of other brands such as Enve. This was done with much fanfare and they even sent a video to Singletrack World in order to clarify the new warranty and bump themselves up the list on an article on the 10 best wheel warranties. Then, for some reason it was quietly withdrawn (the video is still on YouTube). The fact they made a big fanfare about their fantastic new warranty, whilst subsequently downgrading it very quietly less than 2 years later says a lot about them as a company. It would seem there was never any intention of maintaining this new warranty and it was purely done for marketing purposes. Or they don’t believe in the quality of their wheels like they did 2 years ago.

I accept i should have checked the Hayes website to confirm for myself, but all the news articles I read touted this new warranty and it never occurred to me that it would only be in place for 2 years at most. Reynolds US said they had referred the claim to Reynolds EU whom I never heard from direct at all. Upgrade Bikes who are a UK distributor told me the warranty did not cover the damage. When I asked Canyon to assist, they came back with the same response from Reynolds. In fairness to Canyon, they did try twice to get Reynolds to cover it without success. Canyon offered to replace the rim and spokes at cost and arrange free collection and delivery. My original post was from a place of frustration and I am happy with Canyon trying on my behalf to push the claim through and their repair offer, and it will not deter me from buying a Canyon bike again.

Rather than give Reynolds more money for a repair, I bought a carbon wheelset from Sixth Element who do offer a lifetime warranty covering crash replacement with no strings attached. Every time I have called them I have been able to speak to the owner and within 5 days they had built and sent a custom wheelset. Only time will tell how a claim will be handled, but they certainly inspire more confidence from the outset than Reynolds.

Thanks for the followup. I have some reynolds wheels on my canyon and hope I don’t have to deal with this. I think the good warranty was on offer at the time, as I’d registered the wheels into their website, but man, not fun and could see them reneging even on that now. On the bright side, canyon (US) has been good for me, like crash replacement pricing for front fork (damaged in vehicular collision, oye)

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I’m sure you would be covered if you bought the bike when they offered the crash replacement warranty so doubt you will have issues. Hope you’re ok after your crash and good to hear how Canyon helped out! My experience with Canyon has also been good, they responded promptly to my emails and kept me updated. My bike also shipped much earlier than expected and arrived in mint condition with assembly a breeze.

Just about to return a pair of Reynolds LE Assault wheels to Canyon. Just over 2 years old and the nipples on the spokes have started to dissolve with deterioration of the wheel rim surface at the contact points. Now they have said this is down to a lack of maintenance and its my fault. Quite how they can say that is beyond me so I’m pushing back, the return of the wheels being the start. Being my first set of carbon wheels, and they are fantastic, I hadn’t appreciated how alloy nipples can deteriorate without special attention when cleaning so be worthwhile keeping a close eye on them. Ill update the forum once I get a response.

On another note, I can absolutely recommend the Conti GP5000TL setup. So comfortable on 28mm and fast. On average 0.3 mph increase in average speed all equal. And they went on in a couple of minutes, stay inflated for ages and grip superbly. Just a track pump to inflate and a cheap one at that. And they sound intimidating when rolling on smooth tarmac.

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What about the spoke nipples needs attention? I have the same wheels and have done nothing special for them… not sure I can imagine them “dissolving”, but I don’t look closely at them. I think they are black anodized or painted, and that has been wearing off, but that’s it.

I didn’t look closely either. But when I sent in a photo to Canyon, they suggested the surface blemishes on the wheels were caused by the nipples. When I looked closely, what looked like white dust around some of them was in fact the alloy breaking up. They provided the following link which explains why and offers advice on prevention.