I received mine on 2nd December 2020 (bought with a two year warranty which now seems to have changed to one year) and it will be getting packed up shortly as there is an issue with noise, vibration and not completing spindowns. No questions asked straight swap so I’m guessing this is a known issue… Interestingly they they don’t dispatch until they get notification of pick up so I’m without a trainer for however long, is that normal for Wahoo warranty?
Starting to question the wisdom of my choice, will I end up in an endless cycle of returning failed units?
When the major trainer issue first blew up years ago, they were sending units out prior to return confirmation. Apparently, they got burned by enough to kill that process for everyone. So they must have info that your bad unit is incoming before sending the replacement.
Hard to say. We have seen some people end up with many replacement units while others have no issues. Wahoo claims to have fixed the issue, but we still see at least some around. That could be old stock with the original issue, or the issue is still present in some quantity. We really don’t know.
Look around enough, and you will find issues with every trainer brand and model. This is not the golden age of trainer quality and durability. If you get a good unit, hang onto it as long as possible.
This and the many other examples are reasons I suggest that people hang onto a simple dumb trainer. It’s easier for travel and race warmup, and sure better to have at least something to use while dealing with the trainer issues we see too often these days.
Thanks @mcneese.chad I’ve had a follow up from Wahoo support with two key bits of info:
they will send out a new refurbished unit in advance with a reserve payment of £550 which they will refund once the old one is in transit, seems fair
they said that ‘the refurbished trainers include updated axles that do not face the same issues’, so I don’t know whether that means that new axle are being put into refurb units since they sent mine, will keep an eye on that
As per your advice I have kept hold of my old dumb trainer, but it is a frustrating after investing a significant amount of money into the unit. On the plus side, Wahoo Support has been good and I sent in the initial video of the issue at 10:30am this morning a quick turnaround.
I had a core and had to send it back twice. The second time I asked them to send me a 2nd gen Kickr and they did, been happy with it ever since.
The cores are good-ish, especially if you get one without issues. If yours has an issue you will know before your 1 year warranty is up. Wahoo’s CS is very good. I would not recommend cores or 2018 Kickrs to a friend though as it’s 50/50 on if you will have a problem with them.
Never buy a refurb direct drive trainer - ever. I have bought a few of these, and they were all flawed. I’m thinking it is someone to do with the chassis being machined wrong as I’ve tested the bearings and tried balancing the flywheels.
Will it ever be right? No. You’re getting a refurb trainer as a replacement. If it seems right, you should immediately re-sell it and get a new one.
I would be taking a different approach with a second one being returned, particularly as they’re saying the issue is sorted. Good to hear they considered an alternative to sending you a third Core.
I’m not a wattage bazooka or anything so the Core seems good on paper for me, unless it keeps breaking. Fingers crossed!
Bit late for that now unfortunately, perhaps naively I made a presumption that whatever was wrong with it initially would be sorted out if Wahoo are selling the units for £600 each. If it continues to be an issue I’ll discuss my options with them.
I am currently waiting for my Kickr to be sent back to me. After a year of riding it after the first repair, it started locking up.
Support was slow, but understandable due to covid. Originally they stated that it would ship in 3-5 business days, now they say they have no time frame to ship it, but if I don’t receive a shipping notice by 1/29 then to contact them again. They have my kickr, supposed to send refurbished. I asked if they would just offer a discount on a new unit instead of sending me an old one with the same possible issues, they said no, but the refurbished will have the same internals as the new one.
Rollers are hard, I haven’t attempted to do my TR workouts on them yet. I learned how to ride rollers so that I can still ride indoors until my kickr comes back.
ah ok. not sure if mine is similar. best heard when calibrating or more to the point, spinning down on the calibration, its a distinct but not overly loud thudding o
its not noticeable when putting power out of any wattage. not saying its not there just can’t hear it
In ideal world refurb should be even better unit, than new. New is made with hurry in China/Vietnam and sometimes qc is poor. Refurb should be slowly restored to “almost new” condition and checked to meet all of specs. But this isn’t ideal world. My refurb 2018 Kickr has got flywheel, that was moving righ/left 1mm, heavy vibrations and rust almost everywhere. 2 months ago I send back my Garmin 520 for warranty, they send me refurb loosing all radio signals. When send them info about problems, they have checked history of this unit and problem wasn,t fixed, they have only change chasis and battery…
I bought a new Kickr Core back in Sept 2020 and then last week (Feb 2021) it started developing a loud clicking noise when the flywheel was spinning. Within the first correspondence with Wahoo they swapped it out for a refurb unit, arriving later this week. It did cost me about $20 to send the unit back because I got rid of the box after the first month and had to buy one big enough and get packing material to send the Kickr back. All told, I would have been without my trainer for 7 days assuming I receive the replacement on time.
Perhaps too late for you but not for others. You could have gotten your refurbished turbo straight away. Though it would have required a bond.
My Core failed two weeks ago. It was still usable but not very pleasant. I contacted their customer service and paid a 600 Euro bond. Got my replacement 2 days later. The faulty device was picked up 5 days later. Bond returned 7 days later. Terrific service. Way better than my experience with Tacx/Garmin.
Concerningly the new one I have is already not doing spin downs properly. It’s not a big problem for me right now as I use my Assioma pedals and power match, but this was how the issues started last time and Wahoo do recommend a spin down calibration regardless of how you use it. Fingers crossed the noises don’t come back.
