The issue of reasonableness as such aside, the phenomenon of stress fatigue cracking in aluminum has been well known and extensively documented since the 1950's. It would therefore be easy for any manufacturer to call expert witnesses to testify that failure of a 30 year old aluminum part subjected to a large but unknown number of stress cycles is not evidence of a manufacturing defect, but could well be simply due to the nature of the material itself. If this were not the case, Boeing would long since have been bankrupted by lawsuits over the inevitable cracks that eventually appear in all aluminum airframes.
Regards,
Jerry Moos Houston, TX
"richardsachs@juno.com" <richardsachs@juno.com> wrote:
snipped: "getting Campy to honor NR, SR, or other gruppo warranties for discontinued Campy products is a real pain.
i'm blond on this issue. where's the zealot that's
going to expect a replacement nos 70s part should
his own fail 30 years after its manufacture.
do we know of any first-hand examples?
e-RICHIE
chester, ct
I believe this topic has been covered in the past and documented by the CR archives. Your warranty contact at Campy is the Customer Service Desk where the eventual final warranty claim decision is made by Richard Sterino (sp?) - the USA Marketing Director. I will defer on this matter to the opinion of e-richie who is a good friend of Richard. Perhaps he can expand on this topic...
However, it my understanding is that getting Campy to honor NR, SR, or other gruppo warranties for discontinued Campy products is a real pain. You are correct that Campy SHOULD honor warranty defects and workmanship, but for discontinued parts, this can be difficult to prove - especially for vintage parts that are discontinued and no longer supported by Campy. Besides, Campy will ask for you to possibly mail the part and include the original bill of sale and receipt. Campy may tell you to go back to the company that assembled the parts if you purchased a pre-built complete bike.
The other problem is that Campy has disposed of vast quantities of discontinued items in the past with no replacements planned. Certainly, we have all heard that Campy USA does not want to ask Campy Italy to re-manufacture Campy gum rubber hoods... Campy now classifies all of their parts as being for "racing" use and subject to unusual wear and tear that normally causes them to wear out. I remember hearing that a person sued Campy in CA courts to get them to honor their warranty, but ended up receiving a "equivalent" new part because older parts were not provided and that person had to eat the lawsuit costs. I have also heard that Richard S. has been Campy's "expert witness" in past warranty claims taken to court.
The sad fact of the matter is that Campy claims made in 1982 and earlier may no longer apply due to warranty claims interpretations made by judicial courts since then. Maybe a lawyer should address this (I am not), but getting Campy to honor vintage warranties could get to be a pain and involve pricey litigation.
Regards, Steve Neago
Cincinnati, OH
I have a question that I have not seen answered on this list and that is on the Campy "unconditional" warranty against defects and workmanship that I see stated in the 1982 Campy Olympic Catalog. I don't see it in their older catalog, but I think they did have the warranty. Has anyone been able to get Campy to warranty any of their 70s stuff or later? I have broken many of their crank sets and even sent one in and never got a reply to my emails from them, and the crank was never returned. Does anyone have any ideas, besides that I should not be applying for a warranty on my 70s stuff ;-)? Or maybe someone has a contact within Campy that I can contact regarding my stuff? After that happened I went out and bought a Dura-Ace gruppo -- Gasp! I just thought that they should have at least talked to me about it and sent it back if they were not going to honor my request. I have always had the utmost in confidence in their equipment and have always been a loyal Campy user and swear by it, even though I had a few problems with their stuff.
-Dave Gordon
Los Angeles