[ph0enix]

<VENT>
About 5 miles into today's ride the rear shifter paddle decided to break off. My bike is not having a good season so far. First the crankset needed to be replaced, now the shifter.
</VENT>
The good news is the shop thinks SRAM will warranty both shifters as they did with the crank even though the bike is more than 2 years old.

 

[Dream Plus]

SRAM replaced my rear Force Shifter after more than a year. It snapped in the same place as yours. Google provides lots of images like yours.

 

[Wookiebiker]

Earlier versions of SRAM Force and Rival shifters had this issue ... I broke two of them that way. Usually shortly before it happens the shifting starts to deteriorate, so you can kind of tell when it's going to happen.

There is a very long thread in the SRAM forum about this issue.

They have been good at replacing them under warranty and am somewhat surprised they didn't just issue a recall ... I'm guessing they thought it was easier/cheaper to just replace them as they came in then recall all of them for faulty shifting. Have your shop send it in (SRAM won't deal directly with the customer) and they will likely be replaced under warranty.

 

[ph0enix]

Earlier versions of SRAM Force and Rival shifters had this issue ... I broke two of them that way. Usually shortly before it happens the shifting starts to deteriorate, so you can kind of tell when it's going to happen.

There is a very long thread in the SRAM forum about this issue.

They have been good at replacing them under warranty and am somewhat surprised they didn't just issue a recall ... I'm guessing they thought it was easier/cheaper to just replace them as they came in then recall all of them for faulty shifting. Have your shop send it in (SRAM won't deal directly with the customer) and they will likely be replaced under warranty.

You're right. After the fact I realized that the rear shifting had been a bit rougher than usual over the last few rides but I didn't think much of it. The shop is dealing with the replacement. My shop is dealing with SRAM. My bike is over 2yrs old but given that this is a common issue, they will most likely replace the shifters.

I posted in the other thread as well.
Thank you both for the replies and the info.

 

[PlatyPius]

Regarding the "one-at-a-time" versus recall decision...

I don't know if they avoided recall for this reason, but you should (all) be happy that they did. Recalls take time. Lots of time. When a product run as large as early generation Rival shifters has an issue, a recall would cause people to be without their bikes for days, if not weeks. When Cervelo had their Wolf fork recall, we had to remove the fork, call it in, box it up, and send it to Cervelo. Then Cervelo would mail us a replacement fork, which we installed on the bike and then called the customer. With the shipping, it was pretty close to a week for each bike. There are a lot of Cervelos in Indy. At one point, we had 11 Cervelos hanging from the ceiling for the recall (some were also in for broken frames). That grouping of 11 bikes added an extra week to the fork recall time (Cervelo got overwhelmed), plus took more time for us to get them all done while still trying to make money by doing profitable repairs. At one point, I think they ran out of forks.

SRAM's parts are made in Taiwan and China. Lead-time is 4 months. If they ran out of Rival shifters during a recall, it could be up to 4 months before more came in. That would suck.

I think this way is better. For me, it's a one day turn-around (SRAM warranty is in Indy). You can bring your bike in early in the day and I can have it fixed and ready for pickup the next evening. If you're far from Indy, it might be 3-4 days (although a lot of shops will use in-stock parts to fix you up and just replace their stock with the warranty part).