They told me that the wheel was built with spokes that were slightly too short and this caused the spoke breakage. Reynolds rebuilt the wheel with new spokes and it arrived on Wednesday.
Reynolds builds thousands of wheels a year (I'm assuming). It seems like by now they'd have the length of the spokes figured out. How do they screw that up? Isn't that wildly embarrassing for them? Wouldn't they try to kiss some ass to keep a customer from sharing with the world that one of the world's largest cycling wheel manufacturers can't choose the correct spoke length on their top end wheel? Or to at least give the me, the customer, something positive to blog about?
If I had to rate my satisfaction with how they handled the problem, I'd give them a 4. On one hand, they admitted responsibility for the problem and fixed it at no charge. Also, the turnaround time from when they received the wheel to when they shipped the wheel was short. That's good. On the other hand, I was without a primary training tool (PowerTap) for about two weeks and was unable to get invaluable data from the three races and all the training I did during that time. The least they could have done would have been to overnight or 2nd day air the wheel back to me. Or, they could have sent me complimentary wheel bags, or a t-shirt, or a couple of zip ties to use to replace the next broken spoke. I don't know. I'm not thrilled.
Let's compare to Mavic. My Mavic R-Sys front wheel was recalled. I had to send in the wheel for replacement. However, Mavic says the new front wheels won't be available for several months (which is "Mavic-ease" for up to two years). The good news is that the company provided an COMPLETE AKSIUM WHEELSET for me to KEEP (forever) so that I have a complete wheelset between now and when the R-SYS wheel is available.
So, Reynolds responds much more quickly, they return calls, they're friendly and they fix the problem quickly, but they lack in the kissing ass department.
Mavic is exceptionally slow. They don't return calls. They don't communicate well. They always understate time frames. BUT, they gave me a free wheelset! Fortunately, the R-Sys is no longer my primary wheelset. If it was, I would be very unhappy to be forced to race on an Aksium wheelset for months (or years) on end while Mavic figures out how to build a front wheel with carbon spokes.
In the end, neither one is all that great when it comes to service. I really like both the wheelsets though. Based on these experiences, I'm not 100% sure which company I'd sooner do business with in the future. As of now, I'm a bit displeased with both.
WHEEL BEfORE SENDING TO REYNOLDS
AFTER
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