2015+ fox 36 harsh
- Thread starter 92SE-R
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All you gotta do is spend just a few hundred dollars moar...
http://www.pinkbike.com/news/formula-thirtyfive-29-fork-reviewed-2014.html
Maybe try re-sizing the bushings? Anytime I do that to a fork it gets incredibly supple.
Did you know you can buy brand new dialed in Fox forks direct from PUSH, for about the same price as a stock fork?
Pre-PUSH'd. why wait?
http://www.pushindustries.com/pages/factory-tuned-fox-forks
Pre-PUSH'd. why wait?
http://www.pushindustries.com/pages/factory-tuned-fox-forks
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For an even taller fork? Pass. Although the reduced offset is interesting.
But seriously, I'll buy a $1500 trail fork, but it has to be perfect. No weird maintenance/sticking issues like these Fox forks. No weird top-out BS. No shitty over damped stock tunes. Long maintenance intervals, easy rebuilds. Don't care if it weighs a pound more than a Fox or RS fork.
Meaning what? Pull them out of the lowers and reaming them? Aren't they coated?
The sizing tools are usually part of a bushing installation tool, basically a 36.01mm diameter (or whatever size is appropriate) cylinder you pass through the bushings after they're installed.
Got it.
http://service.foxracingshox.com/consumers/Content/Service/QuickTech/013_FOX-BBI_fork_bushing_tool_SP.htm
Thanks!
That thing will actually ream the bushing or just bend it out so that it seats in the lowers better/binds the stanchions less?
http://service.foxracingshox.com/consumers/Content/Service/QuickTech/013_FOX-BBI_fork_bushing_tool_SP.htm
Thanks!
That thing will actually ream the bushing or just bend it out so that it seats in the lowers better/binds the stanchions less?
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but i paid 40% moar for KASHIMA!!
I think there could be something to this. my 2016 float rc2 felt ok out of the box, but started feeling harsh even after I serviced the lowers/changed seals a couple times. I eventually sent it back to fox when I found wear marks on the stanchions that looked like bushing wear. they replaced the CSU under warranty and replaced the bushings with "our updated knurled bushings" (this was a month or two ago). my fork feels better than new, much more supple off the top now.
I dont think this is a bushing issue. My misaligned and too tight bushings on my boxxer, that didnt even pass parking lot test. My 36 on other hand doesnt have much stiction. High speed is brutal though.
Yes.
Asking for a friend, but does this "trick" work for other, umm, systems?
Ok, but I've heard they can cause excessive seal weep. And weeping in a more traditional sense as well.Just install some of these tokens
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Great news! According to vital, The 2017 36's are smoother and better damped than the 2016's!!!!
I saw that article and laughed. Never again.
What a fucking joke. Every year, same BS, and still put out forks that feel as bad or worse than when they started. Don't know why I bought into that.
Just send it back?
Half the people on here seem to love their new 36s and half seem to absolutely hate them, which makes me think after a return or two you get a good one. Unfortunately not a new thing in the MTB industry, and unfortunately not exclusive to Fox either.
Half the people on here seem to love their new 36s and half seem to absolutely hate them, which makes me think after a return or two you get a good one. Unfortunately not a new thing in the MTB industry, and unfortunately not exclusive to Fox either.
Yep, planning on it while I'm out of town for a while.
I do agree that it's not exclusive to them by a long shot, but I do see more of these year-to-year updates from them than other manufacturers claiming "new and improved". In fact, it's been every single year since 2010 or so, right?
Yeah but it's what the pleb consumers want.
They had the entire lineup dialed by 2012 in terms of internals (with both 36 and 40 available in coil-sprung RC2 versions), all they needed to do is keep feeding them minor updates over the years - but that's not enough to sell. Not when the Pike and Boxxer are lighter on paper, year after year. Who cares that they have a lot more flex, there's no comparable number for that, or cool factor attached to it.
In a world of marketing-driven sales you have to do something. Being Fox they have to compete with RS - they can't be putting out rubbish like an inverted fork that weighs 3.2kg+ with a "carbon torsion arch" that still leaves the fork substantially flexier than anything the right way up while still having an air spring inside and somehow still making a bunch of clunking noises...
In my experience every brand makes good stuff and junk - either you go a year or two back in the product line and choose something that has a proven track record of reliability, or take a gamble with the latest and greatest, hoping that it's good but potentially dealing with a return or exchange.
I don't think it's acceptable, but it's been reality for a long time - and in the industry's defence, this stuff is cutting edge in terms of strength-to-weight @ peasant budget compared to the moto and automotive industries - which many people don't realise when they think "hey my car/moto/etc runs for x0000 miles and is super reliable, my MTB should be too". Yeah, your 25kg MTB maybe. Not having a go at you but it's important to remember we're enjoying tech that is reaching into F1 territory at hyundai budget.
Maybe a DVO diamond would make you happy? Surprised you didn't go for that in the first place, seems like a decent fork. I'd gamble with a return on the 36 first just in case it's a bad apple, and failing that, jump ship.
Ehhhhh I agree with the rest of your post completely except for this. NONE of the tech in these units is even close to approaching F1 territory, except they've gone through multiple optimizations for mass. Additionally, the budget is nowhere near proportionate to Hyundai level either. I'd say we have Chevy level tech with a Cadillac level budget. Prices on these things have a LONG way to fall, and the tech and QC in them has a LONG way to go.
Man I sent so many letters to fox over the years asking for sticky internals. Took forever but they finally listened!
I agree with you about 2012. Somebody took a wrong turn at the retard intersection with whatever they did to the RP3 setups to shit out those CTD dampers, dropping the 36 lineup entirely, 34mm stanchion forks that were flexier than the 32mm ones they made 3 years prior, ....... It's like fox went on a rohypnol bender for 3 years with their trail forks.
I think all anyone really wanted was lighter and some minor damping improvements. I'm not sure how that equates to consumers wanting insanely inconsistent quality control in a good baseline product in 2016.
Pertinent info: I now have two post 2015 fox 36 forks......they both work really well, the talas still better than the float for some reason. The crappy one loosened up like them good old days, and the new one that popped its britches works great again (like america will with trump). Neither has the midstroke dive of a pike so I'm happy.
If you have no weight restriction then you can make everything infinitely reliable, so saying "except for mass" is a copout. What makes MTB easily approach F1 territory is its strength to weight optimisation, and this level of optimisation is far beyond the average motorbike or automobile. When was the last time you bought one of those with a full carbon monocoque frame? Numerous cold-forged parts? Even the one piece cast magnesium alloy lowers are pretty exotic in the grand scheme.
Everyone likes to bitch and moan about how expensive everything is and how bad we have it, but realistically (though a bit less so now with the dentist tax) we've been paying peanuts for pretty high end gear. We've got more choice now than ever, and a solid 2nd hand market too.
In my experience you either do the research beforehand and buy a reliable product that may be a generation or two old, or you buy the latest + greatest and deal with the results of the gamble. I've been burnt before too, just be thankful your warranty center is Fox instead of Evil.
Who would have thought an air fork would be sticky? But hey, I didn't buy two of them...
This. Since Microsoft imposed the business practice of making the end user the beta tester, it has become mandatory to wait for at least a season before biting into any new "technology" (I love how the bike industry likes to call everything that way, from fork alloy footnuts to Teflon coated shift cables).
You have to admit that things are pretty well figured out when the bike industry has to resort to literally re-inventing the wheel in order to sell bikes.
26" got pretty close to dialed, so they killed them all off in favor of 650b, then they're trying to kill those for fauxt bikes. New "standards" get invented so fast that manufacturers can't even optimize their shit before its outdated...
26" got pretty close to dialed, so they killed them all off in favor of 650b, then they're trying to kill those for fauxt bikes. New "standards" get invented so fast that manufacturers can't even optimize their shit before its outdated...
Having done R&D and design for both in various capacities, I think you would be astonished how much resource goes into mass optimization for every component on a low or mid priced non-performance automobile. It dwarfs that of mtb components.
So I maintain that mtb component development is nowhere even close to F1 with regards to function, durability, or mass.
Knowing intimately what margins are on new vehicles from manufacturer cost to consumer price and what they are on mtbs, I maintain that they are again not even close. Almost an order of magnitude different actually. Probably why many car companies are broke as fuck.
Edit: Correction - much more than an order of magnitude difference in margins actually. Brain is only half on this morning.
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I'm talking about the end product though, not R&D budget or resources.
Pull out a shock absorber from any current mass produced vehicle and compare the design and materials to that on your MTB. What you'll find is a crimped together steel tube, often with a steel sealhead that is completely non-serviceable and designed to be discarded when it fails. The mass of these parts is far greater than they need to be, particularly on any non-strut design (where the shock is not a structural member). Large unsprung vehicle mass means you can run tighter seals and get away with it (less stiction concerns) and part mass being a secondary concern means you can prioritise reliability (steel shafts/tubes etc).
Don't get me wrong - I do think there is an excessive bias towards weight saving at the cost of reliability (the amount of lower leg lubrication in the 36/40/Pike/Boxxer have all slowly gone down over the years for example, which is silly), and I don't think it's acceptable for customers to be guinea pigs, but I do stand by the fact that we get a lot of cutting edge development for the money we pay.
Personally I've just accepted the tradeoff and try to buy proven parts that are a little older (rarely much worse), or at least with a reliable warranty on the occasional latest+greatest splurge.
Anyway I hope you get a solution from Fox, I think being in the US there's always a better chance of a successful outcome. The number of legitimate warranty cases that get turned down overseas is ridiculous...
I've been on a Pike for the last 3 seasons and took a few rides on a new 36 straight out of the box on a very, very similar bike to my personal bike at the time. After a day at the bike park and a few XC rides I could still not get the fork to feel nearly as supple as my Pike, even with the air spring down to 50psi (I'm 160lbs) and the HSC backed all the way out. It was stiff as hell and very supportive at bike park speeds, but anything slower than that I felt like I was riding on a jackhammer. I chalked it up to not being broken-in, but sounds like there may be a legitimate issue with some of these forks. All I know is when I got back on the Pike I noticed the improvement right away
In my case, it was "just" a completely inappropriate shims stack (see post 33). That wouldn't be so bad if the "new and improved" stack would be published, and easily reached/adjustable by the end user. To improve a dumbly designed product AND make the customer pay to get it "updated" is what's unacceptable. But as Udi noted, warranty services seems much easier in the US than what they are outside, where the stupid distributor system apply.