This is a companion article to the rim replacement work I did on the Nomu Lab Wheel #8 on August 11th
(→here).
I'm writing about things I couldn't mention at the time.
A customer brought in the rear wheel of a Nomu Lab Wheel #8.
The nipples have a rainbow color arrangement.
The customer was wondering if something could be done about the dirt on the rim.
This happened because while having the rear disc brake fluid replaced
at a shop called KCS, the rim came back with dirt that absolutely wasn't there before it was left there.
I'd seen the bike in person about a week before it was dropped off,
and the brake fluid didn't seem like it needed changing.
Well, that's not really the main point of this issue, so
I won't get into whether the work actually needed to be done.
As for the dirt on the rim—
↑This is it.
What looks like dirt here is actually not dirt at all—
the black anodizing on the rim has flaked off.
So wiping it with parts cleaner won't help.
Even acetone and strong degreaser couldn't touch it.
No matter how hard you scrub, it won't come off at all.
Or rather, the surface treatment has already come off in patches,
so there's nothing to remove.
KCS initially claimed
"Maybe this happened from rain"
and tried to pull the wool over the customer's eyes with this far-fetched story.
The customer didn't strongly object at the time
and brought the wheel to our shop for rebuilding,
but since there was nothing I could do either,
and even though neither our shop nor the customer was at fault,
I felt so bad about how down they were
that I decided to replace the rim and labor costs free of charge at our shop
(as mentioned in the article on the front side).
On rear rims, chain oil can splatter onto the rim sides and leave permanent marks if left for a long time.
In those cases, usually only the right side (sprocket side) of the rim shows dirt,
creating a left-right difference.
This becomes especially noticeable on rims 50mm tall or higher.
But this anodizing damage appears on both sides of the rim.
From what I can see, the customer's bike is always pretty clean,
and there's no way they'd overlook dirt like this for a long period.
Also, permanent dirt from chain oil can usually be cleaned off to some degree.
KCS seems to have had a guilty conscience about something, because
when handing the bike back, they specifically said "We cleaned the rear wheel for you!"
So about this business of rain causing the rim's color to flake—
↑Would colored nipples really fade this much from rain?
↑In some spots like this,
only one face out of the four wrench-grip faces of the nipple
shows color loss.
Also, if rain were the cause,
↑This shows the front and rear wheels as they were
when the customer first brought them in before the rear wheel rebuild.
I can't explain why the front wheel is completely fine and clean.
Also, the condition of this front wheel is about how clean the customer normally keeps it. I swear
I didn't wash it specially for this article.
↑It's like this
As for this corrosion (I'll call it that),
some kind of liquid was left on it and neglected.
While it was sitting, the part closest to the ground must have had
liquid pooling at the contact point between the rim holes and the nipples.
Looking at the nipples where I'd expect to see this pattern—
The damage is cleverly localized just near the rim holes.
With rainbow-arranged nipples, the sequence varies by spoke count,
but they go purple→deep blue→turquoise→green→yellow→red→purple...,
so the deep blue-to-green section would be the ground-facing side when it was sitting.
Also, liquid ran down the rim and fell between the tire and the bead hook tip,
then spread fore and aft, leaving a whitened section on the rim.
↑I removed the tire.
The rim shows discoloration.
Also, it splattered onto the hub shell and the anodizing flaked off there too.
Since we reused the hub and spokes,
the customer's rear wheel hub is still in this condition.
No amount of wiping could clean this up either.
It splattered onto the hub flanges and aluminum sprocket spider arms.
And while the steel teeth also turned white,
that came right off with a finger wipe.
It splattered on the spokes too, but
that also came off mostly with a finger wipe.
It appears to cause serious damage only to the surface treatment on aluminum.
Moving the rim over...
I replaced the rim and nipples.
I kept the original rim and nipples as evidence, and
I tested various chemicals at our shop—DOT brake oil, some pretty aggressive citrus degreaser,
chain oil, and a parts cleaner that Wako's techs told us was the most aggressive we stock—
liberally applied to different spots on an identically-anodized rim
and left it in direct sunlight for days,
but none of them caused the kind of irreversible damage
shown in the image of the original rim.
According to KCS's story, "rain" is the culprit,
but I don't believe that's the case.
The customer later took the original rim from the image to KCS and talked things through,
saw how they'd respond, so I'm writing this article.
If this was a case of "we didn't like the Nomu Lab wheel for some reason,
so we deliberately dirtied it out of spite," that would be one thing. And
I don't think that's what happened, just to be clear.
What worries me is if they acted in good faith saying "Let's give it a wash with our shop's special cleaner,"
then botched it, because if so, there might be other victims out there.
I don't believe rain caused this, so
if the customer stops leaving their bike with KCS going forward,
then this type of damage won't happen again, which would prove
rain wasn't the cause.
Actually, I've never seen a freshly-built wheel
with such obvious color fade on the nipples, period.
The customer asked if they could borrow the original rim and nipples to show KCS,
so I lent them, but I made sure to warn them
not to let themselves get talked into surrendering the rim and nipples
(besides, they're technically my property), and
not to take the nipples out of the bag.
The result was KCS just kept denying any recollection of it.
Though they did say they'd test every chemical we have to see which one attacks rims,
but wait—I thought you said it was rain? Your story's changing.
Once you've tested everything and found nothing matches,
then you'll claim our shop is blameless? That logic doesn't work.
Because the rim was definitely clean before it was left there.
Right now would be the time to say "We figured out the cause! It wasn't rain, sorry!"
That would minimize the damage. I'll give them that advice.
They also said they don't have the skill to replace rims,
at least not to the level of Nomu Lab or better.
But you're running a shop and openly saying you can't build wheels? No shame?
And yet somehow you manage to do component assembly properly?
And the fact that the original rim exists as a separate piece means
the wheel was already rebuilt, so you should proactively offer
to pay for the costs that rebuilding incurred. The fact that you haven't
is why you're third-rate and below.
Even offering to pay would still make you third-rate—
a first-rate shop wouldn't cause this kind of screw-up in the first place.
Just to be clear, we're not asking KCS to reimburse us for the rebuild work
we chose to do for free.
To KCS:
If you're reading this and have an explanation,
or want this article taken down, I'm willing to accommodate,
but first I have a request:
Provide me with solid evidence that what happened was caused by
"rain (rainwater)."
You can do it, right? You gave that "explanation" to the customer in the first place.
If you can't, then shut up forever.
To general readers of this article:
If you've had a shop mess something up due to their negligence, only to have them
explain it away with some far-fetched story, deny responsibility, claim ignorance,
or force you to swallow the loss—
only if you've had that actual experience
should you push the applause button on this article. Please.
There's no way that many people have been through that...
Update:
↓Wait, that many people?! Way too many!!
(→here).
I'm writing about things I couldn't mention at the time.
A customer brought in the rear wheel of a Nomu Lab Wheel #8.
The nipples have a rainbow color arrangement.
The customer was wondering if something could be done about the dirt on the rim.
This happened because while having the rear disc brake fluid replaced
at a shop called KCS, the rim came back with dirt that absolutely wasn't there before it was left there.
I'd seen the bike in person about a week before it was dropped off,
and the brake fluid didn't seem like it needed changing.
Well, that's not really the main point of this issue, so
I won't get into whether the work actually needed to be done.
As for the dirt on the rim—
↑This is it.
What looks like dirt here is actually not dirt at all—
the black anodizing on the rim has flaked off.
So wiping it with parts cleaner won't help.
Even acetone and strong degreaser couldn't touch it.
No matter how hard you scrub, it won't come off at all.
Or rather, the surface treatment has already come off in patches,
so there's nothing to remove.
KCS initially claimed
"Maybe this happened from rain"
and tried to pull the wool over the customer's eyes with this far-fetched story.
The customer didn't strongly object at the time
and brought the wheel to our shop for rebuilding,
but since there was nothing I could do either,
and even though neither our shop nor the customer was at fault,
I felt so bad about how down they were
that I decided to replace the rim and labor costs free of charge at our shop
(as mentioned in the article on the front side).
On rear rims, chain oil can splatter onto the rim sides and leave permanent marks if left for a long time.
In those cases, usually only the right side (sprocket side) of the rim shows dirt,
creating a left-right difference.
This becomes especially noticeable on rims 50mm tall or higher.
But this anodizing damage appears on both sides of the rim.
From what I can see, the customer's bike is always pretty clean,
and there's no way they'd overlook dirt like this for a long period.
Also, permanent dirt from chain oil can usually be cleaned off to some degree.
KCS seems to have had a guilty conscience about something, because
when handing the bike back, they specifically said "We cleaned the rear wheel for you!"
So about this business of rain causing the rim's color to flake—
↑Would colored nipples really fade this much from rain?
↑In some spots like this,
only one face out of the four wrench-grip faces of the nipple
shows color loss.
Also, if rain were the cause,
↑This shows the front and rear wheels as they were
when the customer first brought them in before the rear wheel rebuild.
I can't explain why the front wheel is completely fine and clean.
Also, the condition of this front wheel is about how clean the customer normally keeps it. I swear
I didn't wash it specially for this article.
↑It's like this
As for this corrosion (I'll call it that),
some kind of liquid was left on it and neglected.
While it was sitting, the part closest to the ground must have had
liquid pooling at the contact point between the rim holes and the nipples.
Looking at the nipples where I'd expect to see this pattern—
The damage is cleverly localized just near the rim holes.
With rainbow-arranged nipples, the sequence varies by spoke count,
but they go purple→deep blue→turquoise→green→yellow→red→purple...,
so the deep blue-to-green section would be the ground-facing side when it was sitting.
Also, liquid ran down the rim and fell between the tire and the bead hook tip,
then spread fore and aft, leaving a whitened section on the rim.
↑I removed the tire.
The rim shows discoloration.
Also, it splattered onto the hub shell and the anodizing flaked off there too.
Since we reused the hub and spokes,
the customer's rear wheel hub is still in this condition.
No amount of wiping could clean this up either.
It splattered onto the hub flanges and aluminum sprocket spider arms.
And while the steel teeth also turned white,
that came right off with a finger wipe.
It splattered on the spokes too, but
that also came off mostly with a finger wipe.
It appears to cause serious damage only to the surface treatment on aluminum.
Moving the rim over...
I replaced the rim and nipples.
I kept the original rim and nipples as evidence, and
I tested various chemicals at our shop—DOT brake oil, some pretty aggressive citrus degreaser,
chain oil, and a parts cleaner that Wako's techs told us was the most aggressive we stock—
liberally applied to different spots on an identically-anodized rim
and left it in direct sunlight for days,
but none of them caused the kind of irreversible damage
shown in the image of the original rim.
According to KCS's story, "rain" is the culprit,
but I don't believe that's the case.
The customer later took the original rim from the image to KCS and talked things through,
saw how they'd respond, so I'm writing this article.
If this was a case of "we didn't like the Nomu Lab wheel for some reason,
so we deliberately dirtied it out of spite," that would be one thing. And
I don't think that's what happened, just to be clear.
What worries me is if they acted in good faith saying "Let's give it a wash with our shop's special cleaner,"
then botched it, because if so, there might be other victims out there.
I don't believe rain caused this, so
if the customer stops leaving their bike with KCS going forward,
then this type of damage won't happen again, which would prove
rain wasn't the cause.
Actually, I've never seen a freshly-built wheel
with such obvious color fade on the nipples, period.
The customer asked if they could borrow the original rim and nipples to show KCS,
so I lent them, but I made sure to warn them
not to let themselves get talked into surrendering the rim and nipples
(besides, they're technically my property), and
not to take the nipples out of the bag.
The result was KCS just kept denying any recollection of it.
Though they did say they'd test every chemical we have to see which one attacks rims,
but wait—I thought you said it was rain? Your story's changing.
Once you've tested everything and found nothing matches,
then you'll claim our shop is blameless? That logic doesn't work.
Because the rim was definitely clean before it was left there.
Right now would be the time to say "We figured out the cause! It wasn't rain, sorry!"
That would minimize the damage. I'll give them that advice.
They also said they don't have the skill to replace rims,
at least not to the level of Nomu Lab or better.
But you're running a shop and openly saying you can't build wheels? No shame?
And yet somehow you manage to do component assembly properly?
And the fact that the original rim exists as a separate piece means
the wheel was already rebuilt, so you should proactively offer
to pay for the costs that rebuilding incurred. The fact that you haven't
is why you're third-rate and below.
Even offering to pay would still make you third-rate—
a first-rate shop wouldn't cause this kind of screw-up in the first place.
Just to be clear, we're not asking KCS to reimburse us for the rebuild work
we chose to do for free.
To KCS:
If you're reading this and have an explanation,
or want this article taken down, I'm willing to accommodate,
but first I have a request:
Provide me with solid evidence that what happened was caused by
"rain (rainwater)."
You can do it, right? You gave that "explanation" to the customer in the first place.
If you can't, then shut up forever.
To general readers of this article:
If you've had a shop mess something up due to their negligence, only to have them
explain it away with some far-fetched story, deny responsibility, claim ignorance,
or force you to swallow the loss—
only if you've had that actual experience
should you push the applause button on this article. Please.
There's no way that many people have been through that...
Update:
↓Wait, that many people?! Way too many!!