Pahana

Yesterday riding to work my Eezz D3 had a frame failure. The ball joint eye bolt that holds the seatpost up when unfolded broke in half. I'm not holding out much hope for this bike as it was discontinued. I contacted Dahon USA and we'll see how that works out but I had 5 years of riding it to work and I'm satisfied with this purchase. It was a great bike for my needs. I paid only 500.00 for it new and got 5 years of riding it back and forth to work. I think I now understand why this frame was discontinued but it was a solid bike until it wasn't.

Schwinnsta

Pictures, please.

Ron Damon

I m a g e s !

Duragrouch

I'll be curious to see if only a bolt broken, or only a ball joint (heim joint?), or welded attachment to structure. I think I vaguely know the frame, I think this was one of those "gravity folders" with the frame hinge at bottom and weight of bike holds it unfolded. Later ones came with Deltech, stronger, but I think not earlier ones.

CrimsonEclipse

The Dahon tradition endures!

Duragrouch

I looked at videos online of it folding and unfolding. It sounds like this breakage is not on the frame itself, but a linkage attached to the seatpost bottom that automatically raises and lowers the lower seatpost when unfolding and folding. If so, that sounds fixable. I'll eagerly await pics.

Duragrouch

Only if they blow it off, then the cycle will be complete. TBD.

tds101 

Are they going to deny it even happened, and lock down the forums and blame owners of "improper usage" ? THEN the cycle would be complete, like what Tern did. If not, there's no "cycle" to be talking about...

tcs

I only ever saw one of these bikes and my memory isn't crystal on this, but: the ball joint eye bolt pulls the seat post up when unfolding, but the seatpost is held up when unfolded by closing the seatpost collar/quick release like most folding bikes, isn't it?





The 'eyebolt' part would not seem to be under any force once the bike is unfolded and the seatpost collar/clamp is latched closed tight.

Duragrouch

Well, Dahon said I was too tall (I'm 7" less than the max rated height), and I was too heavy (I was 60 lbs less than the rated max at the time, and had not fit that frame with racks or panniers). And then blew me off.

Back when that happened, I joined BF, but didn't see any signs of same failure. I didn't know where to look. I only became aware of the Folding group almost 3 months ago now, and in that short time, I've seen plenty of the same failure in the same spot on others' bikes of the same model and vintage. Their design countermeasures in following models seems to have greatly reduced the incidence of the same failure.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying or defending issues with Brand T. But there's a lot of this going around. And I think more reasons than that for few LBSs in my town (a huge biking city) now carrying Brand D, way down from previously. Brand BF? Everything I've read is that they trip over themselves and pull muscles, running so fast to resolve any customer issue. Their fold is messy to me, but something to consider in the future.

tds101 

I believe you. I had to pay for a defective, damaged, recalled folding one piece handlepost, when they should have replaced it for free. All because I wasn't the first owner of the folder. Still, the situation you had isn't the same as what was done by Tern. I would know, as I'm one of the people who was locked out of their forums, not knowing why it was happening. I then started to see people create accounts here, and then seeing pictures of the damaged bikes, and injuries that had occurred. The entire time this was going on, Tern was telling everyone it was their fault. I can see the correlation between the two situations, but I don't think they're the same in totality.

I personally wouldn't purchase another Dahon bike, because they're overpriced, underspecced, and have crap customer service. I WOULD probably purchase a Tern, because they've come a long way after the all the crap that happened a few years back. But you haven't been hospitalized, have you? Seriously injured, right? Have the Dahon company, as a whole, gone PUBLIC to blame you for everything? Especially if you had been injured? Cut the bs grouch. The "great walls of babble" are sometimes unnecessary. Especially since I'm a Tern customer in this situation.

Duragrouch

Well, I went to the Dahon dealer when I became aware of the handlepost recall. They swapped out the lower post quick, just lifted off the upper and didn't need to pull off the bars or anything. I loaded the folded bike in my car, took it home. It wasn't until the next day I noticed that the bars now canted to the left; The bore for the steering tube was out of square with the rest of the lower assembly. Called the LBS, they had already trashed my old lower. Contacted Dahon, sent them a pic from behind the bike showing seatpost and handlebar post now not parallel in the rear view, nope, no new lower. I've run across this in other industries; Something out of production tolerance? Don't trash it, use it as service parts. I wish I had tried to determine the cause of the recall before bringing the bike in, if a defect in the structure or latch, or just the safety catch; Everything seemed to work fine on my original base.

tds101 

The LBS screwed up by not installing an entirely new handlepost, and tried to save parts, so Dahon was right in this instance. BUT...Dahon is so damn annoying to get assistance from. I was lucky that the USA rep was a member of the forums, and he DID try to get Dahon to replace the handlepost for free - they refused. Now, he's retired, and we have no one we can actually speak with. That's why I tend to recommend Zizzo and Origami bikes so much. That ability to speak DIRECTLY with someone is a major influence for me. It's not about being "American Made" either, since we should all know these are bikes manufactured and assembled overseas. It's just about getting help with a product. Tern, they're back in the good graces of the public (which is fantastic IMO), Dahon is rapidly losing respect (because of greed and neglecting their base), and the two companies I've mention I have great respect for BECAUSE of their customer service and ability to put out a decent bike for a respectable price point for North America. I wish we could easily get brands like Java and FnHon easier, and had someone to assist when needed, bit that's a pipe dream on my part.

2_i 

We keep our Dahons overseas, where we had a great Dahon dealer a few miles away. Incidentally, that dealer also represented Tern and a few other brands. They overhauled both our bikes at some point to better-than-new condition. Unfortunately, that dealer closed - I suspect e-bikes had some impact on this - leaving us in limbo for a couple of years. Fortunately, a new one opened a lengthy bike ride away. We will be checking that new dealer this summer.

Duragrouch

I'm not sure if that is true or not. Did you have one of the posts replaced under recall, and did they do the whole post, bottom and top? Certainly it would have been a lot more effort to pull off the grips, brake levers and shifter. But evidently the lower part was the part that needed replacing from recall, and that's the part that is off. There's nothing wrong with the upper post (this is a telescoping post), although now they don't match, the top post is kinda a cross between copper and black color. The clamp for the handlebars is not off, I can see the bars are canting because the whole post is canting, starting from the base. I had to check this carefully because the post bottom is tapered, but yeah, the bore for the steering tube clamp is out of square laterally with the housing, which also means the bottom doesn't sit flat on the headset, a dead giveaway, no way to correct that. Now, I've also seen them out of square fore/aft (on a different bike of mine, also recall replacement), so the bottom doesn't sit flat on the headset, but that means the post is perhaps a degree or two off tilt fore/aft, but I could correct the headset face by detaching the base, clamp around round stock in a lathe, and face the bottom with a skin-pass until level across it, reassemble. The fore/aft tilt would still be out of spec, but that's a bit less critical than canting left. I just haven't needed to use that bike yet, and I no longer have access to a great Hardinge toolroom lathe. Plus I shouldn't have to do that. All production bikes I have seen are perfect there. The recall/service parts are out of tolerance.

It's good to hear your positive experiences with the other brands, as I have no knowledge there. I was kinda enthusiastic for the Origami Bull, with discs and an FD mount, but I'm kinda wanting to stay with a 4130 steel frame if I can.

Ron Damon

These rigs ticks all your boxes, DG.





And you don't have to hawk a kidney to buy one.

Duragrouch

Yeah I had you in mind when I said steel, there was a previous thread where we talked about the general subject. The Gust, no, I don't want cantilevered chainstays. But the black one, with discs, yeah, that looks good. What model is it (EDIT: I now see Storm), and is it easily available in mainland USA, and ballpark cost?

Here, sourcing all the parts individually can get expensive, but if same source for parts like you get, I'm totally capable of assembling a full bike.

Ron Damon

No. You'd have to import and pay stiff tariffs.

Maybe I should go into business, shipping bike kits worldwide.

tcs

USA: no import tariffs under $800USD.

Ron Damon

So why are they so expensive to bring in?

tds101 

The entire ONE PIECE handlepost was replaced at my expense. The bike shop should have replaced ALL of your handlepost. That means removing off the handlebars and replacing the entire thing. Your bike would be ridable right now.

Now, you mentioned the Origami Bull. I like it, it's got a really nice weight limit (360 lbs max) that allows the carrying of a lot of gear, but I do understand your preference for steel. It tends to bend before it breaks. Also easier to repay.

tds101 

That's why most of us don't order the bikes and have them delivered to the North America. The bike/frame is inexpensive for you to purchase, but once we attempt to order it the price shoots up exponentially. You might see $200 and we'll see a $500 price, WITHOUT even calculating in shipping and handling. Even when I've seen Java bikes at excellent prices, the shipping cost kills it. Personally I'd love to see you starting a business, to help some of us get these great bikes. Hopefully you can find a solution to this...

Ron Damon

Hmmm...🤔

Duragrouch

Which model of yours had the one-piece handlepost? I thought all those ones recalled were two-piece telescoping, HOWEVER, the T-top one-piece post (with the double-clamp swing handlebars) on the Speed TR (and I think some of the sportier Speed models) may also have been aluminum and from the same era, so might have had the same lower latch.

The one-piece stem on my early Speed is 100% steel with a much different lower latch (similar to the frame hinge, thus also greater hand force to unlatch, the later designs are much easier to work), and that steel post is holding up great; Fortunately I don't need to fold it often. However, it has a longer clamp around the steer tube than the later posts, so when I swapped my frame after it cracked, I had to keep the old fork in order to use the old post.

Aluminum frames, the key is the welds. After seeing cracks at the edges of prominent (convex) welds, but no cracks ever on my Cannondale which has wonderfully dressed welds, sanded to a very smooth blend with the tubes, I think that is critical to prevent stress risers there. Which is why I was excited to see the thread showing, what the OP thought might be a replacement for the current Launch, but was actually labeled Archer; Not only did it have a 2x(10/11?) drivetrain, but I could clearly see that all the welds were dressed very smooth. Tern has recovered by upping their game considerably, going for the higher end of the market and not trying to compete at the lower end; So Dahon might be trying for a similar strategy. We'll be lucky if that model makes it here, but watch out for the price. I'd like it if Bike Friday updated their design, at the very least with a folding (not removeable) handlepost (though mine can also be removed in a minute, just the clamp bolt and then the 10mm headset tension bolt), and also improving the design of the rear triangle, I think the current design is for minimal tooling cost when they started out, but it's not optimum in terms of weight. Given the same price and features, I'd go Bike Friday in a heartbeat.

Oh and also, Ron Damon has said he feels more comfortable on a bi-fold, with a steel frame, and based on him and others' experiences, I think a bi-fold when folded, the hinge is more vulnerable to break on aluminum versus steel.

Duragrouch

Yeah I've seen the same on Brompton clones from Asia. It's only economical if I decide to tour Asia, buy one there for light touring, then bring it back on the plane. Which may be a really good plan for a trip.