Fake shimano chain?

[Captain Stupido]

Fitted one of these (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/362485855261) chains today. It was so cheap that I had doubts about it being a genuine Shimano one... but I'm not generally a snob about chains - cheap ones have always done the trick for me - so I didn't worry too much.

Anyway, it basically seems fine, but the packaging does seem a bit wonky, and it came with what seems to be a useless "powerlink" style joiner, despite the instructions suggesting the use of a connecting pin (not supplied).

Was a bit of a pain to fit because I sized it allowing for the powerlink, but the link refused to "lock" into place. Even with a really good tug, or standing on the pedals. In the end I joined it with my Park chain breaker which was fine, but it meant breaking and joining in 2 places, as I had to add in a bit extra.

Has anyone else come across this, or am I being really daft and missing something obvious.

 

[mattr]

Warnung?
Fits for Shimano 105?

Fake as a fake thing.

And joining a 9 speed chain with a chain breaker could well result in pain, as you'll have a baggy pin/plate fit in two places now.

 

[Captain Stupido]

joining a 9 speed chain with a chain breaker could well result in pain, as you'll have a baggy pin/plate fit in two places now.

Yeah... I've got away with it in the past though... dunno. :|

 

[mattr]

Depends on how crap the fake chain is!

Could be better, could be worse.....

 

[Woz]

Yup. Fake. HG73 is my favorite 9 speed chain, and always there is a joining pin.

 

[ishaw]

Re:

Shimano chains don't come with joining links, looks fake to me, though warnung could be German.

 

[mattr]

You're right actually, the text under the warnung doesn't look english. But why is the rest of it in bad english?

And only 11 and up come with a quick link (not that anyone is riding XTR 12 yet).

Still fake as a fake thing.

 

[drcarlos]

I can’t believe shimano are still soldiering on with the joining pin. It’s just crap. Anyway they fake everything these days, even Cree led emitters that sell for less than £2 each in bulk, what’s the point really? I sent back some fake Samsung 18650 cells last week, eBay is rife with them, fortunately there are some sellers online that specialise in them and they are only about 30p more than the fake cells for genuine.

Carl

 

[Captain Stupido]

They're all over eBay. In fact a search for "hg73" doesn't bring up anything other than the chain I bought. Most of the pictures show the (apparently useless) powerlink type joiner too...

I'm getting paranoid about the chain breaking now...

It's on my wife's bike. Which is good and bad. Good because she won't ride it very hard (or often), bad because I don't want to be responsible for her having an accident!

As I say, I have joined 9 speed chains this way before with no issues. On bikes that were ridden hard (and often).

Maybe I should take it out for a proper shakedown.

Or maybe I should just buy a decent chain!

Bloody modern stuff.

 

[mk one]

The chain could be fine, just the connecter.

Maybe thats why they got hold of loads of cheap chains to sell on, because they didnt have the pin included? they got hold of some cheap links and threw them in with it.