Worst component you've ever unfortunately dealt with

[pondlife]

so i've read some posts from members asking about best this and best that,
it's about time you lot outed the worst components you've ever dealt with.
be them badly designed, frustatingly badly manufactured, impossible to adjust or just plain shite

i like to place before you my exhibit
the Shimano Dura Ace 9 sp downtube shifter, my frustration with these over more than a week almost ended up with me taking my angle(angel) grinder to them :evil:

what components do you regret fitting to your cycle?

 

[pigman]

Be interesting to know what it was that made those levers so frustrating. Did you have probs where you had to bodge, eg. Missing bits, unsuitable frame etc or are they badly designed for installation or operation?
So can we have reasons for something being the worst.

For me the most disappointing components were brand new campag centaur 10 speed ultra shift ergo levers. For the front mech the spring is too weak to hold the mech onto the large chain ring, needing a constant nudge to keep it there, and for the rear mech the feel is too wooly and not clunky enough for my tastes. Its put me off going campag for the new steed.

 

[Midlife]

............anything touched by Steyr-Daimler-Puch in the 1970's

Shaun

 

[torqueless]

The problem is often not so much the components themselves, but the connections between them...You know, Mr. 1.37" and Madamoiselle. 36mm (or is that miss 1.37" and Monsieur 36mm?) well anyway... whichever it is, they were both doing OK until someone decided to introduce them to eachother... now look!

Gears are probably notorious... I wouldn't know.. having consciously ignored every innovation since 6-speed blocks and 3/32 chains through a combination of poverty, stinginess and pigheadedness, but I reckon I have saved myself a vast amount of vexation as a result. (and like most stingy people, that is about all I have saved...)

Campag. NR/SR brake lever clips are pretty bad... does anyone have a technique for getting them into position without scratching the bars to pieces in the process?

 

[Iwasgoodonce]

I feel for the OP here. I have some seven speed 600 shifters. There are little pegs inside that control the indexing. They are amazingly fragile. I think one snapped when I gave it an angry look. The others snapped in use despite the fact that I was only using it in friction mode. I was saved when the left hand shifter just disappeared from my house. Gone! A real mystery. It did mean I was able to use the old Huret shifters though.

A rare slip from the big S.

 

[Ian Raleigh]

Modolo Kronos gear levers! Snapped in two within two month's of use.

Modolo Kronos brake levers on my lo pro, one lever arm snapped as I braked hard.

A modern Cinelli saddle! Hard as rock and killed my a*rse....gone!

Buying a modern re-make of the Turbo saddle which 'creaks' to death.

Re-equipping my modern Wilier road bike with new Campag' Veloce stuff and all the inside/outside of the allen key bolts started to rust to death.

Fitting Veloflex Record tyres to one of my bikes and puncturing, left stranded as I couldn't get one off my rim.

Buying a super light/slotted/hollow pin 10 speed chain and it snapped in three sections within a six months.

Fitting Campag' SR gear levers back on my old Raleigh, shite and always had to fiddle the lever to get the gears bang on, Put my Simplex Retro lever back on within a week...Bliss.

 

[N/B]

X-Lite Self-Extracting Crank Bolts. Awful soft cheesy pieces of sh!te that would only work if you didn't torque the crank up properly in the first place.
Money wasted on Pin Spanner to attach them too. Tore themselves apart on first removal, were immediately binned, and replaced with normal bolts and a Park crank puller.

 

[David B]

X-Lite Self-Extracting Crank Bolts. Awful soft cheesy pieces of sh!te that would only work if you didn't torque the crank up properly in the first place.
Money wasted on Pin Spanner to attach them too. Tore themselves apart on first removal, were immediately binned, and replaced with normal bolts and a Park crank puller.

I had a set of Brand X ones bought from CRC for the 'cross bike - truly naff. The Stronglight self-extractors that Spa Cycles sell are in a far superior league and I heartily recommend them.

Modolo Morphos combined brake/gear levers also gave me a fair bit of grief - the indexing went out of sync way too easily.

David

 

[legrandefromage]

Campagnolo indexing.

that is all.

 

[Pierre]

Campagnolo Xenon ergo levers. Cheap plastic internals. Practically disposable.