SRAM Reviews 70

I’ve recently bought second hand from a friend with more money than sense hand a top end bike with SRAM Red brakes and gears.
The great mechanism works brilliantly but, there is an obvious and massive design fault with the brake lever.
Where you push the buttons, the piece of plastic is just far too deep, so much so that it is nigh on impossible to set the brakes such that your hand is comfortable and the brakes engage early enough.
I’m sure they will resolve this one day, but I’d avoid for now. Shimano doesn’t have this issue.

SRAM or scam? Overpriced, underperforms, over complicated, not as compatible as advertised with a cheap feel. Not as classy, well made, reliable or as good quality as Shimano. Very frustrating when the bike is equipped with this junk!

Madly expensive stuff that stops working after a few weeks (eTap red derailleur) and the “guarantee” does not cover the work

I have had non-stop problems with hydraulic AXS disc brake levers gaining dead throw on steep descents where hard braking is required. After repeated hard braking, the brake levers gain dead throw to a point where the levers go all the way to the handlebars before engaging. I have been trying to work through my local dealer for 18 months to get this addressed. During these 18 months, I have had the brakes bled 5 times. This last round, the dealer also replaced hoses, compression nuts, brake pads and other parts and ended up charging me $332 in parts and labor because SRAM refuses to address the problem (this in addition to having been charged $130 for two previous brake bleeds). Each of these rounds of maintenance resulted in decent performance for 2-3 rides before the problem returned. The bike only has 3000 miles on it, and in spite of the brake bleeds and hardware replacements, it has degraded to a point where it's not safe to ride any more due to the loss of braking power. SRAM doesn't seem to care if I lose braking on a steep descent and go off a cliff as they have completely ghosted my dealer in his several attempts to get them to respond to the problem. I could not be more appalled at their complete lack of interest in putting any effort into resolving this dangerous issue.

Updated 01 Nov 2022: So, remarkably, the day after I posted this complaint, my dealer was able to reach an agreement with the SRAM district rep to warranty the brakes and calipers. I suspect that's a Karmic coincidence but nonetheless, I felt it appropriate to post the update. I'm changing the rating from 1 star to 3 because I'm still annoyed that it took 18 months of lobbying to get resolution.

I am extremely disappointed with my Sram Red etap rear mech. It is on a summer bike so only used in good weather and 5 to 6 months of the year. After the first 6 months the bike was put away in the house until the start of the following summer. The mech wouldn't work so I took it back to the shop where I purchased it from, they got it working again. The same happened the following year. Bearing in mind we had covid. and lock down so the bike and rear mech were hardly used at all. This year when I came to use the bike for the first time it stopped working in the middle of a ride, then it started working again then stopped and this went on for the rest of the ride. I took the bike back to the shop they couldn't get the mech to work satisfactorily either it continued to work intermittently. So this mech has had very little use certainly not £500+ worth of use. I was expecting quality from Sram products but this has not been the case here I am extremely dissatisfied with this product. A very expensive product that has not been worth the money. I would like to here what Sram have to say about this problem as it is obviously an issue that keeps happening to the expense of their customers. Do Sram accept emails from customers so at least they can give an explanation to a complaint and a chance to correct this problem? I have not been able to find any contact details at all,

Rockshock reverb axs dropper 4 times the cost of comparison droppers last 10 months rockshock uk refuse warranty on the case that it should have been serviced. After 10 months of light use. absolute garbage will never purchase a sram product again

Excellent email customer service for rockshox forks, responded by email with technical support as needed. Would recommend

I bought a ZIPP 303s wheelset based on the reviews, the warranty and life happens programme.
I damaged the front wheel, well within the warranty period and ZIPP agreed to replace but in short, 3 months on and still no sign of the replacement. Extremely frustrating to deal with. Constant miscommunication and an absolute blase attitude - they couldn't care less if it takes 6 months or indefinitely.
The most recent communication from SRAM was to my local dealer, confirming that the damaged Wheel was collected by SRAM/Zipp and being shipped to them and so they provided a tracking number. 1 week later and the tracking disappeared. The dealer investigated why this happened and found it was shipped to somewhere in the Netherlands- approx. 1200kms west. The dealer was told by SRAM/ZIPP to "wait".
Further queries by my local dealer in the following weeks obviously didnt go down to well with SRAM/ZIPP. They then told my dealer, that actually the "Life Happens Programme" is not in fact covered by the warranty and they don't have to replace the Wheel. They were effectively putting themselves out and implied they were doing this as a sort of favour. Just unbelievable messing.
I always wanted to buy ZIPP Wheels. I'm extremely disappointed. I would not recommend anyone buy ZIPP Wheels based on their Warranty. Let down badly by ZIPP/SRAM.
Update: It took 7.5 months to get the replacement. Replacement cost €250. RRP approx. €500.

Bought a new bike from CRC. Came with SRAM NX components all warrantied for 24 months. After 18 months of occasional use, one part costing well over £100 failed and no longer operated within tolerance due to their ridiculous decision to use plastic and not metal as part of a mounting bushing. The retailer was unable to supply a replacement as SRAM don't appear to think that providing replacement parts to existing customers is something they need to do (they have prioritised supplied to bike manufacturers instead). Have now had to buy new wheel, rotor, cassette, mech & shifter to migrate to the bike to Shimano as I am tired of waiting for warranty replacement and cannot find any SRAM parts for love or money. Useless components, useless service. I will never, ever buy any SRAM bicycle parts ever again. I have similar parts from Shimano that are well over 10 years old and still working perfectly and have NEVER had a bike part fail like this through regular use.

I will happily update this review if I ever get a response from SRAM.

SRAM don’t give a monkey’s about their customers. I bought their halo Red AXS groupset in August 2020. The inbuilt power meter has started to drain batteries, only lasting 1 hour or less from new!
SRAM have shown zero concern about the failure and don’t care that the warranty return will prevent me cycling for an extended period, maybe three months they say.
There are so many ways that they could do something to effect a fast exchange, but they just don’t care.
Stick to Shimano!

I had a SRAM Red eTap 2020 and it was nothing less than fantastic. Very fast gear change, overall lightweight, fast pairing

Terrible support. The parts are good, really nice stuff, but you're on your own if they go wrong.
I bought a power meter advertised for pushing your limits and extreme mountain biking. Clipped a rock within a couple of months and that was the end of it. SRAM wouldn't fix it and would only offer a discount on a new one.

Woeful customer service.

I asked SRAM UK about servicing a Power Meter, they offered no help at all.

I will never buy another SRAM product again.

I find it disheartening that you cannot contact them for support. I have been loyal to their product for a long time but no longer. I have purchased 2 new bikes this past year - Both equipped with Sram Eagle. One NX and one SX. Neither shifts correctly and both systems skip gears every time. Both bikes have been returned to the local bike shop to be adjusted. (2 different shops) Neither shop is able to get either bike shifting satisfactorily. I have been riding and racing mountain bikes for a very long time. I have used many brands of groupsets and set up my own bikes, yet I cannot adjust either of these bikes to shift. Sram will not respond or stand behind their product.

I'm missing a small, black plastic disc for a S7 clickbox. It's a ~10c part that I personally think is /not/ correctly engineered. The local dealer says I can only buy it with a new ~50$ clickbox. What a waste of ressources!
To make matters worse, SRAM as a company is more or less /impossible/ to contact. As are many large companies - but I still think it's pathetic to disregard your customers like that! Even on Facebook you only get an automated (unsincere!) database reply - and I can see more (ex-) customers are very unhappy... My immediate conclusion: Avoid the parts until the customer service recognizes who ultimately pay their saleries!

Update: SRAM has officially abandoned the internal gear hub market and this seems to be the cause of the very scarce/expensive spare part market...

I've finally had to accept that I am in a bad relationship with SRAM. I've been a loyal SRAM user for over a decade going so far as to making bike choices based on whether they were kitted w/ SRAM. We currently have 2 cyclocross bike, 3 gravel bikes, 1 road bike and 4 MTBs in our household all kitted with SRAM. When I've gotten bikes that where kitted with the competition I've stripped them down, sold the parts on eBay and had them rebuilt with SRAM. In retrospect it's unclear why I ever showed this kind of loyalty when they've never really shown they appreciated or even wanted that loyalty-- I've had three legitimate drive train / shifter related warranty claims in 10 years that SRAM rejected even though several different SRAM authorized dealers independently agreed they were legitimate warranty claims. The final straw came when this week when I got a double wammy: The brand new 30 Gold RL fork I purchased for a 2010 Noble MTB Restoration project proved to be defective out of the box. Rather than authorize my Local Bike Shop (and authorized SRAM / RockShox dealer) to fix it or send a new one SRAM agreed to warranty it only if we sent it back for servicing at the factory without any turn around time quote. That means best case my MTB is "in the shop" for 2 weeks while I wait for the fork to be returned. On top of that they sent a Recon instead of a 30 Gold RL remote lock-out and have basically ignored the exchange request. While it's true that they are living up to the letter of their warranty policy it's also true that their warranty policies are unfriendly to users. I guess I expected (wrongly) that SRAM valued brand loyalty and would be able to see the bigger picture and understand that experiences like this drive loyal customers like me to the competition.

If I could I would give you any stars !! You read messages but ignore them how is that acceptable I asked about some information to help me out but you just blank it, have a little read the not reply about as useful as a chocolate teapot sort your selfs out 🥊

I have had 5 pairs of Rockshox forks: 2 came with bikes and I have had 3 replacements; 2 of which I have purchased.
First pair I bought from CRC to replace an old failed set of Dart's. These failed within 6 months and were replaced by Rockshox with no quibble - great!. They have been fine since.

The second pair I bought to replace a set of failed forks on my wife's bike. They started to fail after 6 months and returned these to CRC who then sent them back to Rockshox.
Rockshox took over a month to even look at the forks.

These mountain bike forks apparently need servicing every 50 hours - no documentation to state this is supplied. Not sure how you are supposed to know.

But that would be irrelevant anyway as they had been used for less than 50 hours. They were only used on forest trails, for 1 - 1 1/2 hours maybe every other week and hardly ever during the winter. So significantly less than 50 hours and well within their expected usage parameters.
Apparently they had been abused and are now a right off and it wasn't their fault and haven't been serviced.

I will not be using Rockshox forks again nor would I recommend them. 2 out of 5 have failed which I don't necessarily mind but I do expect companies to hold their hands up and admit when their goods are faulty.

Great parts, but support is poor. Had a broken part, which is still under warranty but eventually gave up as their response times are very slow. Back to Shimano parts.