I just got this Soloist Team brand new from my LBS. This is the second road bike that I've owned. I must say it's much better than my old steel Viscount and rides way nicer than my dad's Giant OCR limited. Perfect riding as far as I'm concerned. And it's lighter than my dad's carbon Giant. He he.

 

Anyway, today, I noticed the strangest problem with my head tube. I've attached a picture to describe it. What do you all make of it and what do you think I should do about it? (100 points to whoever finds the problem first)

 http://picasaweb.google.com/inorman88/IanNormanPhotography/photo?authkey=SQlG8pMpF9Q#5218670363006884658

   

 

Ian 

Looks like the unthinkable has happened - they have spelled Cervelo wrong on the headtube (they've spelled it 'Cervelc').

 Hmm. Sort of annoying, that. My R3SL turned up with the CSC stickers fine on one side of the seat tube, but on the other side, the last C was missing its top half. I ignored it. If someone steals your bike, you've at least got a unique feature to identify it.

 I have the Red/White Soloist Team as well. My left chainstay says "Vroomen White D"

533 unread messages!  You need to clean up your inbox. 

 Thats pretty funny!

OK...Show of hands.....After reading this thread, how many checked all the letters, spelling, grammer, punctuation, etc on their Cervelo?

 This is a bit funny, but more seriously, it's a bit disconcerting as well. I've read other stories about Cervelo's mis-application of decals besides these. If this is an indicator of Cervelo's quality control, what other quality issues might be lurking that you can't see? Great design is only great if the execution is right.

I work in a manufacturing company and there are just certain things (such as inspections that are done visually) that are always going to have human error.  Luckily most of the critical aspects are usually things that can be measured by machines not subject to such errors.  I don't see it as evidence of anything worse lurking.

I also work for a manufacturing company.

It depends....If it is an isolated department or person, other aspects of manufacture may not be affected. However, if it is a fundamental flaw in watever QC system is in place, it could be more comprehensive. That said, my gut feeling is in agreement with you, that this involves the finishing process only. However, both the applicator of the decals and the clear coater should be catching this. Including this thread, I know of 4 incidences now involving Cervelo decals being mis-applied. I don't know of any instances with other manufactureres, although there must be some. Are there any "other" manufacturer stories out there from the forum members?

Finally, I'm sure this is a matter or great interest for Cervelo. (These guys are engineers. Something like this must drive them crazy). They've done super marketing to promote their cutting edge design and world class involvement. The last thing they want are riders at a rest stop standing around eating bagles and pointing at the mispell or missing letters on the Cervelo.

PAT. PANTING  he he he he

 533? That's light for a day. I'm more popular than you.

 Ian

 

hope you don't mind, but I just had a snoop around your picasaweb page. Really nice pictures. Very impressed.

Depending on the industry that you work in, mismarked or lack of markings can be a cause for legal action and a inter/national recall (moulded markings). In such cases, the error should be caught at the mould inspection/preparation stage after mould reception. Then if not spotted, inspection after the first prototypes are produced/product reviews/checklists and the procedure continues during development and should be caught fairly early. Since the decals are a finishing touch then a checklist should be used. Also, working overseas, we had to write the quality control manuals in relatively simple English and translate it into the local language. In agreement with others, it appears to be an aesthetics issue and if the frames did not meet/pass mechanical quality control there would be a flood of complaints by now. Personally, I would still take a quick stroll down the production line and peruse some of the paperwork and the quality control database.

Checklists and the like don't necessarily prevent issues though.  People performing the same operation time after time will get lulled into not paying full attention.  That's the problem with repetitive operations that don't have a way to be QC'd other than a human verification.

I don't know what the laser marking machine is like that does the logos on the SLT, but I'd like to see it.  We use laser etching on anodize every day, but our logos and text are never larger than about 1/2" high and the parts they go on less than 6 inches in any dimension.  I do know with the way we do it, the logos are on a computer, so the only way we could get a misspelling such as this would be if the program was wrong to begin with.  Our more common marking error is when a part gets held slightly off and a logo might be so close to an edge that it gets cut off.

I'm also impressed with the quality of the anodize on the SLT.  My bike looks pretty close to flawless.  At work we see anodize issues all the time (varying colors, voids, rack marks, blotches, etc).

for such an expensive alloy frame...that is unacceptable!!!!