Cannondale Issues Voluntary Recall of OPI Stems

So much for the weight savings that opi stem provided…

“No accidents or injuries have been reported and Cannondale already has a solution in place.”

So… no reason to do it in other words. Sounds like Cannondale covering their butts, and nothing else.

@Mike- yeah, it’s terrible when a company sacrifices profits in the name of safety before a real problem even appears. It’s so selfish and brutal.

seems to me it would have been easier to replace the steerer tube and stem with the clamp on style that doesn’t suffer from this issue.

Props to Cannondale for looking after their customers though.

http://forums.mtbr.com/cannondale/bad-lefty-failure-877722.html

How about this?

There could be no accidents or injuries, yet mechanics could still have found cracks in the threads during regular servicings, such as when removing the fork to send for service. The cracking could be gradual enough, and the Lefty service interval short enough (insert lefty quality joke here) that this was found before anything catastrophic happened.
Personally, I wonder how much this really applies to their current, revised OPI with the steerer tube thread flange and interior spacers.

@Cheese Ok, I misspelled “shearing”. But yeah, there was a rash of Trek steerer tubes shearing off back about 5 years ago.

This –> “To address this risk, all OPI equipped forks must be fitted with a special wedge kit that locks and reinforces the threaded connection between the OPI stem and the steering tube. This remedy restores appropriate fatigue life.” makes it sound like they install the wedge on existing OPI stems.

This –> “to have the part replaced at no charge” makes it sound like they replace the OPI stem, but does not mention the wedge.

In a nutshell, I read the release as saying Cannonade would install a wedge, not as saying that Cannonade would replace the stem and also insert a wedge. I fault the poorly written press release. On other sites, only replacement wedge kits are mentioned, along with decals to indicate augmented OPI stems, but not that stems will be replaced. Anyway, I still don’t know what exactly Cannondale is doing in this recall.

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but I don’t see how the wedge can “restore fatique life”. Any damage or fatique that has occurred cannot be undone; the most the wedge can do is halt or slow additional fatique and thereby reduce the likelihood of failure.

Totally agree with Dmitry.
Recently lauched 2016 Cannondale Catalog doesn´t show any bike with OPI Stem. One of the most attractive features of this bike are the Lefty and OPI Stem, and now Cannondale it´s taking off the OPI…. sounds very strange to me…. Why is Cannondale putting away such a great design if the already have the solution… Or maybe they Still doesn´t??

Lucio,
it sad to hear it. I think, if you hear cracking sound, the threaded connection of these two parts (steerer+stem) not so stiff and the wedge inside the sterrer does not resolve the problem completely. May be the wedge is not installed peoperly or may be the wedge is useless. In any case cracking sound is not good, because in length of time playing and rubbing parts is breaking each other, loosing the connection.