Roval debuts lifetime warranty for all wheels, plus coverage for used wheels
Roval Components has announced a new lifetime warranty policy for its entire line of road, mountain, cyclocross, and gravel wheels — including both aluminum and carbon fiber models.
As usual, the warranty covers “defects in material and workmanship”, but there’s also now a two-year, no-fault, and no-cost crash replacement program as well. (It’s for US riders only). According to Roval, the so-called “It Happens” policy applies to any damage that occurs while riding — regardless of if it happens during a race, during reckless riding, or whatever.
That crash replacement program unfortunately only applies to the original owner. However, in a rather surprising (but very much welcomed) move, the warranty against defects and workmanship still applies to secondhand (or even thirdhand) owners for two years from the original purchase date.
In the event of damage after the coverage period has expired, or in the case of damage that occurs outside of riding (say, while pulling into a garage while your bike is on the roof of your car), owners of Roval wheels will instead have access to a tiered replacement cost based on how long ago the wheels were purchased. Wheels that are less than three years old can be replaced at a 35% discount from retail, wheels that are between three and four years old will be eligible for a 25% discount, and wheels that are between four and five years old can be replaced at a 20% discount.
Roval will now replace your wheels (for free!) if you damage them while riding (within certain conditions, of course). But if a train runs over them, sorry, you’re out of luck.
There are a few other caveats to note.
Roval’s new warranty coverage only applies to wheels purchased after September 1, 2019, and wheels must be registered within 30 days of purchase for the coverage to take effect. And unfortunately, the crash replacement policy is currently only valid for the American market.
General wear-and-tear isn’t covered, either, nor is any damage that’s deemed to be purely cosmetic.
Either way, it’s encouraging to see this sort of enhanced coverage for something as expensive as wheels, and that the trend seems to be spreading across the industry. Enve announced a similar lifetime coverage policy this past June, for example, and Santa Cruz already offers comprehensive coverage for its Reserve carbon wheelsets.
In other words, in case you’ve been hesitant to run carbon wheels in the past, the bike industry is clearly motivated to help allay those fears — and unless these companies are prepared to give away a bunch of wheels for free, it seems they’re increasingly confident that these wheels will hold up over the long haul, too.
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