SKF Bottom Brackets after 5 Years

It’s been five years since Compass Bicycles started selling SKF bottom brackets, and three years since we became the world’s exclusive distributor. At that point, we extended the warranty to 10 years, since we had great confidence in the quality of these bottom brackets. They have patented labyrinth seals, and their oversize bearings run directly on the spindle and shell. There was no reason to doubt the claim of the SKF engineers: These bottom brackets should last 100,000 km of rainy riding. Since most of us don’t ride in the rain all the time, they should last even longer in real life.

Now the first bottom brackets that we’ve installed are half-way through their minimum expected lifespan. I am happy to report that they have proven as reliable as we had hoped. Both on our own bikes and on most customers’ machines, they simply do their job. Mark and I installed ours four years ago, and then forgot about them. They still spin as smoothly as they did on the day we installed them.
Out of several thousand bottom brackets sold, we’ve had fewer than a dozen warranty returns. Some were due to grit getting trapped in the outer seals. The seals did their job, and the contamination never reached the bearings, but the grit could be felt when turning the bottom bracket spindles by hand. While this isn’t a defect, we replaced the units for new ones.

There were three fluke failures, with the most bizarre coming from the rider who overhauled his bike, reassembled it, and the next morning, he found both cranks lying on the ground next to the bike. The spindle had broken on both sides! Since this was an ISIS “Mountain” bottom bracket, we replaced it with the “Freeride” version, which has a smaller hole in the spindle, and thus much stronger spindle. Considering the huge loads a bottom bracket undergoes, this rate of warranty returns is extremely small. It confirms that the confidence we placed in these bottom brackets has not been misplaced. We look forward to the next five years of selling and riding with these bottom brackets.
SKF bottom brackets are available with JIS and ISO tapers, as well as for ISIS cranks. They come in BSC, Italian and French threading. Click here for more information.