How long do css rims last?

[blandie]

My 2007 Raven Tour had css (i.e. carbide) rims fitted. The bike has been used exclusively for commuting, and after 45000 miles, the rims seem to be fine - wheels true, braking surfaces flat. I'm delighted, having previously had a 17000 mile Sun Rhyno peel apart while negotiating a busy roundabout. However, I am starting to wonder how much life they have left. Have these rims ever been known to fail? Is there enough failure data to estimate a mean time to failure? Should I be thinking about replacing them?

[jags]

45000 miles on a set of wheels .i think i'll buy a set of css wheels.

[blandie]

> i think i'll buy a set of css wheels.

If you can handle the wet weather braking (or lack of it) they're good value. But if I'm about to hit a catastrophic failure, I'd like to preempt it.

[geocycle]

Those are big numbers! My Sun rims lasted 6500 miles before splaying out, my css rims have done 19,000 and still look very straight. Not even touched a spoke -thanks SJS.  Usage is important, mine is commuting, touring,rough stuff...

[jags]

i'm impressed so what rims /spokes and  hub is worth looking at from sjs and what kind of money for a wheel builds using  css rims.

[mickeg]

Since the CSS surface is still intact, I would only be concerned about hitting a big bump, corrosion of the metal inside the hollow area where you can't see it, cracking at the spoke holes, or vandalism by a drunk (I recall seeing a row of bikes in a bike rack outside a bar, every rear wheel was taco'd).

In other words, why would it not last forever if you are careful with it?  I think that the best comparison would be to a rim on a bike with disc brakes.

My CSS rims are used in winter where chemicals are used to de-ice road surfaces, so I suspect that corrosion will kill my rims before anything else will.

[blandie]

> so what rims /spokes

The wheels were built by Thorn for the bike (on Rohloff). I've never touched them, except for re-greasing the front hub at about 10000 miles, and wiping rims/spokes clean once a week or so.

> corrosion of the metal inside the hollow area where you can't see it

Yes, good point. With Marathon Plus tyres, I don't need to look inside very often. I suppose it is time to to give it a fine-toothed going over.

> hitting a big bump

With roads as they are, that's possibly the biggest risk.

> My CSS rims are used in winter where chemicals are used to de-ice road surfaces

Does that affect them visually - any signs of reactions, particularly on the braking surface? What prompted this question was some strange residue (perhaps just salt, but it looked quite ominous!) on the rim sides after last week's brief freeze.

[mickeg]

I have not seen any damage on my rims from de-icing chemicals, but I know that such chemicals wreak havoc on cars and trucks. 

[il padrone]

My CSS rims are now up to 27,000kms - the surface fine knurling is just beginning to show a bit of burnishing off. Once the carbide layer does wear off I'd expect them to be similar to regular rims and then give me at least another 20,000kms before finally cracking.

Rim wear at 19,000kms

[John Saxby]

Don't think they owe you much, Pete, after that sort of mileage!