Mavic buys and tests a "replica" of its own wheels: "These counterfeit wheels are dangerous and will lead to serious injury or death"

In 2020 the French brand Mavic detected a source selling counterfeit products with their brand name coming directly from Asia, following which they started an investigation and legal action and bought a pair of these wheels for their own tests.

Mavic buys a pair of counterfeit wheels and submits them to a lab test safety evaluation

In a recent press release, Mavic has detailed all the results of its evaluations and offers advice on how to differentiate between originals and imitations.

How to visually differentiate original Mavic wheels from counterfeits

Mavic starts the press release by giving clues on how to know if a wheel is counterfeit. To do so, it advises to look at the quality of the design or the stickers themselves, which is low or basic quality in counterfeits. In addition, it points out that counterfeits usually do not include the Mavic logo on the hubs or the one included is wrong. 

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On technical questions they confirm that the counterfeit Mavic wheels do not comply with the specifications of the original models, having a different number of spokes or in the height and width of the rim itself. They also have basic hubs and the spokes are bent in a J-shape.

Safety test results 

The first test was on braking efficiency (ISO 4210 norm) and was not meant to be destructive as it consists of applying the rim to 10 braking tests to see how the braking surface performs before subjecting it to the humid braking test or harder braking. Braking the wheel at 35km/h with a 130kg rider+bike. The rim was destroyed and the test did not really start.

The second test consisted in applying 50 cycles to evaluate the effect of a real braking power test and in this case the wheels were deformed, delaminated and completely worn out. The rim was completely destroyed.

The third test consisted of assessing the lateral endurance of the wheels and is performed by applying a lateral load of 30kg with the wheels at 45 km/h. According to Mavic, their wheels will hold up to 200 km for the spokes and 300 km for the hubs under this pressure. In the copy of the Mavic wheels the spokes broke in half the kilometres and the hubs only withstood 10% of Mavic's limit.

Mavic's conclusions on the counterfeit wheels

Mavic has been categorical in its own testing of these counterfeit wheels: "These counterfeit wheels are dangerous and will lead to serious injury or death. They are failing the very basic validation tests that would ensure some safety and reliability to the owner".

It also encourages you to make sure before you buy a Mavic wheelset that it is genuine by asking for the serial number and checking it on www.tech-mavic.com or www.mavic.com/care, where you can try to register it to enforce your warranty. If the system rejects the request, it is likely to be a counterfeit product.