you never overloaded it?
never hucked off too high of a drop?
torqued everything to spec?
didn’t add any unintended parts or accessories that might have cause greater than intended stresses?
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None of my bikes are less than five years old 
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Lifetime warranties are kinda dumb and unreasonable, but if a company says lifetime without any small print, then they either honour that or I’m coming with the pitchforks and torches. The poor fuck overpaid for that frame assuming that the company wasn’t lying to him and actually meant lifetime when they said lifetime… the concept of “I never have to buy another one” is worth quite a bit of $$$, especially if it’s titanium or some other fancy tech that people see as untested and possibly sketchy. If you’re gonna pull in the customers with that promise, you better hold up your end of the bargain.
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Sure I have, and I know others do to. I used to work at an LBS I get it. But saying “things wear out” is not the same as saying “things break if misused”.
In many cases (speaking of all consumer goods, not just bikes here) it’s true that if there is a defect, it will show up immediately. But that is not always the case, some defects take years to accumulate before something goes wrong in a noticeable way, especially if the defect is improper material spec.
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Theoretically, normal use will never reach or breach the fatigue limit for a “standard” titanium frame.
On the other hand, Litespeed specifically mentions fatigue and wear in their terms. Perhaps their designs and materials choices result in a lower fatigue limit than other titanium framebuilders.
It reminds me of a sort-of similar situation where a customer wanted to warranty a stainless steel Indy Fab because the BB shell was rusting after less than a year. The caveat was that dude rode all winter through caustic NYC road salt and put it away wet. Pretty sure his claim was denied.
shartmo if you make and sell a super light or wiggly frame that has those characteristics because it’s designed with a shorter service life in mind, you have an obligation to make that clear to buyers. similarly, parts for racing like motors get rebuilt or replaced on a much more frequent interval than production parts, it’s known and accepted for the level of performance they offer. I struggle with defining standard design life of a standard production bike frame at 5 years or less though
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Just never ride your bike if u want it forever
Be like me mostly
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Really? My endpoint is 8(?) years old, when should I expect it to break?
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see this is why i constantly sell bikes. never get attached, use money saved on framesaver for more colorful anodized trinkets.
bikes aint shit.
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should have already thrown it away and bought another one
If you’re a company and you don’t want to honor your lifetime warranty, you always have the option of just going out of business. If you don’t take the option yourself, consumers might force it on you when they find out you don’t stand behind your product the way you said you would.
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this only works if you are still small and can’t get a bailout
so is old lugged steel higher tech than modern throw away bikes?
tech != durability atmo
Trek 420 is the apex of bicycles?
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Refill sealant on the solstices and equinoxes.
Draw a pentagram in silicon
light candles at each point
burn a smudge stick of local flora (cedar in the PNW duh)
Then I use a big 40cc syringe to inject that shit right through the valve and replace any sticky cores.
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Nah. But the two that did were both less than 3 years old. And in both cases, it was a defect.
What I mean is that ALL things wear out. The idea of a “lifetime frame” is as silly as a lifetime goretex jacket.
Weren’t we talking about some guy recently that broke a BMC or some other cool steel frame after putting 30k miles on it or something?
If a 20 year old consistently used frame brakes in think a reasonable reaction is “yep, that’ll happen”.
And yeah, I think promising lifetime warranties are at best optimistic and at worst just a built in cost for giant companies that know X% of frames will absolutely break due to defect.
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From REI bro 
I don’t think it’s realistic to expect a frame to never break, but I also think that it’s not ‘silly’ to expect decades out of a solidly built frame getting normal use.
It’s not like a chain or tire. It’s the piece that survives multiple sets of drivetrains and other components being worn through.
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Agreed that it’s not the same as a wear part.
It’s not unreasonable to expect a frame to last 10s of thousands of miles.
It’s also not unreasonable that some won’t.
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