Garmin Vector 3 Nightmare

Equipment
1

In September of 2019 I purchased the Garmin Vector 3 power meter pedals. All was good until March when I was completing antelope and suddenly my right foot hit the ground. I look down and my pedal is connected to my shoe and took some threads from my crank with it. Get replacement pair and 1 month later same thing happens.

Upon checking the spindle is removed from the pedal body by about 2mm and is pretty much seized up using reasonable force. Upon contacting garmin they tell me essentially that I incorrectly installed them and my setup might not be right for their product (R8000 cranks). So now I’ve got thread damage to 2 cranks woo hoo and no suggestions from garmin on how to prevent this from happening in the future.

Safe to say not sure I will put my 3rd vector units on my bike

Wondering if anyone else has had a similar situation happen to them with the Vector 3 pedals

2

Not to the extent where I stripped the pedal out, but definitely the pedal body spindle separation is a known issue, discussed in this thread.

Good luck!

3

Never been more glad for TrainerRoad considering if this happened out on the road at high power who knows how it would have ended

4

Yea, a seized spindle can cause it to unthread from the crank.

A band-aid solution is to torque the pedal spindle tighter, but Garmin should really recall these things if the problem is that prevalent.

5

Thinking I’ll just have to open it up before each ride and make sure the cartridge is at 10N-m. Kinda lost my cool working with CS yesterday and asked if I’m supposed to check the cartridge torque mid ride too

6

Yea i wouldn’t bother.

The last thing a road cyclist needs to worry about is a pedal spindle seizing for no apparent reason. If it were me, I’d fleabay them immediately.