Fanatec's Reliability

[girarcat]

Hello everyone.

I've been considering the purchase of some Fanatec products for a long time, due to their good value for money.
However, some threads and comments related to the reliability (or lack of) of their components are holding me back.

In my experience, online forums (of any type) are always filled with comments related to problems and issues, whereas few people get online just to let other people know how well their brand-new acquisition is working.

Because of that, I'd like to start this poll in order to assess the magnitude of the tragedy and try to find out the proportion of happy customers Vs angry customers before I make a final decision regarding whether or not Fanatec is the good way to go.

Please feel free to comment which Fanatec products have proved faulty for you and any other useful experiences you may have.

 

[AT_RubberDuck]

The first CLS Elite base (V1.0) I bought did loose center after a few days of usage. Got a replacement unit after sending the defective to Fanatec.
Unpacked the new Elite base, mounted to the rig, tried to attach my wheel. Was not possible because the contacts in the wheel shaft were up-side-down. New RMA case, got an upgrade to CSW 2.

With CSW2, CS V3 padels, shifter, handbrake, BMW rim, Porsche 918 rim, McLaren rim and F1 rim (V1) now problems so far. Hope will stay like this, received my DD2 today.

 

[maelstrom]

I think that people are missing the point here. The most important thing to come out of this thread for me is not how good or bad the RMA process is (and it does seem very variable for a high-profile manufacturer), it's the fact that almost half of the poll respondents had some problems with the products with over a quarter of them being major problems. That's a terrible hit rate for a major manufacturer whose products aren't cheap. The sample size may be very small but the fact that over half of the of people said they had no problems gives a little more credibility to the poll - it's not just unhappy customers complaining.

 

[Harpo]

I see this as a fair sampling. The thread's title should actually encourage those who've had a positive experience to click.

That said, it is clear that Fanatec's reliability is dismal at best.

 

[Please Stop This]

In my humble opinion this result represents only the case where disappointed customers react more often than satisfied ones. I wouldnt read it as you did Harpo. And the sample size is far too thin to be certain of anything (61 participants as of now). (edit: spelling)
edit2: btw, Harpo, is your shipping of fanatec replacement parts working now? you didnt tell, you only showed a picture of a not well handled FedEx box...

 

[Addy711]

I’ve had Fanatec products dating back to 2009. The PWTS, ClubSport V1, CSL Elite base V1, CWS 2.5, CLS Elite w/loadcell pedals.

After several years I had to replace the fan in the PWTS, pretty easy fix. And after a year the potentiometer on the accelerator CSL pedals went bad. The potentiometer going bad was a bummer but not unexpected since it was an exposed pot.

Ten years no major issues. Some of my products products that were dated were given firmware updates to broaden functionality and compatibility.

The few times I’ve contacted customer service, mainly for minor logistic inquiries have been dealt with promptly.

I feel like the tendency is to post if you’re having problems and maybe vent a little. Normally I wouldn’t post something like this but here it is.

 

[Sim Strata]

They have a quality issue, that is for sure. I have bought CSL Elite PS4 (wheel shifter stopped working, wheel replaced). CSL GT3 rim (shifters stopped working reliably, reuturned for refund). Formula V2, premature wear to grips, grips replaced.

Clubsport V3s have been faultless. CSL Elite PS4 has been hammered everyday for 18 months and works flawlessly. No other issues with anything else (also have Formula Carbon which is used all the time and a BMW GT2 rim, which is used less often).

Fanatec do make some mistakes though. They lost my CSL PS4 wheel extending the amount of time needed to do the RMA and they sent me a 2 sets of Clubsport V3s when I only ordered one and was charged for one...naturally I returned the extra set!

This looks bad, it isn't ideal, but the returns process is free, fast and pretty well managed. The products are fundementally solid, well made and I believe will last for years and years. I think they have the balance of quality/price nailed. They just need to keep on that quality control and keep working on the those support processes. I won't buy anything else now.

 

[dhmotor]

I started out with Tmaster and "upgraded" to Fanatec gear. The Tmaster failed and was repaired (or exchanged, but I was out of commission for a couple of weeks). The Fanatec CSW 2.0, shifter and V3 pedals worked great until the day I sold them. My Formula wheel suffered from a known left shifter issue. In the process I had to buy the replacement shifters which were $30-$40 so not the end of the world, but I felt it was something they should have covered since it was widely known. This episode also put me out of commission for a little over a week while it got sorted. I bought a BMW wheel when purchasing the replacement shifters to insure against future down time, but I never ended up needing it. I bought a McLaren wheel (pre-ordered and waited through multiple missed ship dates - frustrating, but another story), and really used that until decision time came. Not flawless, but relatively painless experience with Fanatec and Tmaster for about 4 years combined. RANT WARNING - READ ON AT YOUR OWN PERIL:

As I waited with anticipation for the release of the DD1 & DD2, I planned the incremental upgrade of my system by replacing the CSW 2.0 with a DD1. A plug and play swap out that would make use of all my other gear. Exactly how Fanatec likely drew it up. When the price came out, I was disappointed. I had imagined $799 was the right price for the DD1. At $1,200 it was financially indistinguishable from other DD options. Further, Fanatec asked it's committed fanbase to place a pre-paid pre-order for a device that was months away. Given my experience with the missed dates on the McLaren wheel, I was not about to go down that path. While this arrangement is not uncommon in the industry, Fanatec is mainstream enough that I would not expect to float their production costs. I decided to wait for reviews on delivered samples and see if the price held at $1,200. Other options like Accuforce, a too good to be true Feel VR wheel for half the price with a wheel, a thinly available SC1, and rumors about an SC2 that would get the electronics into the motor housing started to enter my consideration as I waited for the Fanatecs to start showing up.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I am fortunate in that I can afford to feed my sim racing gear lust. I don't have a "12-dof astronaut trainer rig" budget, but certainly my choice of wheel bases and wheels is within my budget. As I considered the choices, the SC2 started to emerge as my preferred option. It too had a "buy and wait" program, but I was more willing to support the innovation from this smaller company and it was really building on the already well reviewed SC1. While it was an option to adapt my Fanatec steering wheels to an SC2, I had developed a serious craving for one of the amazing replica wheels that are on the market from small manufacturers. Fanatec for its part kept rolling out different F1 wheels and was not introducing a follow-up to the well-priced and very functional McLaren GT3 wheel. I am not an F1 guy so these wheel offerings all left me cold. The McLaren wheel was so much more comfortable and useable for me than the Formula wheel. So after a long and thoughtful process, I purchased an SC2 and an F1SimGames R8 wheel. Now that Fanatec has come out with its Porsche GT3 wheel, I am even happier about my decision. IMO, Fanatec has waded in to a market in which they are ill equipped to compete. At $1,200 - $1,500 for a DD base and $649 for the Podium version of the Porsche GT3 wheel you are in a price range where the whole world of options is the competition. If you are going to spend $2,000 on a wheel/base combo, you likely aren't going to skip getting what you want for a couple of hundred dollars. At $650 the Porsche wheel is a nice option for Fanatec DD owners, but as a replica of a previous gen wheel it seems poorly timed. Also, since it requires a Frankenstein conversion to use it on non-Fanatec bases I, and anyone else who doesn't have a Fanatec base, won't likely buy one. To me this is a mistake. Fanatec's eco-system is morphing from a comfortable world of easy upgrades to a prison of limited options.

Having delivered that rant, I bring it back to the OP and say that Fanatec is not without reliability issues, but it's generally solid gear and easy to sell (either in the excellent Market Place on this forum or elsewhere). It should provide comfort to prospective buyers that if they take care of their gear, they can get a solid portion back on the resale. So I would say if your aim is to get a CSW 2.5 and a nice wheel to go with it (like the formula V2 even though it's a little small), then it is probably without peer. Just be careful as you go along not to build a prison for yourself as your gear habit grows.

 

[girarcat]

Received all my Fanatec products a few days ago. As of now, everything seems to be working fine. However some of the shifter's hard mounting hardware is missing. They included the screws but not the nuts that slide into the laterals of the shifter so that you can hard mount it from the sides.
For the moment they've asked me to look again at the empty box. Hope they will send me soon the missing nuts without asking for a video of the missing parts.

 

[Hor-hay]

CSR elite pedals 4 years old no problems.
1 year old P1 one wheel, pin has fallen out, still waiting for a reply from customer service. After a quick google, it seems like a common fault and not just on the P1 wheel. CSL wheel base no issues so far.

 

[gnoshme]

I've had issues with my new stuff (more on that in a sec) but chose fanatec elite range because:

1) When you price out the consumer brands including H shifter and e-brake you either can't have it (logitech) or it's more expensive in the end TM if you stick with single vendor which I have to as I'm xbox
2) I hammered my Fanatec CSR setup for 8 years until the pedals finally fell apart. That's pretty good - although when taking them apart, it made me wonder about the thought that goes into longevity. On the CSR pedals, the wire enters the pedal and is soldered to the pot, but there is no kind of cable retainer, so if you yank the cable, you yank on the solder points, which is a bit of a questionable decision when it would be easy to add the typical "S" shape guide into the mold that the cable snakes through and holds it in place.

On the new stuff.. what others have said about plastic. The CSL Elite wheel back is not strong enough, and not well enough designed:

1) The base is capable of exerting enough force to physically break the wheel when it is correctly mounted - it happened to me twice, once on video.
2) The rim mount bolt isn't guaranteed to stay in, and tension seems critical. There should be a torque value specified.

With that rim mount design I strongly suggest using thread lock on the bolt. That's what I did with the third attempt:

Attempt 1: Was playing with settings and a combo of them put the wheel into a self destruct oscillation breaking wheel back and breaking pins.
Attempt 2: Brand new wheel connected did the same thing on power on, because at that point I didn't know that it was the settings, so didn't know to change them before trying again. Cracked the wheels plastic back cover
Attempt 3: Bought a replacement back cover and so far so good.

Don't get me started on support. They don't understand their customers. We don't drop a bunch of money to sit around for days going through a painful and unnecessarily slow back and forth with someone who only works 2 hours / day on the other side of the world (if you're in the US). If I hadn't taken the initiative to just buy a new wheel, then fight with them about giving me a return on the first one I'd still be waiting to get things resolved a month on.

K

 

[Hor-hay]

Still no reply, this is terrible, not even an acknowledgement of my report. Next wheel is going to be Thrustmaster I think. Lucky I kept my trusty old DFGT.

 

[GuitarTech]

I've been following this thread from the beginning as one of the silent majority of Fanatec users that used the stuff without problems. I have the v3 Pedals, the Handbrake, and the Shifter. ( My Wheel is a TS-PC from TM )
I was really happy with all their stuff until yesterday: without warning my shifter has died, at least partly. The sequential mode works, but the gated H- mode refuses to calibrate, although it lights up sporadically when you move it out of calibration mode. I suspect the Hall sensor, or the PCB itself. For the first I won't be repairing it, as it is out of warranty, and I don't drive any cars with a gate shift at the moment.
Now I'm waiting for my pedals and the handbrake to go tits up, , as they're all from 2016.

Just an update, for the sake of accuracy : my shifter works again Yeah, a few days ago, I read somwhere that Fanatecs shifter doesn't like USB 3.0, so, just for fun, I re-plugged it into a USB 2.0 port on my comp. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it worked again, whod've thought that that was the problem .. Every day's a schoolday....

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Works on USB 3 here. I had it die a few times, FW reflash brings it back to live though. Read that it's common.
Can't wait for HE H-Shifter to replace it.

 

[krunchko]

I have bought a CSW v2.5, CSL LC pedals, a DD2, Porsche 918 RSR and the Esports F1 wheels. Out of these: the F1 wheel has missed shifts; the 918 RSR has one button, that's just not working, out of the box; the DD2 power supply's fan runs constantly. So, yeah, 3 out of 5 products have issues. Fanatec's support have been hit and miss: sometimes they'll reply within a couple of days, sometimes will take them a couple of weeks

All these products have been bought brand new, within the last 6 months

 

[Squared Circle]

I have bought a CSW v2.5, CSL LC pedals, a DD2, Porsche 918 RSR and the Esports F1 wheels. Out of these: the F1 wheel has missed shifts; the 918 RSR has one button, that's just not working, out of the box; the DD2 power supply's fan runs constantly. So, yeah, 3 out of 5 products have issues. Fanatec's support have been hit and miss: sometimes they'll reply within a couple of days, sometimes will taka them a couple of weeks

Even taking into account that those products are sold like milk and bread these days and one case is just exactly that - one case: It's a least interesting that in this case it's the new products that fail.
When researching the market for a DD and pedals I was very close to go the Fanatec route as their products like the CSW2.5 were of undisputed quality. Went for SC2/HE for completely different reasons.

 

[TedBrosby-]

I have only owned my Fanatec gear for a few months now and am in the process of building a SC1, but here's what I see so far:
The pedals seem fine (V3 at least), contrary to what other people say, they seem very nice for the price. Definitely a step up over CSL pedals and Thrustmaster pedals.
I'll eventually sell them to get HE Sprints but for now they're solid.

Software Wise: Not a fan. If you don't use USB directly to your motherboard, some times the wheel base has weird "no device connected" issues.

Build Quality: The CSW 2.5 is mostly metal, but it has a plastic bottom plate where the serial number and product info is stamped with a sticker. This plastic plate sits between the internal metal mounting holes of the wheel and the optional metal angle bracket (or if you remove the metal bracket, it's the direct contact surface with your wheel deck). This plastic plate can deform (like it has for me) and it creates a flex point in the wheel base which makes an annoying creaking sound. I've realized that if I remove the plastic bottom, I can get rid of the sound, but doing so requires removing the serial number/product info sticker, so I haven't done it...
The worst part is (well not worst since the wheel outright not working would be worse), this isn't an issue that I would want to send the entire product back for replacement over.

And I just can't understand how this slipped by their engineers to begin with. The mounting holes inside the wheel base are obviously very sturdy. But they added this unnecessary plastic plate right on top of it, the one area where you'd probably not want to use any plastic at all (since it's right at the mounting point). All this metal construction, and the wheel base looks amazing, and they skimp on one area that would lead to noises and creaking and squeaking.

I wish I could say that's where it ends, but unfortunately I have to talk about their wheels.
Again, this isn't a reliability issue because every wheel I have from them works perfectly fine.

Formula V2 Humming w/ Advanced Paddle Module - The shifters are really stiff but the main wheel face plate doesn't have enough connection points to the shifter housing, so when the shifter snaps back into place, the entire wheel has a vibration hum that's very easy to feel.

Business Practices : Again, not a reliability issue, but I really don't like the Podium Hub and their reactions to the community about using handshake encryption to prevent using non Fanatec wheels with Fanatec wheel bases and vice versa. There's plenty of ways they could've avoided warranty claims with wheels destroyed by more powerful wheel bases like having a seal over the hub nuts that says "warranty voided if removed". Even that would've been suspect to me as a customer. And also, if that's the argument... Why does the Podium Hub even exist? Let me explain a simple logical fallacy with the Podium and Fanatec's "damaging the wheel base" argument.
The Podium Hub has common 70mm and 50mm bolt patterns on its face and when used, enables full force feedback on Fanatec wheels. Fanatec's argument for blocking non Fanatec wheels is their claim that the wheel can cause damage to the wheel base. But if that's the case, why does the Podium Hub allow you to use any wheel and doesn't do any sort of check for what kind of buttons or inputs it's doing to the wheel base through Windows software?
Overall, it feels like the Podium Hub is just greedy.
I like this hardware, but you really have to be in a unique position where the G29/T300 isn't good enough for you and you want something better, but you can only upgrade to Fanatec. They're the only real viable solution before going DD. You'd better be okay with all the quirks. So far I'm okay with the quirks because the entire set-up (base, wheels, pedals) was around the same price as an SC2 Sport by itself. and it really does drive great... But I wish it was consistent about drivers working and I wish there wasn't little plastic noises and humming noises from the wheelbase/wheels.

 

[Squared Circle]

@TedBrosby- : Deviating from the topic here but what you are writing about vendor-lock-in and software (in my case: the orgy of software installation/upgrades needed for the Endurance Module) made me go SC2.
I wouldn't have had any concerns about Fanatec's hardware reliability.

 

[Ormy]

I recently bought a CSW v2.5 wheelbase and the BMW clubsport wheel used from ebay (from separate sellers). The BMW wheel works perfect, when I look at the pins inside the quick-release one of them is slightly shorter than all the others which worried me at first but every function works just fine.

The wheelbase was a different story. From first use it was making an awful squeal/squeak noise when applying high torque, at first I ignored it and assumed it was normal, the FFB was much better and stronger than the G27 I had owned (with its own reliability issues) several years ago. After a while I decided to google it, I found lots of people discussing coil-whine but I know what that sounds like and this wasn't coil whine. Coil whine isn't audible from the next room with the door closed.

I looked inside through the transparent lid with a torch and saw one of the belts was slipping. It took me a while on the internet to confirm that this was not supposed to happen. I had three options, return to ebay seller for refund, RMA to fanatec (it is still in warranty but I've read horror stories about their customer service), or attempt a DIY repair.

I went with the DIY repair and it is now working perfectly, no more horrible noises and the FFB feels completely different, much stronger and tighter. I give credit to fanatec's design, robust and simple and easy to repair/adjust and no excessively 'fiddly' bits or security bolts, 4 allen keys was all I needed. Once disassembled all I had to do was loosen the large allen bolts holding the motor and the reducing-pulley to the front chassis and adjust their positions until the belts were nice and tight. An easy fix but if this unit arrived to the first owner from the factory like this then their quality-control is atrocious.