Corrosion/cracking of ceramic coating on bail roller - anyone else noticed this?

[Brandon Khoo]

I was servicing all my Stella 18000s and 10000s today when I noticed a shiny mark on the bail roller on one of my Stella 18000s. As those of you who own Stellas would know, the bail roller is a graphite/silicon carbide colour. On closer inspection, I realised that the bail roller component is actually made of steel with a ceramic coating of some kind of it and that the ceramic coating had actually cracked in parts and was breaking off. I then inspected all rest of my reels to find the same issue on a number of my other reels.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[Rob Langridge]

G`Day Brandon

I don`t own a stella but i know of a story from a friend that bought a new stella and he noticed the ceramic line roller was cracked when he was putting the line on the spool. He took it back to Shimano and they gave him a new line roller and there has not been a problem since. I have seen and heard of others having the same problem. This is what put me off buying a stella that was three years ago now. I think little things like this are par for the course now days. The new daiwa saltiga has its little problems to mine took fourteen weeks to fix and you don`t think i was  >:(happy about that.

[Andy Rowe]

Brandon,

Good thing you spotted the mark early, sometimes the the floor is bad enough to damage mainline and you end up with nice repetitive nicks in you PE when stipped under drag.

I just changed a line roller on one of my 18ks and noticed a very small mark in the other, the 10k's seem to be ok for the moment, but I am going to buy more spares for back up.

This problem has been noted in the past and I have heard it said they rectified it in later production!!??

[Mark Harris]

Is this the same problem that was identified a while ago and Shimano offered to replace all bail rollers free of charge?  If so, it might be worth informing Shimano Brandon and asking for new complimentary bail rollers for each reel.

Just given all 5 of my Stella SWs the once over and can't find the same problem. That might be because all bar one were purchased after the initial production (I stayed with my old Stella and Saltigas for quite some time)?

[Garry Wong]

Yep, this is actually one of the defect on earlier batch of Stella sw. Shimano is aware of this issue and you should get a free replacement of roller beraring free of charge.to know weather your reels are affected or not simply check your reel boxes. If you can see a white  little dots on the side of the box, it means your reel is fitted with a new fixed line roller from production, blue dot means your reel is on early production batch with old problem roller but it's been fixed by shimano. If you cannot find any sort of dots/ little circle it means your reel probably got that problem roller mentioned here. This is explained from shimano Japan website, I just could find the link again
I guess you should check all your stella and get a roller replacement if your reel is affected. It's better to prevent then waiting accident to happened, who knows you might be on the fish of your life time and your little line roller failed

[Mark Harris]

I was just thinking that I should email Garry and ask him about this!

Very good explanation Garry and I now know what those white and blue dot stickers mean on the Stella boxes.

The moral seems to be don't buy a Stella which has neither a blue nor a white dot on the box.  And if you have Stella without either, get them into a dealer and ask for the line roller to be changed.

[Brandon Khoo]

Thanks a lot, guys. That explains a lot. I suspect the problem has been there for a while but I haven't had a problem as the roller has been rolling smoothly. I will need to get them changed on every one of my reels then.

[Mark Gonsalves]

Shimano changed the line roller on my Stella's free of charge, 18000 and 8000.  They both had the line roller cracks.  No problems with the new rollers.  They changed the bearings too.  Terrific customer service.  No problems on my 5000 and 4000SW rollers as of this time.

[Tony Busscher]

Just checked my 1800 sw and its got the problem with the line roller ,small white mark ,and the box has the blue sticker on it .. Clad you spotted this Branden .

[Antonino Augugliaro]

Shimano changed my 10000SW  roller (whit problem) and gave me 2 spare for 18000 and 20000SW (whitout problem).

[Adrian Braun]

The new daiwa saltiga has its little problems to mine took fourteen weeks to fix and you don`t think i was  >:(happy about that.

What was wrong with your new Saltiga?

[Rob Langridge]

To cut a long story short. Where the reel fits into the reel seat of the rod part of the reel body had cracked. And a big thumbs up to Daiwa as they replaced the reel body after a lengthy debate.

Cheers Rob

[Dan Colebrook]

thanks for the heads up guys, nothing worse than the random "ping" of the braid mid fight!

[Brian J Richardson]

The bail roller on my 10000 flaked badly while I was in Palau half way round the world from where I live.  It's a common problem that has supposedly been fixed.

[Nicolas Lim]

I will have to go check this out myself.