Thx ladies for your responses.

I called someone at Giant and took my bike to a lbs that's a dealer. It's a 50/50 coin toss if they would give me a new wheel set since it's over 1yr. The lbs guy said we would have to send it in for them to look at, and it would be at least two weeks without my bike. Man, I really need a back up to ride in these situations *sigh*.

That bums me out as our weather is quicking changing here in the midwest with the first snow not far off. The mechanic said it's more likely the guy will remember me sooner, than later, on sending it in for inspection.

I'm still thinking about what to do.

Oh, btw... yes, it is the seam. No, it is not omg bad. But, you can feel a raised sharp edge from the seam where there's a small split/seperation. Not just that the seam itself is showing. If that edge gets worse, I worry about it putting a hole in the tube.

I personally just don't think the seam should be coming apart from itself at all. But, I'm not the bike gawds to be either.

I guess as a person spending the money, if early seperation is their normal brand performance, before the rim has lived it's full life expectance (the mechanic showed me how they tell when it's wore out by a hole on the side of the rim, then they normally won't replace--mine is not that way), I would consider a different brand. And/or a different brand of bike if this is the brand that comes stock, and I would have upgrade expense of wheels in the package.