Did they perchance offer a deal on wheels and forks if it was purchased as a complete bike?

is the bit that snapped actually covered by the warranty 😉
Heard resonable things but will depends on who/what and when it snapped

When was their last 26″ bike out of interest?

When was their last 26″ bike out of interest?

From memory it’s lifetime on the front triangle and 5 or 10 years on the rear???

lifetime will be defined as a number of years normally 5 and specialized for many years had only 1 year on the rear triangle.

Its the last year they did the Demo in 26, cracked around the BB.

well probably within the 5 years though time to dig out the paperwork – they will want a receipt. Best bet is going back to where you got it from and getting them to do the asking nicely for you. Flip side is whats a brand new demo frame worth on ebay/pinkbike?
Or if you are unlucky they might still have a 26″ one in the shed

It’ll be warranteed, its already a replacement frame so been through the system once. Im just guessing they havent got any 26 stock left and I may be left with a gert great upgrade bill before Whistler next month

Your at their mercy really, there can be some good will on things like relacing hubs etc. or flog the frame and get a used Demo 26?

Reads as full lifetime on front triangle for 2014+ bikes. I have a friend who got his 10 year old 26″ Demo fully replaced under warranty

https://media.specialized.com/support/collateral/0000009968_r4.pdf

After breaking 2 new demo frames, I think id rather foot the bill for some wheels and forks than write off a used frame when it inevitably cracks.

my mate had this with a stumpjumper (forced upgrade to 650b from a 26″ bike). They just gave him a whole new bike for free (from memory, part of it had already had a carbon repair done due to non-warranty damage). Was Specialized Canada (where he’s based), who seem rather excellent at warranty, no idea if UK would be the same.

There’s nothing to stop you running 26″ wheels, forks etc in a 650b frame. it’ll just make the rear end marginally (~1cm) lower, as if you’d fitted some offset bushings

Reads as full lifetime on front triangle for 2014+ bikes.

That is fair, they have chopped and changed a lot over the years.

They still have this one in their back pocket

Every Specialized bicycle and frameset has a useful product life cycle. Nonstandard use, including
without limitation, use in competitive events, jumping, aggressive riding, riding with heavy loads, can
dramatically shorten the useful product life cycle of a Specialized bicycle or frameset. In addition,
exposure of the product to humid, warm, ocean conditions and/or exposure to salinity (whether from
salt water, sweat, salinity in the air) is likely to cause corrosion of the product and will shorten the
product life cycle. You are advised to clean your product regularly to avoid such corrosion

It’s the we will decide what it lifetime clause 🙂

But yep take it in, tell your story and see how it goes. Probably depends how the trade is and how much they have made this FY.

Given the frame warranty track record if Specialized turn down the claim and you’re within 6 years of purchase a SOGA (can’t remember the new act acronym) case will be a wave through at court. They have produced a consumer durable that isn’t up to the job. It’s a downhill bike they should be designed for aggressive riding and heavy loads in normal use.

As an aggressive mincer a lifetime warranty would be just that if it was mine.

They seem to be a bit hit and miss, but I personally think our local Spesh dealer can be a bit devious also.

Spesh were the last major manufacturer to jump on the 650b weren’t they? I think their first 650b bikes would have been 2015? So not that old.

I wouldn’t bet on them not having spares either – I cracked the swing arm on my 5 year old (at the time) Enduro, they gave me a choice – the wrong colour now, or wait 6 weeks for the next production run! Made me pay for it though, it was “life” when I bought it, but they changed their policy on warranties a few years later and applied it retrospectively which still annoys me now.

Made me pay for it though, it was “life” when I bought it, but they changed their policy on warranties a few years later and applied it retrospectively which still annoys me now.

Without wishing to sound like a scaremongerer, but can they actually do that? I’m no legal expert, I would however have thought they’d have to honour any warranty offered or implied with the frame at the time of purchase, regardless of their current position on warranties?

Without wishing to sound like a scaremongerer, but can they actually do that?

They just have to define life, it was in the smaller print of mine.

Just stick some BIG 26″ tyres on your current wheels and learn to love the low BB?

Tough one, remember a bloke on here a while back receiving a warranty frame- not only had the replacement gone to 650b, but the shock size had changed as well, and there was no replacement shock provided!

mboy – Member

Made me pay for it though, it was “life” when I bought it, but they changed their policy on warranties a few years later and applied it retrospectively which still annoys me now.

Without wishing to sound like a scaremonger, but can they actually do that? I’m no legal expert, I would however have thought they’d have to honour any warranty offered or implied with the frame at the time of purchase, regardless of their current position on warranties?

The problem, which I found out later, is that contracts are only legally binding, if one of the parties is willing to try to enforce it.

It’s something that I’ve come up against in work since – consumer rules are of course much easier to enforce, but when it comes to warranties really what do you have? A non-signed agreement that states that if x or y happens they’d do a or b – there will always be 10 times as many T’s and C’s as there are headline terms.

In this case, and I think it’s still current – the dealer said “Lifetime warranty on that mate, you break it and you get a new one” the only caveat they offered was “you can’t take the piss though, we had one rejected when a guy was riding downhill on a stump jumper and cracked the frame”. Verbally the dealer gave the impression it’s a case of “buy this and you’ll never need to buy another bike if you don’t want to” because if it breaks you get a new one, however it happened, whenever it happened, but that’s not nearly the case.

Lifetime, as we’ve all found out in the last couple of years I think is the lifetime of the frame – on the face of it that’s a bit of an oxymoron, it’s got a lifetime warranty until it dies – which is the point you want to it work really – in real terms, it’s meaningless, it’s a 5 year warranty. So it’s not whenever it happens at all.

Considering the rough and tumble of our sport, it’s incredibly unlikely that a frame will fail when you’re “just riding along” if a frame as a design or manufacturing fault it will likely show up after some sort of impact – for example if you case a double and the headtube cracks – is that a fault of the bike or the rider? Was it a fault waiting to show up, or a direct result of the impact? I’d suspect they’d reject that one, even on a DH bike. So it’s not wherever it happens either.

Also in my case there was a line buried deep within the Ts and Cs akin to ‘Specialized reserve the right to change the terms of this agreement without notice.’ Which basically meant, in theory they could sell you a bike on Monday with a “lifetime warranty” and on Tuesday withdraw it completely without falling foul of their own warranty agreement. Whether that’s fair or legal is open to interpretation – but the truth is of course that it’s not a criminal act to not honour the terms of your agreement so you can’t call the Police if they don’t replace a cracked frame 4 years after purchase, really your only recourse is to take them to court to try to get the court to enforce it, which takes time and money, even via the small claims court.

Personally, between that and some other stuff I’ve read about the way other manufactures can act when they don’t want to honour a warranty I don’t put any faith in them at all, if my bike fails and I think it shouldn’t have I’d be more concerned about my rights as a comsumer rather than some 20 page unsigned policy that they’ll remove all trace of when they decide to change it – and more importantly keeping up to date with real consumers and real problems – because of that I don’t think I’d ever buy an Evil.

Warranties between yourself and the manufacturer can be non-binding as there is no contractual relationship between yourself and the manufacturer – you didn’t buy it from them, give them any cash (“consideration” in contract terms) etc. There can be duties of care offered (google snail in a ginger beer bottle) but warranties are something different.

So on that basis, warranties can be revoked, changed, updated etc. You’re on the right track if you assume a warranty is just something they’ve written to make you feel nice as a consumer, and you’ll have to rely on their goodwill to assume that they’ll honour it later down the line.

When you buy from a shop, your contract is with that shop, and any consumer law protection is between you and the shop.

So first Q is – did you buy it direct or from a shop? Have you tried getting a remedy from the shop first? If not – god luck – you’ll be relying on Spesh’s goodwill (which anecdotally they seem to be quite generous with in some cases, which is nice).

Yeah, how’s the geometry for you? There’s a lot of bikes that I wouldn’t mind putting 26 inch wheels in a 650b frame.

This isn’t a legal position but just what seems fair to me- if you bought a bike and the warranty is for the bike, replacing the frame alone and leaving the person unable to make an equivalent bike is unreasonable. But if you bought a frame and the warranty is for the frame, I’d say fair play.

Dropped it off and asked the question, they said it depends, they usually dont do much re new parts, theyd just had a guy in and they swapped the whole bike. I said, ah, i bought it as a full bike. They said bring the rest of it in and we’ll send the lot off.
Now we wait to see what Spec say and what they have on the shelves

So they managed to find me a 26″ sworks. So now my rear wheel doesn’t fit as its 150… Grrr