Hi all!

As some of you may know, my bike is back with the cannondale UK disty who have taken 3+months to determine that the frame issue I have is not covered under warranty. Last comments from them were on the 24th June and today after I threaten to take matters further the bike is now 'being boxed up and ready for dispatch to my local dealership'

So, I've been without my bike for over 4 months now, and am currently still without it. The bike is going to go to an engineer/specialist for further examination and an independent report as to the issue on the frame.

Do I have any ground for anything other than suggesting that they have an absolute lack of ability in customer services?

I'm getting really annoyed with the whole saga, but I feel I am being fobbed off.

Any constructive comments or suggestions would be very much appreciated.
thanks,
Jonathan

how old is the bike and were you the original owner?

tawny give it up, get it sleeved and ride the **** thing!

Yes to being original owner and it's 2006.

RR – it's not the point. "big corporation says no, so little man has no choice" not how I live dude….

My main question is

Do I have any ground for anything other than suggesting that they have an absolute lack of ability in customer services?

i.e. as they have kept me without a bike for such a long time.

Short and sweet of it is i've been p*ssed around from pillar to post and I am still left without a bicycle. I'm just annoyed it's taken 4 months.

Hi Jontawn. This is a familiar story to me. My friend bought a Carbon Rush sl in 2006. Over the two years he owned it it was in the shop/back with Cannondale for more than 6 months (over 25% of the time in which he owned it) There was a recall on the fork, there was a problem with the rear susp/pivots/bb and a number of other issues which I fail to recall at this stage.

Eventually like yourself he lost patience and leveraged consumer law to get recourse writing to the Head office of Evans with a copy also sent to Cannondale that he wanted a full refund as the item was not fit for purpose.

He had a very good relationship with his local bike shop manager who himself took great embarassment from the sorry ongoing saga. The fact that after shelling out well over £2K my friend spent over 6 months without a bike for the multiple issues it had was unacceptable, even to the shop manager.

He did get his full refund and is now back on his 1998 Sunn hard tail 🙂

It's a bit of a trek for you to go and shout at there office.
I was unsuccesful in applying for a position as a customer service bod.

What is the frame issue? Does the issue make the bike dangerous to ride because it might break? Are Cannondale saying that you caused the problem because you had ridden it in a way it hadn't been designed for?

Bit more info would be useful.

This is going back a few years to when I worked in a bike shop but Cannondale were appalling to deal with. Firstly frame breakages were very common – the Crack n Fail nickname didn't come from nowhere.

Secondly, warranty was dealt with by one European distribution centre (still is) so they have a huge pile of warranty stuff from all over Europe to get through (unlike everyone else who has a UK arm to deal with). It wasn't unusual to have 4-5 broken frames in our basement at any one time awaiting warranty. Specialized, Trek, Kona (which we also sold) would usually turn warranty round in a week, Cannondale would often take 3 months.

Cannondale won't deal with the general public, only through bike shops. Guess it depends on how good your relationship is with the shop you got it from but you might be able to leverage some sort of "courtesy bike" out of them? Depends a bit on what exactly is wrong with the bike, if it's genuine warranty or a JRA or Cannondale failing to build it properly…

I know some people rave about them (Ben Haworth and Dave Anderson of ST both ride Cannondales) but my experiences of dealing with them in the past means I wouldn't even consider buying one now.

vent your gripe through the dealer who sold it to you and ask them to pass on your anger to CrackNFail

Your issue is with the shop that sold it to you, not the manufacturer who sold it to the shop. Insist that the shop refund you in full, settle for a good deal on a new bike.

thanks guys.

I'll take it up with Evans once the bicycle is back from the engineer chap.

thanks again,
jt

Been riding Cannondales since I can't remember and only had one issue with an early Super V (hairline crack) got a new frame (in MY choice of colour and size) within a week !
THAT original frame is still going – ridden by the shop owner's son, so it wasn't even that bad !
Love 'Dales but I know they are a pain to deal with at times. Summed up just the other day by a shop that sells them "if it was any other company than Cannondale we would drop them – but they make such good bikes ! It's Cannondale Europe that is the problem."

Your issue is with the shop that sold it to you, not the manufacturer who sold it to the shop. Insist that the shop refund you in full, settle for a good deal on a new bike.

How'd you come up with this spw3? Seriously. I'd like to know because it would illuminate my understanding of consumer law if I knew how this worked.

if you get it back will you still ride like a big girl?

Ah Evans and Cannondale, yes I've had this recently, I have now given up as it is too much stress, but Evans have lost me, all my colleagues and all my mates as customers, that is significantly more value than my bike.

They were rude, barefaced lied to me about mechanical systems (sadly for them they chose a chartered mechanical engineer to lie to, with a witness (always take one, and maybe a tape recorder when having these discussions, and write it down as soon as you get out of the shop)) and took forever to sort it out, which they haven't to my satisfaction, but have now done the legal minimum.

Whilst the bike was with them the chainring guard got bent, and the mudguards got bent. Not a big hassle, just more evidence of their lack of professionalism and general big company versus small customer mentality.

legally you need to go to your local Citizens Advice Buro and make an appointment with a lawyer there. you are covered by the sale of goods act at what is considered 'reasonable' life and 'typical' use. I don't know your case so I dunno where you will stand, but they will. the contract is with the shop, or if you paid by credit card, with them (which can be really helpful in cases like this, I have had Visa hit Dixons before when I got a 'not our policy sir' response, Visa are the shops customer, you are theirs – it is whoever you pay. Visa are not a small customer) and how they deal with cannondale is irrelevant, it is their risk, not yours.

Good luck and make sure you tell everyone you know, the full facts, the only way to win really is to reduce their customer base until they go bust, meanwhile support your good LBS by paying that little bit more for bits from them to keep them going and tell everyone how good they are…… so on that note…..

big vote of THANKS to ADDIKTION CYCLES in St Albans for being good eggs, helpful, knowledgeable, friendly and patient with my random requests…..and THORNTONS CYCLES in Rugby for the the same reasons.

Yer, it was purchased from evans, but a very friendly, roady-based shop in Sheffield are dealing with it and are being everything I could ask for. So no immediate gripes with the current outlet, it's uk/europe disty who i'm annoyed with for taking so damned long.

As it happens, I'm sure it was paid for on credit card. I'll contact the CAB too.

Thanks again for your positive comments,
jt

i'm going through the warranty thing with cannondale at the mo, and so far pretty good! it sounds to me like evans are the ones who have arsed you around. bikes should be sent straight out to c'dale europe for warranty, they don't check frames in the UK. the last time i had the warranty issue with a c'dale the whole process took 6 weeks. 3+ months to put the frame in a box and put a stamp on it is a joke! no one at evans would be qualified to determine the validity of a warranty claim, window lickers the lot of them!

good luck.

Guys – warranty and you rights under the sale of goods act are not the same thing.

at 4 or 5 years old MTB it will be hard to show the shop should replace it under SOGA – so then you are relying on the manufacturers warranty which is discretionary and you have to jump thru whatever hoops they have for you.

try exercising your sale of goods act rights – but if I were the shop the answer would be " sue me"