I feel obliged to post this in response to the Quality and Speed of The customer service Hope delivers.

My Hope Vision HID failed to light last week after 27 months of continuous use on and 0ff-road and in all weathers. I sent it up North Thursday morning and i have just had it back. Fully working, with no charge, AND they replaced a rounded-off bolt in the clamp without being asked.

In these days of expected, but rarely delivered, customer service i think it’s only fair to let people know of positive experiences such as this.

Regards

Topper

Concur, only had to use the cs once, but it was flawless.

I agree wholeheartedly, top people. Good service deserves praise!

they are very good aren’t they, but you need to call them rather than email them (which is fair enough)

Yep, Hope are brilliant at fixing stuff for free even if outside of its warranty. I’d prefer it if their brakes didn’t keep going wrong in the first place though!

agree entirely – i sent back my 16 month old HID ‘cos it was flickering a bit and they sent it back with a new bulb, free.

great service from a great Company -)

I wasnt overly impressed with them yesterday tbh.

I have the older model headset and have found that although the bottom section is always as clean as a whistle, the top section always gets packed up with crap. To the point where i had to take the seal out of the bearing and repack with grease. The plastic spacer inside the race had disintigrated.

Now i appreciate that Hope havent got to do anything and that its the old model headset but its only about 18mths old and i bought hope due to threads like this.

The response i got was

a) The bearings arent available anymore (I would happily pay for some)
b) They will do a ‘cost’ new model replacement at £35 + Postage which meant £39 plus i had to send my old headset in.

My gut feelings were that they should have replcement bearings available for something on sale so recently. I also think £39 for a replacement headset after 18mths is over the top.

Hope isnt fit and forget like they make out and is no better than a £20 FSA Orbit in terms of sealing from my experience.

Now compare their customer service to Dinotte who just asked me to slap my light back in the post and they will replace the internals FOC on a light of similar age. I think people have rose tinted glasses on with regards to hope, or is it just that i didnt get what i wanted…..

I think its just that you didnt get what you wanted, I too have had nothing but good experience with hope CS, but your case does seem a little wrong. Can’t you find the bearings elsewhere – Hope usually use industry standard sized bearings available from places like bearingboys.co.uk for buttons?

Coffeking, i asked if i could buy a set of replacement bearings from them or elsewhere from a bearing factors. The man stated they were specially made for hope and not an industry standard.

I feel i was reasonable and was basically told that if i wanted a functioning headset i had to buy a new one. Thats not really customer service in my book. Note i wasnt asking for a freebie, i was asking for my current headset to be put right (At a cost)

Maybe i should start a thread asking for the replacement bearing size which i would asume the amazing man on customer service should have been able to tell me over the phone rather than push me towards buying a new headset

Great service here too – replaced my battery quickly, no problems. They’ve always been like this IME.

was it a 1st generation headset? as it must have been very old stock as the bearings in those were notoriously shit so they redesigned the headset.

I remember reading something along the lines of they looked at what bearings RaceFace were using and copied them, however they found out afterwards that they were shite and were more trouble than they were worth so changed the design.

edit: FSA put *custom* bearings in their MX headsets, and are a ball ache to replace and don’t work very well. So even one of the best headset manufacturers makes mistakes

No it isnt a 1st gen. It is in the gunsmoke colour which didnt come out until the last couple of years.

Just trying to point out that their customer service either had an off day or isnt as mega helpfull as you guys have had things.

I sent a seatclamp back which had snapped (my fault really) and to my great surprise they just sent me a new one. No receipt or anything. Well done Hope!

i sent back a rear axle that snapped after 7 YEARS!!!!Only sent it for a laugh saying shoddy work i’m only 11 stone wet through and lo and behold they sent me a new one!!!!!Top chaps.

They used to do the XC and the DH headset before they started making the new one. The bearings were crap and they stopped doing them. Any headset hope have made in the last 18 months is the new style, if they cant get bearings its cos youve been sold a headset older than 18 months id say.

Basically theyve offered you one at trade price id say.

Sent back a lightweight hub which cracked around the flange and they asked what sort of riding I did as they were going to send out a free replacement and wanted to make sure I didn’t have the problem again.

Top service in my book

It’s cos they’re good honest northern folk innit!

hope have been fantastic via friends stuff and never had a problem myself

I’ve never had to deal with Hope but have only heard good reports of them. 2Pure were very good too, they fixed a Niterider light well over the warranty time with no charge at all. I also thought TFTuned were good too, nice friendly and helpful.

Superb service from them here – posted off a 2 1/2 year old failed battery on a monday. I had it back on my bike (fully charged) for the wednesday night ride. 🙂

might have to get myself a few hope bits again, Ive not had any problems with any bits ive had in the past, but ended up with other brands as thats what came on some builds

Ripped the freehub on a Big un on the tandem ( having destroyed shitmanoo heavy duty tandem hubs in weeks) after 3000 miles when we tried to climb a very steep slope – as we stalled out the freehub ripped. Not only was it trailside bodgeable unlike the shitmano – but it was repaired for free.

On the subject of the headset bearings, they were never designed to be removable (to minimise any chance of free play etc.),just to be replaced as a complete cup assembly.Having replaced some for a customer when they were still available, I would say the price quoted was actually very reasonable, and cheaper than the original parts were.

Agreed – the majority of the time I’ve dealt with Hope, they’ve been fantastic.

I guess the bloke I spoke to a few years ago about my Mono Minis had just found a large dog egg in his packed lunch.

A new headset at cost after 18 month? What else do want a free hand job?

jesus some people don’t deserve to be customers.

re- Headsets, I had the same thing said to me- no repelacement bearings, new style headset for £cheap. I have the new headset on another bike and the bearings fell apart after 6 months (replaced FOC from LBS). I bought an FSA in the floodsale. Had my hubs fixed for minimal charge and had free stuff off them in the past so thumbs up from me. Although the new headset aint as reliable as the old ones IMO, and 20mm front hub bearings dont last long either, not big enough- bring back the Bulbs I say.

Yeah, Hope are excellent, I dealt with a couple of warranty claims through them when I worked in a bike shop, always quick polite and helpful.
A heads up as well to 2Pure who also have some of the best customer service in the industry, they repaired a well-out-of-warranty NiteRider light FOC for me a while ago.

sq225917 – Member
A new headset at cost after 18 month? What else do want a free hand job?

jesus some people don’t deserve to be customers.

Whats that all about?

18mths on a headset that costs £60 isnt good value for money in my book. To then have to spend another £40 on another headset which another member has stated isnt even that good isnt good customer service either. I also run their hubs and have had to have the ProII hub serviced twice already so not exactly an improvement over the old XC.

Some people dont deserve to be customers – Did it take you all day to think that one up?