Just thought I’d share my experiences (so far) with getting my Yeti 575 repaired under warranty:
The rear triangle snapped on Oct 28th at the point where the carbon is bonded to the aluminium, at the drive side bottom pivot. I got it home, washed it and took it back to my lbs (OnePlanet Adventure at Llandegla) where I’d originally purchased it. They reckoned I’d be without it “for at least 2 weeks”. As I now required my 3rd rear triangle for this bike (it would be the 8th between me and 2 other mates with 575’s) I requested the possibility of replacing it with the alloy version rather than the carbon.
As far as I know, Silverfish took over from Evolution as UK distributor at the start of October so I was expecting some minor delays/teething trouble, but everything seemed pretty positive when the rep saw the bike on the 4th Nov and sent photos back to the warranty dept.
10th November came and despite a few phonecalls to OnePlanet I’d had no response from anyone, so I sent an email to Silverfish in the hope of getting some feedback as to what was going on. Within 30 mins Richie responded to apologise for the delay and anticipated that their warranty dept would be in touch within 24hrs. I waited until the 15th Nov and still no response, so sent another email to Silverfish asking that they double-checked whether their warranty dept had received my email. 30 mins later, OnePlanet called to say the warranty claim had been accepted by Yeti and an alloy rear triangle was on its way from the US. The following day I received an email from Silverfish’s warranty guy to apologise, he’d been out of the office and said “Let me see if I can get you the tracking info and get you a better ETA”. He didn’t get back in touch following saying that.
I had taken 2 weeks off to get some riding in before my daughter was born, so OnePlanet kindly offered to lend me a demo bike for when I was riding there, but theres only so many times you can pound round Llandegla in 2 weeks despite the lovely new stuff, so only took them up on it a couple of times.
On the 19th Nov I again called OnePlanet to find out whether they had any news and there was nothing. It had been nearly 4 weeks now, but I was beginning to wonder whether I was being a PITA for calling them for updates all the time, so left it a couple of weeks in the hope it would just arrive.
I called again for an update on 6th Dec, OPA called me back and said they’d spoken to the distributor, and I’d have the bike back that weekend “at the latest”. Needless to say the rear triangle didn’t turn up. On the 16th Dec OPA said they had been informed by the distributor that again, they were 99% certain the rear triangle would be in the UK on Tuesday (yesterday), and one of the following two things would happen today: either it would be hand delivered by the rep and fitted to my bike today ready for this evenings ride round Llangollen, or the rep would deliver a demo bike that would be mine for the entire festive period or until my Yeti was repaired.
I called OPA this afternoon (21st Dec) to find the rep had been and gone and had left neither my rear triangle or a demo bike, again indicated the triangle was on its way, due to be dispatched tomorrow, but left me with no assurances that it would be here in time for riding over Christmas. Oh, and absolutely no apologies whatsoever.
It will be 8 weeks on Friday since I dropped it off, unlikely to have a bike over christmas when all my mates will be riding, to say I’m livid is an understatement. I cant even go for a ride to relieve the stress.
