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I've a month long story of being ignored by Bike-Discount, Radon and now Silverfish over a stuck down SDG Tellis seat post.
In the middle I've had contact direct with SDG in the USA, who were really helpful up until they worked out I was in the UK and so passed me back to Silverfish at the start of this week.
I'm fed up of being ignored and now passed from pillar to post, my son is more than a month in on not having a dropper. He has already raced twice without it and more races are looming. It's a £2k bike that's three months old, already had to warranty the forks via our LBS at our cost as Radon/Bike-Discount took over 5 weeks to reply to initial warranty claim email.
How long to play calm and patient with these companies?
I'm feeling the Hulk arriving soon...
As you bought the bike from Discount.DE which is in Germany i doubt Silverfish UK will want anything to do with it as it wasn't imported to the UK by them and wasn't sold by one of their official UK shops
Most UK importer's/distributors wont touch imported parts not supplied by themselves, that's the main downside of buying cheaper from other countries
Your only real option is to deal with Discount.DE and their German importer
If your having no luck with Discount.de then speak to SDG in the USA and say your in the UK and bought the bike from Germany and you are having trouble with the German shop and importer, hopefully the SDG then can contact their German brand manager at the German importer's and they can get onto Discount.DE to resolve the issue
My friend works as a UK brand manager for a very high end road bike manufacturer and sees issues like this all the time with imported bikes/parts that haven't been supplied by him and his advise is what Ive given above
If he is stuck for a post I have a command post in the garage I could post up and let me have it back once its sorted.
Have you tried emailing them in German? I can write a translation for you if you want.
@escrs. I've been in contact with Germany. Ignored.
I've been in contact with SDG USA, helpful but passed me back to Silverfish.
I've messaged Silverfish a fortnight ago, from SDG USA rep at start of this week, no reply, not even to say 'sorry, speak to Radon'.
We bought a new bike so it was reliable and had warranty for the season. I now regret that. I'm also not going to mail order bikes again, certainly not Radon.
This is why I went with a UK based direct sales company who are all over social media and answer their phone as well as emails - although the German brands do eek out a better spec for the money.
The likes of Bird have a nice inbetween niche for me - not as good value as ze Germans on spec but generally better value than bikes from the lbs and good support.
That said - I do also have a Vitus (although I bought frame only for £150 - Sentier) which from what I’ve read will be a drama if I have a frame /
Mech hanger issue and support will be hard to come by. It was cheap enough to take the risk for that for me though.
Have you tried emailing them in German?
Yes, German and English, but they have replied on last warranty issue in English.
Where is the dropper now then?
If your lad still has it, just get it sent back to Germany ASAP and my experience is a couple of weeks turnaround time (though that was a while ago).
Yes it's easier to go to Sram or Shiamno's UK agents for some warranty stuff, but if Silverfish are being awkward then don't waste time waiting for them. Did you phone them BTW? Emails are too easy to ignore.
Apply for compensation from your credit card company. They'll open up a second line of communication with the retailer. It'll be slow but effective (in that they'll either respond to the CC or not, if not you'll get your money back).
What size post do you need Matt?
I've got a few spares in the garage
Can lend you one no problems
I had a similar experience with Bikediscount.de.
The only solution seemed to be to put a bad review on their site.
I will never use them again and always advise others not to.
I too have a spare dropper - Lapierre own brand 31.6x125. I replaced it as although it works it is a little slow for my liking and doesn’t seem to be serviceable. I’ve been meaning to stick it on eBay for a fiver, but it’s yours for postal cost if you want it...
At one time a dropped was a luxury now it seems everyone just has spares lying around unused!😂
Aye, and I've quickly become of the view a dropper is 'essential'.. 🤔
A perfect example of the race to the bottom, want the cheapest but want quality of service.
To paraphrase Keith b
Cheap, value, great service. Pick two!
Silverfish
Goodluck
No offence Richie but I hope one day you’ll restore my faith in charging me extra for frame set of bearings for a serviced bike 🙄
I had a bad experience with Silverfish warranty years ago, and if I can help won't purchase anything that may have to go through warranty with them. Though Bike-Discount should be sorting you out 🙁
I always have had good experiences with them. Sometimes Silverfish have been slow in busy periods but generally they have gone beyond the call of duty to give good service.
Slow in summer holidays I can totally deal with and I think it’s 100% reasonable.
Silverfish just turned round a scratched (warranty), Mojo fire sale purchased, Fox dropper for me in a couple of days. I can’t fault them at the moment
Silverfish haven't really got anything to do with this warranty claim. It is down to the shop the bike came from and whoever the sdg distributor in Germany is.
Never had an issue with Bike discount and Radon. Fast replies and a great service.
Issue 1: Spare mech hanger for my Radon Swoop. Showing as expected in XX weeks. Explained I needed it before an Alps trip. Had a moan at them and they took one off a stock bike and mailed it to me FOC.
Issue 2: Bottle cage for same Bike. No room for a standard cage on the medium frame. Pleasant exchange where they told me I'd need some flashy cage that took a special bottle that had half the cage as part of it - or something like that. £30 or so; so I modified a stock cage.
Note this was all conducted through their 'chatline'.
Same thing with Canyon as well. Great service.
But. . . .I think it all depends who you get on the end of the chatline though!
Silverfish haven’t really got anything to do with this warranty claim. It is down to the shop the bike came from and whoever the sdg distributor in Germany is.
Would be true if there wasn't this
I’ve been in contact with SDG USA, helpful but passed me back to Silverfish.
Would be true if there wasn’t this
I’ve been in contact with SDG USA, helpful but passed me back to Silverfish.
That's because he told them he is in the UK
He needs to tell SDG USA that he is in the UK but bought the item in Germany and is having trouble with the German shop and or distributor and ask SDG USA if they can contact the German distributor and explain the issue and get them resolve it or contact the shop to get it all sorted
This is what my friend does when he has people trying to make warranty claims on high end road bikes that UK people buy in Europe to save some money only to find out they cannot make any warranty claims in the UK due to the item not being supplied by the UK distributor
Have you tried emailing them in German?
Yes, German and English, but they have replied on last warranty issue in English.
How good is your German?
"Silverfish haven’t really got anything to do with this warranty claim. It is down to the shop the bike came from and whoever the sdg distributor in Germany is."
Nonsense. The issue is to be resolved by the MANUFACTURER warranty. Silverfish are the UK representitive of the manufacturer and therefore are responsible for getting it sorted. In UK law the retailer is the default way to get things resolved quickly, but the manufacturer is the one ultimately on the hook to get things sorted. Buying in another country has ZERO effect on the worldwide manufacturer warranty, and certainly not on the minimum 2 year warranty within the EU which is not country based.
Until Brexit...
After Brexit, you may need to extract the value of the item from brexit voters to compensate for their stupidity.
Evening.
Some good news. Silverfish have asked for the post back to look at warranting.
That's good news, hopefully they will get it sorted quickly
Nonsense. The issue is to be resolved by the MANUFACTURER warranty. Silverfish are the UK representitive of the manufacturer and therefore are responsible for getting it sorted. In UK law the retailer is the default way to get things resolved quickly, but the manufacturer is the one ultimately on the hook to get things sorted. Buying in another country has ZERO effect on the worldwide manufacturer warranty, and certainly not on the minimum 2 year warranty within the EU which is not country based.
The UK importer/distributor is under no legal obligation to fix the issue if the item was not originally imported by them and sold by one of their official shops
Yes the manufacturer's worldwide warranty is responsible for getting it sorted but in the country the item was originally purchased from, this is what Ive been told by a High end bike companies UK brand manager who has to deal with people buying items from abroad then trying to make warranty claims in the UK, legally they don't have to fix the item and instead point the customer back to the shop where they purchased the item from in the EU and deal with them and their countries distributor/importer
Luckily this time Silverfish are happy to step in and help
As above, your statutory rights for items purchased in the UK start and end with the retailer. AFAIK with a foreign purchase you have whatever rights you’d have in e.g. Germany which I know nothing about! You can of course still go through your CC.
The manufacturer warranty/guarantee depends entirely on what (if anything) was supplied in the documentation that came with the bike.
If Silverfish are helping out it sounds like they’re going above & beyond which is cool. 👍
The UK importer/distributor is under no legal obligation to fix the issue if the item was not originally imported by them and sold by one of their official shops
Yes the manufacturer’s worldwide warranty is responsible for getting it sorted but in the country the item was originally purchased from, this is what Ive been told by a High end bike companies UK brand manager who has to deal with people buying items from abroad then trying to make warranty claims in the UK, legally they don’t have to fix the item and instead point the customer back to the shop where they purchased the item from in the EU and deal with them and their countries distributor/importer
With all due respect, you nothing of the contractual relationship between SDG USA and Silverfish.
An update.
Silverfish have stepped in, at behest of SDG in USA.
I've a warrantied post back on its way to me, serviced the keyways and bushing while they were at it.
Thank you to Ben at Silverfish and Chris at SDG 😊
No thanks discount-bikes or Radon. 😵
Seriously though, sell the dropper and put a Brand X or One Up in instead.
You'll be grateful you did as some point I bet.👍