Warranty on bike kit, return woes

I would say it's fairly normal. It's a pain waiting for a month though, and SKS's guards shouldn't fail.

How about contacting SKS direct with a copy of the receipt - they may just send some replacement's out, no quibble.

Any actual positive experiences with warranty replacements or is this the norm now?

Sealskinz gloves separated at the seams. Sent some photos by emails, and they sent me another pair by return post. It did help that I'd bought directly from them. It would also influence me when I come to buy again.

Canyon 6 year frame warranty

Aluminium insert in the swing arm broke loose. My belief in the system was zero. First I tried a chat function and was told to fill in an online form. The chat took minutes but the form felt like a total brush off

Any way the form was fine from my phone and asked for pictures of the whole bike and damage. 2 hours later they emailed to ask where I wanted the new swing arm sent.

Ok they sent the wrong one, but I think it was an honest mistake. They sent the 27.5 version looks identical and is just 5mm shorter. I repeated the process and again I was sorted in 2 hours

That reminds me, Specialized Roval wheels, a lock ring in the rear hub seized, bike shop contacted Specialized and I used Whatsapp to contact them. The wheels weren't in stock so they offered to replace with a third party rear wheel, when I said I wanted a matching wheelset they agreed. Wheels arrive in the bike shop two days later.

Sounds like the perils of distance buying (in the OP). Annoying, but fairly normal.

I had a small cheap bit of electrical equipment fail, too it back to the local retailer, swapped for another on the spot

Recently had to warranty a DVO shock and a Shimano brake caliper through Merlin Excellent service, both items assessed and replaced within a week once I'd returned them. Very impressed.

I'd just be waiting till the weather is reliably dry and sending the mudguards off then. Pretty normal process though - if you want something warrantied quickly support your LBS

Take the items to the shop you bought it from and they'll sort it. Ah, hold on...

Nobody uses shops any more but still expects the same service. Nobody buys anything unless it's discounted but still expects great service.

With less sarcasm 😀 , every overshoe I've ever had with a zip has failed pretty quickly. It's a really stupid solution, and I'm expecting my newest zippy overshoes to fail before the end of the winter, having only been used about 4 times so far. (They get used when my winter boots are soaked through.)

My wife's Fitbit tracker failed to charge/turn on.

I had to email photo's with the reference number in shot, written on a piece of paper, and eventually post it off to Holland.

They sent a replacement strap. No watch, no charge lead.

Emailed them again. They sent a new strap and charge lead, no watch.

And another email went out. Eventually got the watch part.

Whole process took about 2 weeks. Not bad overall, but could have been a lot quicker if they'd done it right first time.

Cheers all, sounds like some decent experiences from a few!

Appreciate that LBS comments but largely irrelevant for me as neither stocked the particular items. Support them in other ways anyway.

Magicshine - Emailed via “contact form”. Response within 3 hrs. Light sent back. No quibbles at all. New light in the post and back with me within 5 days.

sportpursuit - faultless. Email, response in less than a day. Get to keep the item so potential for repair and they’ll replace or refund.

tis not always bad!

What i am finding annoying is the lack of choice locally so dont really have a choice than on line and things like clothes with no consistency in fit or sizing the continual having to order multiple items and return most stuff.

Appreciate that LBS comments but largely irrelevant for me as neither stocked the particular items. Support them in other ways anyway.

your local bike shop doesn’t have an account with zyro?

Another positive for Canyon. Found my carbon steerer on gravel bike had cracked. A year out of warranty, so emailed them to ask how much a replacement was. Got an email back saying this was a common issue due to over tightening the wedge stem design. Offered a free replacement fork with updated steerer bung to stop it happening again. They provided a postage label to send back original fork, so new one could be cut to same length. Whole process took less than two weeks to get up and running again.

I had a failed (leaky) shimano caliper after 3 months or so of buying them. Spoke to retailer who said I needed to send the entire set back. Hoses and all. I asked to just send the caliper back but was told no. The whole set needed to go back.

They were fitted to an ebike so in order to do that it would have to be a motor and battery out to remove the brakes. Easily 2 hours work followed by a month lead time for 'warranty inspection'. Then obviously the hassle of putting it all back together again. I was also told I'd have to pay for the return postage.

I bought a new caliper from somewhere else for about £40 and quietly decided not to use the original retailer again.

On the flip side though, my Mezzer developed a creak from the CSU. I emailed Hayes in Germany as there's no UK distributor. I explained the problem and that I'd bought the fork from an private seller on Ebay. I asked for a price on a new CSU assembly and some help with part numbers etc to make sure I was getting the right bit.

Hayes Germany didn't quibble or try and fob me off, they just sent me a brand new CSU FOC which I was not expecting and hugely grateful of.

Any actual positive experiences with warranty replacements

Race Co Cycles with any Specialized warranty claim.
As one example of many.
Motor problem with a Levo.
Sent Rich at Race Co a message about it from the trail.
A couple of days later a new motor turns up on my doorstep.
I'm 250 miles away from the shop.
I swap them over and send the old one back.

Simple and swift. Other shops may not be as efficient.

For this retailer

Retailers don't fulfil warranty claims, manufacturers do. Retailers are legally obliged to field Consumer Rights Act claims. Which is it, how old are the shoes?

@LAT  - refer to my previous point on using the LBS. In fact I realise I didn't even live here when I ordered them (5 year warranty!)

@Cougar - The overshoes <5 months old. Surely a retailer acts on behalf of the manufacturer, so not quite sure what you mean?

With regards to the SKS guards I would contact Zyro Fisher directly who are the UK distributors. Brilliant service from them when I needed a couple of missing brackets etc that I couldn't find online for some guards I had laying around which they promptly sent me out free of charge. Didn't even request a receipt which was lucky as I had none. In fact I've had better service each time I have contacted distributors directly. Silverfish was the best.

Recently had to warranty a DVO shock and a Shimano brake caliper through Merlin Excellent service, both items assessed and replaced within a week once I’d returned them. Very impressed.

whereas I normally like Merlin but had a zefal saddlebag break within warranty. Was told I had to pay for postage to return it (even if they found it faulty, which they would) to be assessed despite providing photos of the broken zip. It cost me £12 so decided it wasn’t worth paying half of that and queuing an hour at my awful WH Smith post office. Which is probably the result they wanted.

I had no issues returning my wrong sized(My fault)pro5 rear wheel to Wiggle.

Despite not placing any sort of invoice inside the box with the account details/my info or whatever as suggested by many, and really just the printed returns label on the front over the delivery label, everything went to plan and i got my £171 returned to me within a couple of days of it landing back at Wiggle HQ.