[Closed] Wheelies custom builds and other insurance replacement questions.

Personally I would take the cash! Search Wheelies on here for more info.. 🙂

Lots of experience with Wheelies, all of which is positive. The top tip I'd give you is to get on the phone and talk through the options; they are very helpful. If they can't replace like for like you're in a stronger position to negotiate and you may end up with a bigger cash settlement than first offered. That's the route I went since I really wanted to buy from a bike shop rather than online.

They can source other bikes not on their website, just ask.

The point about RRP is extremely valid. £2,500 may get you a better bike from last season than £3,350 on this season's retail prices.

Therein lies my dilemma. £850 difference but is it worth the hassle or what I would get as an alternative shopping around.

I'll perhaps give them a call and see who they work with to get a better view on a wider range of bikes that may be available.

The £2500 is the max payout on my insurance.

Lots of experience with Wheelies, all of which is positive.

Have you needed to return anything or claim on warranty though?

They are a shower of ****s IME.

Blimey, just had a look at their normal (as opposed to replacement)website and they seem to have no stock of anything vaguely interesting! (Kona Process, Lapierre Spicy)

The £2500 is the max payout on my insurance.

Says who? Wheelies or your insurer?

Have you needed to return anything or claim on warranty though?

OK, I shall qualify my statement with "...all of which was positive whilst settling my insurance claim". Never used Wheelies for returns or warranty because I've never needed to. The main reason I took a cash settlement was so that I had the support of the LBS instead of some distant online company for after-sales service.

My point for razorrazoo is, as with all insurance, don't just accept the first settlement offer. Negotiate, preferably with a good argument for your negotiating stance. In my experience they will listen and are co-operative.

stilltortoise - Member
The £2500 is the max payout on my insurance.
Says who? Wheelies or your insurer?

Insurer, I knew this was the max cash payout in advance and that is what i expected to get and it covers what the bike owes me. The additional value in vouchers has thrown me but there may be too much compromise to make the additional value worthwhile.

The way I looked at this was to not be greedy. If the cash settlement allows you to get a replacement bike at least as good as the one stolen, take the cash. You've then got the flexibility to test ride and buy/build exactly what you want and from where you want. You can always put some more of your own cash in if needed.

They seduced me with their "we can give you stuff worth £xxx versus £yyy cash".

Absolutely appalling service when I needed to warranty a wheel and later a frame, still kicking myself for going with them. And previous threads have suggested I was not just unlucky.

The guy who works out how much your stolen bike was worth (Carl?) is a very pleasant chap though, tbf (when you can get hold of him).

EDIT: And I like to think I don't waste my life trash talking companies on the web, but these guys deserve it - they basically treat their customers with contempt.

Confirmation of values was all done by the insurance company (or at least the claims handling company they outsource to). As my custom bike had a value in excess of my max payout I qualified for that or the wheelies option. Having been through the website and clicked on any relatively interesting option I can't see any actually in stock and my head says take the cash and buy a canyon.

I took the cash and got a beautiful Bandit. I'd otherwise be riding around on a blinged up Orange 5 from Wheelies. No regrets.

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[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/stilltortoise/8528161996/ ]Bandit first ride - 11[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/stilltortoise/ ]stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

individual guys were nice enough, but kept telling me porkies about settlement 'discounts' if I wanted cash.

My second problem was I couldn't get them 'off' my claim as they seemingly stated they were settling it - took a row with insurance co. to stop them delegating these matters to Wheelies and get the settlement I was owed.

Wheelies are bunch of *****
My bike was still available but wheelies couldn't supply it. They insisted I had to have something else that as far I was concerned wasn't suitable. I wanted what I had. That was what my policy said I could have.
Problem was insurers would delegate back to wheelies who kept regurgitating the same old crap. Once I wrote the insurers I had the money within my account to buy the replacement within a day or two.

So spoken to Wheelies to see what the deal is.

Basically anything decent does not seem to be available for ages (Lapierre Spicy, Kona Process, Scott Genius LT).

The only via option for getting anything near what I'd like is an Orange 5 😯

I can use the Orange website configurator which seems to give me a best option of speccing up the base spec bike 5 with Pikes, Reverb, Thompson bar and stem, hope hoops.

Or do I just stuff it and order the Canyon 😕

Personally I would take the cash! Search Wheelies on here for more info..

Amen to that. Although the cash settlement is less than the credit they offer you everything they offer that credit on is bang on RRP - even on stock that is at clearance prices on their shop site, so the cash will go further elsewhere than the credit will with them. Also, just because they list stuff on the site doesn't mean its in stock..... and they won't dispatch until every last nut and bolt has arrived with them, which can be for ever. For complete bikes which they actually have their hands on I'm sure they are fine but for custom builds you are just going to get mired.

So take the cash, you'll get more choice, the money will go further and you can shop around with retailers who actually have the stuff you want - and you'll be riding your bike much, much sooner

Just a bit of playing around has shown the pointlessness of a custom build with them.

The only viable option is an Orange where I can customise the bike via the Orange website and they order direct from there which only takes 1-2 weeks.

Other than that it's a YT Capara or Canyon Spectral, neither of which seem to be available before May.

A friend of mine just had his stolen bike replaced through wheelies, and I'd not recommend dealing with them.
Limited stock, inflated prices on their replacement site compared to their retail site, bad advice given to him, convinced him to take a medium when the manufacturers site clear showed that he needs a large. Promising him a higher budget than his bike was worth, (And the insurance company claimed the difference back)
As he doesn't live near me, and he went on holiday immediately after the bike arrived, I'm not even sure whether the bike is the right size or not.

Bearing in mind that this was on a standard off-the-shelf bike, using them to replace a custom build would be a complete nightmare.
If you are capable of putting together a custom build, you simply don't need any 'help' from these guys.

Only had to use them once thank God. They offered me a very good replacement but couldn't do me a custom build which is pretty much what I had. I called both the insurance and wheelies with a spec list and got a call back the same day with a full cash offer to replace my custom build. I got the spec and price off the lbs I bought the bike off and would then get the replacement from.

So I guess in short for me they/it worked out Ok

For the un-initiated the inflated prices from wheelies are due to the fact they will be giving the insurance company a significant discount in return for your business. So basically you're being stiffed by your insurer who you've been paying your premiums for x years. in return you get limited choice and a lesser deal.

To be fair to wheelies they can't give you a good deal simply because they can't afford to.

Cold comfort now but I highly recommend a specialist cycle insurance product in the future.

Were fine for me as an insurance replacement, made them get me a Yeti SB-66 frame which wasn't in their catalogue and use loads of my old parts to build it with when my Spicy snapped a few years ago. No complaints really, I could've shopped around for the bits I had to buy myself (and did when I decided to get a Reverb as part of it) but I doubt I'd have saved the cash settlement difference. Only problem I had was that Yeti changed distributor while I was waiting on the order, and the old distro apparently hadn't passed on my name, the bastids. Silverfish were damn helpful at the time, so top marks to them too.

i had to use them for my claim a in 2011 was spot on getting the bike i wanted a snapierre!! although it snapped like every snapierre does!! took them 6 months to finally sort me a new frame out!! will never use or recommend wheelies to anyone!! on that note the same goes for snapierre!!

Anybody else been asked for photographic evidence of the stolen bike by Wheelies? A mate had his stolen recently, and was told by his insurance company to contact them. He sent them details, proof of purchase etc. then had grief about them needing photo's before they'd proceed(and him being unwilling to send the only one he had, as his friend was riding it at the time). They refused to go any further without the photo, and he ended up with a cash payout instead, but seems a bit odd for a bike shop to be insisting on this.

My case was processed by the loss adjusters ival with only wheelies as a potential way to fulfil the claim if I want vouchers rather than cash.

I sent a spec sheet i had prepared and a recent photo as I thought this would help mitigate any questions.

Anybody else been asked for photographic evidence of the stolen bike by Wheelies? A mate had his stolen recently, and was told by his insurance company to contact them. He sent them details, proof of purchase etc. then had grief about them needing photo's before they'd proceed

Yeah I sent them pics of three out of the four bikes I had nicked, as well as all the receipts I could get my hands on still.

Didn't think it unusual that they asked tbh, most of us do take pics of our bikes don't we.

They refused to go any further without the photo, and he ended up with a cash payout instead, but seems a bit odd for a bike shop to be insisting on this.

They're pretty random as to how they achieve a valuation. I sent them details of every nut and bolt of my stolen bike, plus a photo. In the first instance they came back with a witheringly low valuation based, it turned out, on the stolen bike having a deore rear mech, so ignoring all the other hope and XT components they thumbed through their catalogue of off-the-peg bikes, looked at what other bikes came with a deore mech and took that as the valuation. And then told me they'd done exactly that. In doing so they pretty much exactly halved the valuation and it was my insurers who had to persuade them that there was more to valuing a bike than that.

I had a couple of bikes nicked from the garage two years ago, and had to go through Wheelies to get replacements.

For my other half's bike they were great, it was a standard city bike that they had in stock, and it arrived quickly with the bits we'd ordered.

For my bike (a 14" hardtail) the only option was a custom build. They took over two months, and by the end that was only with constant calling to chase things (nothing moved if I didn't chase it), I had to buy half the bits and get reimbursed by them, as they couldn't source them, even though I could.

They were friendly and helpful throughout, but couldn't deliver on what they promised, and couldn't source parts (exotic things like Rockshox forks or Avid brakes).

The build itself was dreadful.

The fork steerer was cut shorter than agreed,
the shim for the odd diameter seat tube (it was the generation of Ragleys that needed them) was missing, so the seat post couldn't be secured,
the brake cables weren't securely clamped, so they were fine until on a descent the cables came completely loose.

If they had exactly what I needed already in stock I'd use them again, otherwise no way.