Can Working On Your Bike Void The Warranty?

Not my experience with trek, I’m afraid.

 

 

yes but a head honcho said the same thing IIRC

I looked that up, I don’t think he said the same thing. I read it as they prefer it all to be dealt with via a Giant store and if that store does do all the work your claim is stronger. He’s not saying the guy’s bike there had an incorrectly applied change or not, or ‘take your bike to a Giant store for a new chain or your warranty is invalid’.

There are B+W warranty points in writing (eg on modifications) and generally they’re written to the strictest application needed, warranty staff then apply experience and sense to resolve the issues around those terms. So there’s judgement needed and it’ll go wrong sometimes.

generally they’re written to the strictest application needed, warranty staff then apply experience and sense to resolve the issues around those terms

I tried making this very point in the original thread, but it got lost in the pile on.

Something like not attributing to malice that which can be attributed to misunderstanding.

That’s called hanlon’s razor.

Can understand how that applies, and I think most people would appreciate everyone can make mistakes including the warranty department.

Whilst an initial mistake can be excused, the continued stupidity and inconsistency of the position giant is maintaining, I don’t think can be excused.

That’s called hanlon’s razor.

Yeah, I misquoted it for the post as ‘stupidity’ or similar isn’t fair to the situation here. Heuristics and mental models are good things. A warranty policy might even benefit from including a few of them for the benefit of interpretation.

Whilst an initial mistake can be excused, the continued stupidity and inconsistency of the position giant is maintaining, I don’t think can be excused.

Doesn’t seem to be maintained to me? Mis-comms in error to begin with, clarified here. But I’m hesitant to have an opinion on this and contribute to dragging it on. I get that some don’t like how it reads to them.

BTW I have no stake in or knowledge of Giant but I’ve experience of warranty from writing the clauses they way I think they should be to working through them with legal counsel, to dealing with fall-out in instances like this. You can’t write a foolproof warranty policy for a big company, it’s all too nuanced. Particularly because the bigger the company the more piss-take claims you probably get so the fall backs need to be tight.

Trek wouldn’t solve an issue with a re:activ shock on a brand new bike because they said it was up to Fox to deal with. Fox said it was Treks responsibility.

Dolan refused to warranty a cx bike because ‘it had been used in mud’.

I have no faith in any big companies full stop. They are professionals at wriggling out of what the rest of us would consider fair.

So, after reading that with a glass of wine, not tea and biscuits, I have come to the following definitive conclusion:

1. Bird & Santa Cruz top my list of future potential pedalling machines, not that I could ever afford either of them 😂
2. Whyte – love the use of emoji and the statement “so mates welding it up” – at least they seem like humans
3. Giant – never getting a penny off me and I no longer love the old-time Giant VT with the curved seat tube 🙁

YMMV 🤷‍♂️

Trek wouldn’t solve an issue with a re:activ shock on a brand new bike because they said it was up to Fox to deal with. Fox said it was Treks responsibility

I sent mine to Fox service center, they fixed in 48 hours

I gave up trying after a year and bought another shock. This was in 2017 though so maybe they’re wonderful now.

I’m OK with “fall-back” T&C but if they’re as apparently explicit (and yet simultaneously poorly-phrased and vague) as Giant’s then potential customers should be very wary IMO.  No amount of “we’ll see you right” works as a follow-on from what the letter of the terms is, or wysi’s experience was

Whilst I welcome the article it’s all a bit irrelevant. Under U.K. law your warranty is with the retailer you bought the product from and not the manufacturer. I am week e aware the retailer will want assurances from their suppliers so they don’t get left carrying the cost but that’s not what the law states

To give you an example I had a problem with an 18 month old iMac. Took it into the apple shop to be sorted. They said they would warranty it because I had bought it from the refurb site which is legally in Ireland so it had a 2 year warranty. Has I bought it in the store I was stood in then it would be no can do as only a 1 year warranty with the shop

then potential customers should be very wary IMO.

I don’t disagree. There are terms that read as more realistic like ‘no unsuitable modification parts’ but then you’re into what is or isn’t suitable etc, there’s always grey areas so a lot of it will come down to reputation and communication.

Generally you’d expect the best from a small specialist brand who really knows their market and customers. Big brands who always act like small brands are great, it’s a hard thing to do.

My experience with Trek warranty, all handled by the supplying LBS (Two Wheels in Stourbridge)

1. Microfractures around spoke holes on rear wheel rim –  new wheel supplied.

2. Trashed hub on rear wheel – new wheel set supplied as the replacement rear wouldn’t match the existing front. This was Trek’s idea, not a request/demand from me.

3. Cracked lower shock mount on frame. – discovered on a Saturday morning, taken to shop that day who started themwarranty process on Monday. Trek responded to the warranty claim the next day with the offer of either a replacement frame or the RRP of the fame set off any new Trek.

Whilst I welcome the article it’s all a bit irrelevant. Under U.K. law your warranty is with the retailer you bought the product from and not the manufacturer.

Your statutory rights are with the retailer eg the Consumer Rights Act, a manufacturer’s warranty is with the manufacturer. 2 different things but the manuf warranty must go beyond the basic statutory rights.

Before it even gets to the tea/biscuits/popcorn point – thanks @Mark and @stwhannah for doing this. Fab.

Agreed! Well done.

Under U.K. law your warranty is with the retailer you bought the product from and not the manufacturer

Don’t confuse statutory legal rights with the manufacturer’s warranty.

Your statutory legal rights are with the vendor as you state, and your statutory legal rights include a warranty. but the warranty offered by manufacturers is usually over and above your statutory legal rights (and usually exceeds them) and is as per the t & c stated by the manufacturer in the warranty docs and rests with the manufacturer. It’s the manufacturer warranty that is being discussed here.

Doesn’t seem to be maintained to me?

Apologies quite right – I stand corrected. I hadn’t seen on the other thread that Giant’ve caved.

Still, it clearly should never have been dragged on so long in the first place with Giant so clearly in the wrong.

I would still not be filled with confidence that either Giant’s customer service, warranty or escalation routes are functioning well.

1. Bird & Santa Cruz top my list of future potential pedalling machines, not that I could ever afford either of them 😂

Bird are way less pricey than Santa Cruz. They’ve got around £1k off some full bikes at the mo.

Home

When a bike is not serviced by an authorised dealer we historically have more issues, simply because if a technician does the same work on a specific manufacturers bike, goes on all the relevant pieces of training, and has access to all the diagrams, updates and service spare parts as well as the in-house customer care and global warranty teams it naturally builds up knowledge to undertake the jobs efficiently and without issue.

The irony is that almost every bike i’ve had through my hands that has come from, or been worked on by an “authorised dealer” has had significant errors on the build. In some cases even on their own proprietary parts.
If i could be arsed, and if i needed the money, i could probably make a reasonable income sorting them out.

But i can’t be arsed, so unless it’s a 2 minute job, they just go back to the “authorised dealer” to be “fixed” (again).

This is excellent work, well done STW

……..currently adding insight into ‘bought new parts threads’ at every bike forum im on. Especially for Giant owners.

Sounds like Giant owe someone a frame.

Conclusion, Giant are a lying set of *****, we fully understand individual cases can’t be commented on but they weren’t pressed on the fact that simply stripping down the bike has led to a flat and abrupt warranty refusal at the first hurdle, contrary to their above statement, and can people stop questioning wysiwyg’s seatpost insertion, it’s obvious to anyone with average or above IQ what he meant, nobody is inserting their seatpost by only 2″, it’s clearly less than 2″ from full insertion.

Great stuff. I always check warranty conditions before buying bikes.

I did a survey too, to see how important warranties are.

I surveyed myself and discovered that of the 11 mtb frames I’ve owned 4 of them have required warranty replacements. Two of them were barely ridden before being stolen so I’m going with a frame failure rate of 44%!

Raleigh, Cotic and Kona all did the right thing with minimal hassle. Cotic went beyond.

Xfusion also replaced a fork I bought from Cotic, even though I told them I’d serviced myself.

Specialized on the other hand wouldn’t warranty a six month old seat that wore out, claiming it had “sun damage” when the fabric was clearly not fit for purpose.

On the Emtb forum i got an answer over this from an American rider.

He stated this sort of thing, Insisting work is done by them alone is illegal. I’ve added the quote to the other thread on this.

The really daft thing about this, is that as more and more people are choosing e-bikes, the warranty is becoming even more important.

I believe that this is why Bird have backed out for the moment. Presumably, they don’t want to risk damaging their great reputation.

Sounds like Giant owe someone a frame.

They’ve offered words instead – like clapping, a cheap empty gesture…..

The really daft thing about this, is that as more and more people are choosing e-bikes, the warranty is becoming even more important.

Yeah, it really does make buying from a local retailer look increasingly sensible as well, even if they are (generally) useless.
Waiting a couple of weeks/months for your local dealer to sort out a replacement controller or whatever is one thing, but having to ship your bike back to another country, or half way across this country. Or get them to deal with a manufacturer whose bikes they don’t even sell… Or, for you guys outside the EU, dealing with customs as well.

Nah.

I know there’s been a few positives aimed at Whyte/ATB sales but I’d like to add mine;

Whyte S150 – the Whyte branded freehub was a bit grouchy & rough. It hasn’t been used that much so I enquired whether it was covered under warranty. They replied that they would normally replace the whole freehub as the bearings can be a bit fiddly, but unfortunately they didn’t have any spares and didn’t have bearings either (it was just after final Covid lockdown). However, the fella also said that if I’m happy doing the work pressing bearings in & out then he’d be happy if I sourced my own bearings & fit them, so n order to keep me riding. He also said that if & when the freehubs came back into stock he’d send one out to me. I was very impressed with that – he seemed more interested in keeping me on the trail than whether I’d use a wood chisel to remove the bearings.

Anyway, I sorted it with some eBay specials and carried on riding. About 4 months later when I’d forgot all about it a freehub arrived in the post.

Absolutely brilliant customer service from Whyte UK 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

“We are not able to discuss individual cases however we are reviewing the process that lead [sic] to this situation.”

So for now, the position Giant have laid out in their responses to our questions above is seemingly the definitive position.

It’s not clear whether adding in this last line was a sop to Giant, or just a poorly thought-through way to try and round off the piece – but the last sentence is hugely dangerous. Nothing in this article is a “definitive statement”. The wording of their warranty is unchanged by any comments made by Giant for the benefit of this article. Their statement is that they’re reviewing the process, not the warranty itself. For the foreseeable future, Giant’s warrany has to be regarded as caveat emptor until they’ve demonstrated over the longer-term that they can be trusted to do the right thing in dealing with warranty claims.

Can I give a mention to Orange bikes customer service and warranty process here.

I found a crack in my Orange four frame, when replacing the pivot bearings. The frame was a year out of warranty but I contacted them anyway, hoping for a deal on a replacement frame. They instantly offered to replace the frame in a colour of my choice, or upgrade at a discount, no questions asked.

Based on that level of service I always recommend them and I’m not sure I’ll ever buy anything else now…

Just being lazy but what is it about Specialized’s warranty?

I’ve just seen this and love the fact that the leading photo is of a Sick! frame with their legendary approach to warranty issues.