Canyon problems

Hi, wondering if Canyon are generally dodgy or unreliable. Story is, bike ordered a few months ago, scheduled for late August, so far so good. Email arrives, saying bike is “almost ready” and I need to complete payment. I have 10 days to pay, but the sooner I pay, the sooner I’ll get it!

Next thing I know (literally within an hour), bike is now scheduled for late Jan. No explanation, no meaningful response from customer service.

Silver lining, they haven’t taken the money. But is this a silver lining, or will I get another pair of emails in Jan saying bike is “almost ready for delivery”, oops we mean maybe in June?

My guess is what really happened is some goon somehow cancelled and remade the order when they screwed up the payment process (there was no sign of anything wrong at my end, I’ve bought more expensive things recently with the same payment method). So after patiently waiting my turn I’m at the back of the queue again. New orders placed today for the same product have an anticipated delivery of Jan. But if they have a history of stringing along customers and failing to deliver then maybe I should look elsewhere. Shame as it seemed just the right bike for me (Neuron). Anything else similar I should be looking at? Needs to come in a large size, and preferably this year.

Or one of their suppliers notified them that a delivery of parts was about to be dispatched…. and then they get news from the same supplier that now isn’t happening ’till end of year. Don’t be surprised if that slips again to about April next year. It’s just the way things are this year unfortunately. You’ll find that other bike brands will be facing similar problems as they use similar parts/components to build their bikes.

Do you have the option to cancel at any point prior to delivery?

If so, why not look for something in stock somewhere now that bikes are trickling in again?

At this point I’m not even sure what the real status of the order is, and no-one at Canyon is helping. Yesterday’s email said that if payment was not made in 10 days the order would be cancelled, and they haven’t yet managed to take payment for unknown reasons (no fault at my end that I can discern). But that email was clearly written in anticipation of imminent delivery, it was only subsequently that they suddenly said it was going to be next year. My guess is that if I do nothing, there will probably be another identical email in mid-Jan saying delivery imminent, you have 10 days to pay. But according to what they have written I should in theory get a message 9 days from now saying the order has been cancelled. It’s a shambles and they are no longer replying.

I would certainly consider another bike if an equivalent was available. Do you have any suggestions? I’m just looking for a decent FS 29er that will do anything moderately well. It has to come in a large size and I tend to favour Al frames. Canyon caught my eye as my wife and I have a pair of road bikes (Endurace) that we like.

I think Canyon have a fully automated just in time production set up.

I bought a Canyon on the third occasion I ordered one. First time I ordered a cross bike for fed up waiting and ended up cancelling the order and bought a Cannondale. Second one was a road bike Ultimate. The week before it was due I got an email advising a six week delay. I then bought a Giant. The next day I got an email revering to the original date asking for payment. I cancelled that one. If they hadn’t sent the delay email I would have bought the Ultimate.

3rd time I ordered a hard tail. Waited a few months the bike was ready as expected and I paid and got the bike. Excellent bike great value for money.

I think if your patient they will sort it out. No doubt you will receive an email saying your bike is ready. In the meantime shop around for a plan B just in case.

They used to have a rep office in the UK – maybe worth calling and speaking to a human?

One of the ebike shops i visited wanted the entire sum up front to order it in.
Obviously the fear there is they are unable to order it in and but still have all your money, so you are left waiting and waiting and are effectively being held to ransom.

Try the sales live chat thing

The Sonder cortex is very similar

Giant trance 29 might be a suitable in stock alternative.

Thanks @davros it does look similar…but can’t find it available anyway.

Canyon live chat do their best but communication with HQ in Germany isn’t the best sometimes.

I have a Neuron. Love it. Trance 29 and Merida One Twenty were also on my shortlist at the time.

Previous dealings with Canyon have been great if they have the bike and pretty awful if there are delays or problems.

So the story has a happy ending – a couple of days ago we were passing Wheelbase in Staveley, popped in just on the off-chance and they happened to have a Specialized Epic Evo in the right size. A lot more than I’d originally planned on spending but it’s probably a bit better for me than the Canyon and most importantly it means I actually have a bike rather than a long and uncertain wait. Hopefully I’ll have forgotten the price in a couple of years :-) I like Wheelbase and haven’t really spent very much there apart from using gift vouchers won at events they sponsor so quite happy to give them a decent amount of money for once!

Funny thing is, that very same day we got an email from Canyon saying that delivery on my order had been brought forward and my Neuron was now ready! So the previous delay was obviously just a cock up with their payment processing as we had guessed. But due to a complete absence of communication/explanation/apology, a few hours too late.