Maybe it’s just me and the line of work I’m in but I’m always astounded at the lack of any sort of reasonable customer service from a lot of the bike industry. My 6month old carbon frame (from a main manufacturer) cracked at the chainstay last month. It’s accepted as a warranty issue but taken me a month to get any sort of update from manufacturer – a simple, matter of fact statement that it’s ‘hopefully’ September for a replacement. Since then no response to any questions on options to better such a ridiculous turnaround.

Thats 4 months to replace a 6month old – high end – bike that failed.

Am I being unreasonable??

You need to sort it out with the retailer as that’s who the contract is with.

Assuming you bought the bike in a shop go in on a Saturday afternoon when they are busy and talk loudly (not shouting) should worry the manager enough to start things moving faster.

For online shops you might want to try social media moaning

LBS where I bought it is a thoroughly nice guy – small, (slightly overly) relaxed set up. He’s happy with me taking it up with Distributor direct and thats about the extent of his involvement, distributor seems happy waiting it all out for no response so I went direct to not upset a nice (but relaxed) crowd…

Like I said – is it just me in a whole different industry that seems to think professionalism is good communication and responding within a day or two with positive suggestions toward a solution.

Even tried the FB approach – name and shame on their social media site… Nothing.

If you want a faster outcome you need to lean on the lbs. If the distributer has no frames then lbs should organise something else in the meantime of give a refund, imo.

Distributer can tell you anything they like as legally it means nothing.

It always amazes me that people let bike shops get away with this – if your telly broke at 6 months old, a phone call to the shop would see a replacement in the post the same day (or at worst you’d take it back to the shop) same goes for your phone, washing machine and trouser press. £k’s worth of bike and suddenly everyone’s happy to do the shops admit for them and go all season without!
If a replacement isn’t possible within a week a full refund will be fine thanks.

what they ay not your problem replacement ASAP and . like ot or not for them and you, it is the LBS problem to deal with the distributor as your contract is with them and liability has been admitted

I have excellent expectation management technique.

“no”.

Good shout fella’s. I’ve had a couple of these instances of late with bike stores and I was thinking maybe I was in the wrong and just being too pushy. Could not agree more Petrieboy – there is few other industries where this is acceptable behaviour in this day and age. I ride a lot, I’ve done this for years, I buy a decent bike regularly and yet I can’t help but feel the bike industry seems to think I’m not worth their time – whats their target market?? I don’t feel I’m ‘cool’ enough for them to care about me (and the hundreds of others like minded)

I’ve got to laugh when these bike stores complain that internet bike stores are the devil. I get a response within the hour and always a prompt, thoroughly acceptable solution from all of the online retailers. LBS as a clique market is dead.

Thanks – I wouldn’t have considered taking this approach. Tempted to hand the whole thing over to Visa.

He’s happy with me taking it up with Distributor direct and thats about the extent of his involvement,

This is not the action of a “nice” guy, that’s a shark at work.

Sometimes it’s just hard to do- Whyte got famous for their slow replacement times but that was because they had more breakages than they could deal with, and couldn’t fill demand no matter how hard they tried. That’s a difficult situation… But for other companies it just seems to be how they roll- send it back, we’ll think about it for a month…

You see classifieds “I bought this frame while I was waiting for a warranty replacement”, imagine having to buy a fridge to tide you over… Just wouldn’t happen. I use to think PC warranty was bad with a couple of weeks RMA turnaround…

Got to laugh Northwind – I’ve caught myself looking at buying stop gap alternatives already.

Irony is that THIS is a bike I bought end of last year while waiting for a warranty replacement on a different brand!!

Next bike I swear I’ll be researching customer service before I buy. They’re all much the same these days I figure you should rank that pretty highly.

Email to LBS sent. Cheers. It appears I’m not in the minority…

Do not mistake the nice people in your LBS for friends – they are suppliers of goods and services in return for your money. Some of them are really nice helpful people who are good at running bike shops and some of them get away with being just OK because we don’t make enough of a fuss when things go wrong. Of course some of us are arses when we have no case, but that’s another story…

Do you really want to wait until the summer is over before you get your new bike? I bet they could get you a new one pretty quickly if you were paying. Oh hang on, you have already paid!

If things are as straightforward as you say then your contract is with the lbs – tell them this (pleasantly) and that if they do not sort things out rapidly then you will firstly go to your credit card company (who I believe are jointly liable under section 75 of the consumer credit act as the provider of finance and who will then charge the retailer with a refund) and then to the small claims court, and then to the trading standards people etc, etc. You have to make your problem the most important thing they have to do when they open the shop each day.

If you are the sort of person who finds it difficult doing this stuff face to face then send them an email starting “I find it difficult dealing with this stuff face to face so I thought I would send you an email” and then summarize the above. In fact putting it in writing is a great way to prove how long things have been taking…

good luck

I broke the chain stay on a 4 year old Scott Spark whilst on holiday, phoned up SJS Cycles when I got back (not the original dealer as Kudu bikes had since folded) and they had a replacement chain stay with me in under a week!

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nGvTaD]Broken dropout on Scott Spark RC[/url] by brf, on Flickr

Is there a reasonable time for replacement/repair in the sales of goods act?

It’s no real surprise! Most companies are the are the same they are only interested in new sales and increasing turnover & profit. Not giving goods away which will effect their bottom line.

Whether it’s an expensive mountain bike, car, TV, etc etc etc….