After a summer of being off the bike during lockdown chasing a big ol’ top out thunk on my FlareMax – which included sending the x fusion shock back three times as it never helped, replacing all the bearings, all the shock hardware, my BB, and servicing the rear hub – I eventually got in touch with Cotic.

By the time I did, my shock was out of warranty. Cotic initially sent me a used x fusion shock to try to see if it solved it, to keep if it did help.

It didn’t so Paul suggested I send the frame back for inspection. When it became apparent that both my old shock and the new shock were at fault (same issue, remarkably), they sent me the frame back with a brand new cane creek inline, no charge. Not even for postage on the courier.

That is just amazing.

Anyone had better service?

Thats nice! But they have basically sold you something that had a fault and then just fixed the fault.

Props to Cotic, a fine example of how to keep a customer.

@Blackflag not quite, even with the most narrow of vision – they replaced like for like, well after warranty, and then upgraded by a significant margin, well after warranty, free of charge.

Great companies can recognise the value in doing things like this,
For example, based on the above, how likely are you to buy a cotic in future?

Top work by Cotic.

Out of interest, what was the issue with the shock that couldn’t be fixed in 3 visits to a workshop and also afflicted another random model?

Santa cruz, gave a warranty rear triangle to someone I know who wasn’t the original owner.

they replaced like for like, well after warranty, and then upgraded by a significant margin, well after warranty, free of charge.

Fair enough, i just re-read the post. I initially thought the first contact with Cotic was within warranty. It is good service.

One of the main reasons why I bought my FlareMax was the excellent customer service at Cotic.

One of the main reasons why I bought my FlareMax

I bought mine because I thought it would turn me into the kind of person who could ride down steep technical stuff. I should probably send it back 🙂

@tthew it was a loss of control on rebound, like the bumper had been removed. Metal on metal sound. To his credit, the spanner ran it through a dyno and replaced literally everything in the shock. To his demerit he stated it couldn’t be the shock, and it was.

@Blackflag Oh that’s good. Thought lockdown had made you bitter!

@Nobeerinthefridge that’s possibly topping my service, well above and beyond of Santa Cruz.

Old 26” Giant Trance frame cracked (only discovered whilst packing it to ship to a buyer).
Still under warranty, so returned to Giant. No 26” frames left, so they asked for the rest of the bike back and sent me a new equivalent-model complete 27.5” bike (£3.5k-worth).I thought that was pretty good. No hassle, took about 3 weeks.

Old 26” Giant Trance frame cracked (only discovered whilst packing it to ship to a buyer).
Still under warranty, so returned to Giant. No 26” frames left, so they asked for the rest of the bike back and sent me a new equivalent-model complete 27.5” bike (£3.5k-worth).I thought that was pretty good. No hassle, took about 3 weeks.

I mean, that *sounds* good, but did they make sure your buyer was happy? I mean, it sounds like they were just doing it by halves!

😉

It’s a (Co)tic from me 👍

Cotic are sick thats amazing they did all that for you! My story isnt as good as yours they did massively help me when LBS said the pivot bolt in the seat tube had ovalized at that point the bike was about 10 months old. Cotic had the frame sent back to them and Cy stripped it and rebuilt it himself. Im sure hes got better things to do with his day than put my bike back together. Woman of steel, general shouting about current social issues and amazing bikes are just some of the reasons i have 2 of them… and will likely upgrade to a RocketMax at some point.

@bullandbladder that is really sound. Fair play. Got to be in the running.

I while ago admittedly but, Hope HID light (the stem mounted one that came out about 2005) the connection pins broke in the battery. I spoke to Hope on the phone and they said no problem send it back and we will repair it for you. I told them I needed it in a couple of days for a race. The guy on the phone apologised and pointed out it might take them a week and could guarantee anything then said “Hang on, what race”.

“Relentless 24 up at Fort William”

“We’ll be there too we’ll bring you a new battery”

So I got up to Fort William, located the Hope van, had a nice chat with the bloke there and he gave me a (fully charged) battery and took the old one off me.

About 5 days later my broken battery got posted back to me, fully repaired.

No charge for anything.

I got some free haribo from wiggle once.

nicko74

I mean, that *sounds* good, but did they make sure your buyer was happy? I mean, it sounds like they were just doing it by halves!

I bet the buyer was delighted to get a new bike 🙂

I got a random call from Andorra. It was the guys at production privee.

The scottish police had recovered a stolen green shan and I apparently owned the only green one in scotland.(since met a guy who bought directly from PP but at the time i was unique!!)

It wasnt mine, however thanks to a group set up by dd cycles i knew it was a canadian who was visiting Scotland on her green shan and some scum had stolen it.

Dd and PP took this info and reunited the bike with its owner.

I was amazed by the extra they had put in and would highly recommend them to anyone. Plus the bike is amazing too!!

@stevious you win thread closed.

@stevemuzzy that’s more Sherlock Holmes: International than CS… Pretty amazing that!

Not much will top those free Oakley’s loads of us got on here a few years back! £245 Eye jackets absolutely NADA! 👍

Not bike related, but Sky has some online offer for me dropping my package from 45 quid to 25 quid, selected it on line and it went through in the end at 44 quid. One quick phone call later and the guy put my package down to £24 for 18 months.

Not much will top those free Oakley’s loads of us got on here a few years back! £245 Eye jackets absolutely NADA! 👍

Still wearing my jawbones daily! Probably my favourite ever PSA, that.

Cotic were great when both times I had a leaking xt lever, sent me a new one directly as they were confident it would get warrantied.

Whyte also sent me a brand new road frame when I let them know that my frame (bought second hand) had completely cracked all the way around the bottom of the downtube. I didn’t ask for anything, just emailed to make them aware!

Yep, the free Oakleys are still going strong here. Might splash out on new lenses for them, unless Oakley can be persuaded to replace them free… 😄

Old 26” Giant Trance frame cracked (only discovered whilst packing it to ship to a buyer).
Still under warranty, so returned to Giant. No 26” frames left, so they asked for the rest of the bike back and sent me a new equivalent-model complete 27.5” bike (£3.5k-worth).I thought that was pretty good. No hassle, took about 3 weeks.

Did similar quite a few times when I worked at Trek warranty. It’s a pretty standard response to that issue to be fair

I bought mine because I thought it would turn me into the kind of person who could ride down steep technical stuff. I should probably send it back 🙂

It’s not the bike.

http://www.ridelines.co.uk
http://www.dirtschool.co.uk

Thumbs up to Cotic from me, too.

Both Cotic and Oakley have replaced frames for me, no questions asked.

I lucked out in the unexpectedly free Oakley jackpot as well… sadly I can’t wear them these days as I now need a prescription 🙁

I’ll give a shout out to Shutt VR… one time I saw on another forum they were getting grief for delayed replies to emails, but I’d read something elsewhere which suggested the reason why that might be, so I explained on their behalf. Later the chap who runs it (whose name currently escapes me, apologies) got in touch and said, thanks, can we send you some free stuff? Which was jolly nice of him considering how little I’d done.

Santa cruz, gave a warranty rear triangle to someone I know who wasn’t the original owner.

Interesting, they refused to even sell me one in that circumstance.

Way back when Evans was good (circa 2006), I had a set of Manitou Sherman’s on my Scott High Octane. They broke a week before the warranty was due to expire. I’d been eyeing up the new marzocchi 888 rc2x fork that had just come out and people were Raving about.

Long story short, they were told by head office to replace the fork with whatever they had that was suitable in the store.

Seeing as it was a 20mm thru axle and long travel, the only thing in the store was said brand spanking new Marzocchis.

Picked it up a few days later feeling very smug.

Needless to say, things at Evans VERY different nowadays.

First ride out after lockdown and the shock on my Rocket Max managed to snap itself in 2 on the first turn, pretty much writing off the frame in the process.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, was prepared to have to buy a new frame, Cotic dealt with it incredibly quickly. I had a new warranty frame and shock within a week. Their customer service is one of the reasons I keep buying their stuff.

After Evans refused to even look at my failed CAAD12 frame a friend said to try Thomas Cycle Evolution in Colchester to buy a replacement frame.

The guys in store said to try for warranty rather than sell me a frame – they sent it off free, argued the toss and managed to get me a replacement upgraded Black Inc frameset. I paid £10 postage for the replacement but they wouldn’t take anything else.

Needless to say they will get my business in the future and I am more than happy to share the story with anyone who will listen.

I got my Hemlock used- ex demo. Rode the absolute shit out of it for years. Broke it 4 times…

Once, racing the Enduro World Series- broke the seatsta on the innerleithen dh stage. Mostly age related I think, it went on the horrible thing just after the bombhole on the right
Once, at an uplift day at Fort William- damaged the shock linkage on the motorway by spectacularly casing a double. It had fallen off the gondola earlier in the day, possibly not a coincidence!
And my personal favourite, broke the chainstay the ride after racing the fort william endurance DH- a race that destroys everything, including your sanity and quite a lot of your skin. The first production model of a new orange patriot broke 3 hours in, my tired old trailbike made it through the day 🙂

Every time i called Cotic and said, “Hey, I don’t have a warranty and even if I did it would be out of warranty, and I broke it doing stuff that’s way above its paygrade, can I buy some new bits” and they said “don’t be daft, have some free stuff, hope it didn’t spoil your ride!”

The only replacement bit I ever paid for, was a front triangle after mine fatigued to death. But even then Cy found me a used front end and sold it to me for a token amount. So apart from the pivots, I got an entire bike from them over the years for IIRC £50.

Now you could say, no bike should break 4 times and that’s fair. But only the chainstay was a common issue, the rest were just what happens when you take a sensible trail bike and ride the bollocks off it for years. Hemlocks weren’t really meant to get coil suspension and be thrashed for 4 years of alps trips, dozens of enduro and dh races, and who knows how many uplifts, pushup days, and general innerleithen beatings. Especially not by a total knobber- I did my first ever enduro and dh race on that bike, some people stress their bikes by going really fast and big, I stressed this one initially by crashing it into many, many trees. Totally wore out 2 shocks, a fork, and I think 4 sets of wheels. Still got it, still works.

Oooookay I reckon that tops the lot, @Northwind, that’s ridiculous. Well done Cotic.

It got to the point I’d phone up and say “Hi, my bike’s broken, can you help” and they’d start sorting it out then go “Wait a minute! You’re THAT GUY, aren’t you” and I’d go yep. I’d be amazed if I ever get as much use out of another bike- I’ve had my Remedy the same length of time I think but it’s had a much easier life.

The guys at Cotic are absolute legends! I keep trying to buy a bike from them but never have cash at quite the right moment. Will do at some point though!