Warranty denied as I stripped the bike down?

Yes please don’t be getting confused with the snapped weld half way through the thread.

The couple of questions this raises with me are; if it’s standard practice for Giant to see the whole bike, why didn’t the Giant dealer advise that when I emailed about stripping the bike down? How did other shops, some of whom are mentioned within this thread, and others I have spoken to say they take frame only for warranty? Finally if it’s not the case and it should only be full bikes, was the bike shop trying to do me with “Labour, admin and postage charges” can anyone tell me what Giant’s policy is on warranty remuneration for the dealer on warranty?

Wow this is a proper tea and biscuits thread.

theotherjonv
Full Member
There’s a bit of a lack of attention to detail in this thread and the rush to participate and pile on.

On P1, the original poster said

Cracked under the seat tube to top tube junction, seatpost never extended past about 2″ of static insert

Nah, we’ve clarified that, he seemed to be using that to describe how much of the fixed tube of the dropper post sits above the top of the seat post 🤷‍♂️. Like in the picture of the bike.

Wow this is a proper tea and biscuits thread.

That’s STW for you.

why didn’t the Giant dealer advise that when I emailed about stripping the bike down?

TBF, as I understand it, they didn’t give the go-ahead. You didn’t get a response but carried on anyway. I’m not trying to shift the blame, but a nil response doesn’t indicate approval. Did your email even get there? Did you try calling? Having seen what some folk will try to pass off as “not their fault” I can see where Ian/Giant are coming from. Of course, there’s no guarantee that what the shop sees reflects the position as it was when the damage occurred, but sometimes there are signs that an astute mechanic can pick up on.

Am pretty sure that for the purposes of this thread, those are two different Giants, one is specifically the manufacturer of the Trance/Reign/Anthem, the other is the huge manufacturing concern in Taiwan.

Can you explain what you mean there?

So I have obviously missed some bits as pointed out, fair enough. Is there a picture of the actual damaged bit of the bike, please ?

Finally if it’s not the case and it should only be full bikes, was the bike shop trying to do me with “Labour, admin and postage charges” can anyone tell me what Giant’s policy is on warranty remuneration for the dealer on warranty?

I worked in a bike shop (years ago) and did many warranty claims (none for Giant, we were not a Giant dealer).

Standard practice was that labour costs were reimbursed by the manufacturer. That happened routinely – we’d put it on the bill as strip down (or rebuild) of warranty frame and head office would submit an invoice to the manufacturer.

Bottom line was that the customer was never asked to pay for a frame rebuild. They’d drop off a bike that had failed in some way, we’d establish the facts, notify the company, they’d ask for the frame back and we’d do the necessary stuff to get it back to them. If the warranty claim was accepted, the company would supply a new frame, pay our postage costs and the labour costs of strip down / rebuild.

The customer would walk out of the shop with an as-new bike. There were a couple of instances that I’m aware of where a customer paid the difference in components (I remember one guy buying a new set of wheels to go on his “new” bike) and a few cases of “the new frame uses a different diameter seatpost to your original frame” (or similar) so it’d be replaced as part of the deal.

mrhoppy – I get that, I mean the conflation of the OP with the other twitter thread one.

wysiwyg – good points

if it’s standard practice for Giant to see the whole bike, why didn’t the Giant dealer advise that when I emailed about stripping the bike down?

Devil’s advocate – they didn’t respond at all and you took that as didn’t say no, must mean yes. Hindsight’s a great thing, but does mean they couldn’t check the insertion depth. OTOH, as others have said who could tell if you returned to stock set up before submitting for inspection anyway.

How did other shops, some of whom are mentioned within this thread, and others I have spoken to say they take frame only for warranty?

Agree, lack of clarity and inconsistency means I wouldn’t know where I was if I had an issue. A turn-off…..

Finally if it’s not the case and it should only be full bikes, was the bike shop trying to do me with “Labour, admin and postage charges” can anyone tell me what Giant’s policy is on warranty remuneration for the dealer on warranty?

I’d like Ian to answer that. It’s long been a contention with me; I buy a bike, the frame breaks* and is warrantable, yet the shop might want to charge a strip and rebuild fee onto the new one. Why should I pay, if your frame hadn’t broken I wouldn’t need it, why am I out of pocket? I’d like a bike co that makes it absolutely clear they will pick that up with the shop, not be a discretion thing

* or a component, I have heard of a shop trying to charge to remove and send a shock off for service when it failed. I can drop a shock out or a fork off dead easy, I wouldn’t pay someone for that but now might lose the warranty as a result, which is back where we came in.

@wysiwyg I have probably missed it but can you please post a picture of the break in your frame ?

I have had 3 frames warranted.
Two I striped down and rebuilt myself.
One the dealer stripped down and rebuilt with no charge other than some upgrades I asked for.
I can’t see why Giant are being difficult.

View post on imgur.com

As an aside, reading Giants response it makes me concerned for the future of biking with big brands. It reads like they are trying to go down a similar road to car dealer servicing. Buy a giant and it needs to go to their dealer for servicing, giving more business to their dealer network, in order to keep your warranty. Might even need to drop it in every 6 or 12 months to keep it valid. While I can maybe understand this for expensive e-bike motors I cannot see many keen cyclists wanting to go to a dealer for consumables (chains/cassettes/pads etc). But that’s a whole other conversation.

Has anyone confirmed poster Ian is definately Ian B at Giant UK.

That aside, should there have been a substantive and disadvantageous change in warranty terms, and/or unfair and unenforcable conditions under UK consumer law; this could potentially expose Giant to a group litigation by affected claimants (inc the ones in this thread)

If he doesn’t work for giant he’s got a terrible hobby.

Might even need to drop it in every 6 or 12 months to keep it valid.

some components, such as shocks recommend servicing far more frequently. I have in mind some Foxes I had some time ago said 25 hours – that would be every fortnight the amount I was doing at that time. I didn’t follow that, of course, but used to do a basic strip and clean every month or two depending on the conditions they’d been in. Which you can’t do on a Giant, because that would mean home servicing the shock and taking it apart and invalidating the warranty, unless Giant deem it OK.

So do you need to pay Giant dealers to sort the shock for you every few weeks?

I think the Giant dealer was a bit of an unhelpful git by not clarifying or emphasizing the terms, they should have made it clear to bring the bike in so they can look at the crack, they shouldn’t have started throwing charges at him, it shouldn’t have cost him anything seeing as the crack is clearly not caused by anything but material defect of the frame, the shop started by hitting his wallet before even seeing the frame, this is money grabbing very bad service and terrible advice or lack of. The only questionable thing was not waiting for the go ahead to strip down the bike, hindsight being a wonderful thing, but the bare frame with dropper should be all that’s required considering the place of the crack the frame is apparently notorious for, so denying the warranty just because he stripped it himself is disgraceful.

Has anyone confirmed poster Ian is definately Ian B at Giant UK.

The poster is real and genuine.

I cannot discuss a specific case on this forum but In all scenarios we do try to be compassionate to the rider and with the help of our independently owned network of retailers, try to find a fair resolution.

This is the sentence that comes to my attention! If you can’t discuss a specific case then you shouldn’t be posting on a thread which has appeared for one purpose – to discuss a specific case! Plus in “all senarios” – well I’ve read the responses to the OP’s claim from Giant and it definitely isn’t fair or compassionate in ALL scenarios…

I think the Giant dealer was a bit of an unhelpful git by not clarifying or emphasizing the terms

You would think they should as the whole argument rests on this point, mainly because on a bike, you would be reasonably be expected to do some things by yourself. Change a puncture, or a tyre. Forks for example are touted as home serviceable. So clarification under the law for those points, that you are expected to do some service jobs yourself, and any info about having work done by a qualified cycle mechanic should read by whomever is competent, ie the owner.

Because this is a bit of an anomaly, for clarification, whether they require a trained certified mechanic, or whether they’re happy with a home mechanic should be highlighted as a matter of course during every sale.

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a bit and assume it’s your job to write up the warranty policy for Giant.

How do you exclude people who obviously take the piss (either ham-fisted servicing skill, 14 year old kids jumping off a roof on a road bike or fit completely inappropriate kit like triple clamp forks and 220mm discs to an xc frame) versus users like us (middle age men swapping out low end components as they aren’t on-brand or bling enough)?

I can’t say they’ve got the warranty wording correct now – and as written, I wouldn’t consider a Giant if in the market for a new bike. Though Ian@Giant seems to be implying they would warranty “our” typical use cases.

When I posed this question to the CS rep and asked what they deemed servicing, from chain to Cassette to forks. They only responded with fork. But as above with the service intervals recommended that’s a lot of visits to a dealer.

The response is below.

@wysiwyg , thanks for posting picture.

On a related note my out of warranty Whyte bike is currently with the manufacturer having a new rear triangle fitted and a new shock all FOC.

I sent them a mostly stripped frame, that I stripped myself – they arranged the courier. It still had non original BB, cranks, brake & headset attached to it so is clearly modified (by myself).

After it had taken them a while to source the shock they even took the cranks & BB out and posted them back to me so I could use them on another bike.

I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another Whyte based on my experience, wouldn’t buy a Giant.

Yep – that’s me in the never buy a Giant for the warranty camp. What a smear of shit. Yes, I can sort of see that manufacturers have to protect themselves from the ham fisted (by ignorance and competence) but that’s not me. I’m really rather good at it. In fact I’d go further and say the tinkering is very much part of the appeal of biking as a pastime and I wouldn’t want to own something that I couldn’t fettle. The thought that I (let alone a non giant but qualified and experienced bike mechanic) couldn’t drop a fork out of a bike without risking damage to the extent my warranty would be voided I find rather insulting. Mike Burrows (RIP) will be spinning in his grave.

So from here on in Giant is just a brand for the mechanically inept or lazy. Fair enough.

That is just absurd.  I won’t let bike shops near my bikes!  I have had such poor work from them in the past that now I do it all myself so I can be sure its right

So I built up my trinity tt frame into a complete bike, they only sell it as a frame. I did however purchase a giant branded torque wrench to ensure I didn’t break any of it during construction

Why are giant selling giant branded torque wrenches to monkeys like me to work on their bikes, if it needs to be done by a certified giant retailer?

Or indeed, these.

https://www.giant-bicycles.com/gb/mini-tools

And what does this mean?

Cycling is all about self-reliance. Carry a mobile workshop in the form of a multi-tool and ensure you can deal with the majority of issues on the road or trail and enjoy the rest of your ride.

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a bit and assume it’s your job to write up the warranty policy for Giant.

How do you exclude people who obviously take the piss (either ham-fisted servicing skill, 14 year old kids jumping off a roof on a road bike or fit completely inappropriate kit like triple clamp forks and 220mm discs to an xc frame) versus users like us (middle age men swapping out low end components as they aren’t on-brand or bling enough)?

I think Trek cover it quite well.

This Warranty Does Not Cover
Normal wear and tear
Improper assembly
Corrosion
Improper maintenance
Installation of components, parts, or accessories not originally intended for or compatible with the bicycle as sold
Damage or failure due to accident, misuse, abuse, or neglect

https://www.trekbikes.com/gb/en_GB/warranty_policy/

TBF, as I understand it, they didn’t give the go-ahead. You didn’t get a response but carried on anyway. I’m not trying to shift the blame, but a nil response doesn’t indicate approval. Did your email even get there? Did you try calling? Having seen what some folk will try to pass off as “not their fault” I can see where Ian/Giant are coming from.

The earlier conversation in which the dealer asked for money to strip and reassemble the frame seems to me the ideal opportunity to point out in passing that unless you pay them to do this, Giant are going to tear up your warranty on the spot.

As for the ‘the dealer has to drop the fork out so you can send it to tftuned, then refit it’, I think whoever is running the warranty department needs to give their head a wobble. Perhaps Giant wants the kind of relationship with its customers in which lying about day-to-day servicing and maintenance they’ve carried out is the only way to get a ‘fair and compassionate’ resolution.

Cycling is all about self-reliance. Carry a mobile workshop in the form of a multi-tool and ensure you can deal with the majority of issues on the road or trail and enjoy the rest of your ride.

Essentially, you can’t rely on the Giant Approved Retailer to have the necessary Giant Approved tools to hand; however, when you, the valued customer, purchase said tools and get in the habit of carrying them with you at all times, on the road or trail, you can enjoy the rest of your ride safe in the knowledge that when the time comes, you can hand over the tool you’ve purchased to the Approved Retailer and as long as you have all the receipts to hand along with DNA samples of the qualified mechanic who made the necessary adjustment, you can then be fobbed off as there is no Giant Approved TIG Welder available to the dealer network.

Thanks for confirming @stwhannah

@wysiwyg that CS chat is pretty condemning

I am sure @ian@giant will be inundated in tags and emails over the next couple of days but one of your Exec team may wish to speak extensively with your dealer network to see if, especially with your very established retailers selling the mid to higher-end bikes, they are happy with how this represents Giant as the brand they sell and most importantly how they themselves present and represent Giant onward to customers to secure sales.

I think you may find at best, they present Giant and it’s support including warranty, somewhat over optimistically in view of the tangible responses shown by your cs agents. At worst, a significant disconnect and they may feel they are misrepresenting the brand and overselling their own offer.

Best outcome for Giant is they establish this is simply a miss communication or misunderstanding of how their Customer Service Team interprets and enacts their warranty terms with the Customer and isn’t meant to be representative of how the dealer network engages and applies customer centric pragmatism.

Or if this is a clear change in direction with the limited warranty longevity and impossible to adhere validity, the brand devaluation pitches Giant with the cheaper options and direct to customer offers rather than Specialized, Trek and others which are much more pragmatic and customer orientated in these matters.

mountain bike warranty cracked frame Giant

Googling this brings this tread up on the first search page… Giant need to step up on this sharpish.

From teh photo the OP posted, you need to be a special type of clumsy to do that on disassembly. I can understand that Giant want to protect themselves from a random frame being claimed as a warranty issue but if teh frame numbers all match the receipt…. They are just digging themselves into a bigger, deeper, darker hole.

It reads like they are trying to go down a similar road to car dealer servicing. Buy a giant and it needs to go to their dealer for servicing, giving more business to their dealer network, in order to keep your warranty.

Except legally you can take your car anywhere to be serviced as long as you use genuine parts, and maintain the warranty. All you would lose is any goodwill the dealer may offer in terms of known faults outside the warranty. So Giants warranty would not be permissible for a car brand.

you need to be a special type of clumsy to do that on disassembly.

It’s not suggested that’s what happened though. The issue is that it may have been caused by improper use, in this case most likely by an underinserted seatpost. But retailer doesn’t know because when they got it to look at it was stripped down.

Imagine a cars engine failed under warranty and the dealer said you would have to pay labour and an admin charge?

Fair enough a labour charge if you purchased the bike as a frame only but this is a proper piss take if you purchase a complete bike and needs to stop otherwise is should be advertised as a parts only warranty, hopefully someone will pursue for false advertising

I’ve had a grand total of two warranty builds done over the last 30+ years.

One of them didn’t press the headset cups into the frame, because they were “tight”.
The bottom one clonked into place as soon as i sat on the saddle, the top one took a gentle squeeze with a headset press. The steerer was then ~1cm too long. Gears didn’t work either.

The other one needed the brakes (both ends) setting up, gears reindexing and the headset adjusting, one of the shock bolts was also only finger tight and the lockout cable wasn’t adjusted properly.

The thought of getting an “Authorised Giant Dealer” to adjust a headset every time the fork needs a service must be some sort of an in joke. And not a very funny one.

@BruceWee

Am pretty sure that for the purposes of this thread, those are two different Giants, one is specifically the manufacturer of the Trance/Reign/Anthem, the other is the huge manufacturing concern in Taiwan.

Can you explain what you mean there?

You’ve got Giant Bikes, who sell their own bikes globally (then possibly a separate company selling them in the UK?). Then you’ve got Giant Bicycle Manufacturing, who make frames and forks for anyone. I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if Giant make a quarter of the frames on the market.

Just to add I will no longer be considering Giant for my next bike as warranty is one of the most important factors for me especially when buying a ebike

Good luck booking your bike in at a giant approved retailer for work doing!

They’ll all be too busy dropping people’s forks so that they can do a lowers service at home every 25 hours!

The issue is that it may have been caused by improper use, in this case most likely by an underinserted seatpost. But retailer doesn’t know because when they got it to look at it was stripped down.

The retailer still wouldnt know even if the person had taken it in fully assembled, as its really not hard to insert a seatpost fully into the frame before you take it in.

Ian from giant has definitely reassured me – Giant are going back on to my list of potential brands for my next bike.