Warranty denied as I stripped the bike down?

😆 excellent

Agree with weeksy. It won’t make a dent on Giant sales in the short-term.
Long term who knows. Plenty of people search about the brand before buying and this thread could help people make an informed decision.

I spilt some sauce on my hebtroco jeans last night. I cleaned it up myself, have I voided a warranty?

presumably as long as you only take them off yourself?

From the jist of this thread I’m pretty sure Brant has to take them off for you

Yeah, but all you need to do is say ‘Brant, Brant, Brant’ and he magically appears, much easier than taking them back to the dealers’.

HeCoTro boss in “Pulls Clients Trousers Down” shocker

It is rare that a bike shop gets reimbursed for the labour cost of warranty work, which is why non-supplying dealers are very loathe to deal with warranty on anything supplied by other retailers, and why you’ll often get charged for the labour involved in things like a warranty frame replacement.

Not in our case.
Also we dealt with a recall incident once – a problem was identified and we (as a shop) received half a dozen of the replacement item for use on bikes that were brought back and a credit note to cover the labour costs of replacing said item.

I don’t change bikes very often but Giant will never be a consideration for me especially as I keep them going by changing parts.
That said if a few hundred people don’t buy a Giant bike because of this they will still be quids in by shafting thousands of people on warranty so they can just put their fingers in their ears and go lalalala

That said if a few hundred people don’t buy a Giant bike because of this they will still be quids in by shafting thousands of people on warranty so they can just put their fingers in their eyes and go lalalala

Probably works in their favour. A few contributors to this thread on a mtb forum, and those doing diligent pre-purchase research in the future, are probably the exact high use high risk demographic that makes up a lot of warranty claimants.

Someone getting a Giant mtb to do a lap of cannock once a month will chose it because they have a shiny shop front or because they already have a giant hybrid is never going to find this thread

That said if a few hundred people don’t buy a Giant bike because of this they will still be quids in by shafting thousands of people on warranty so they can just put their fingers in their ears and go lalalala

And it’s much easier to work out a £ figure for how much you’ve saved year on year by shafting your current customers on their warranty, and put that on a powerpoint for your boss, than it is to determine how many sales have slipped away to Spesh and Trek.

Oh dear. It keeps getting worse. Based off this thread I wouldn’t buy another giant. I say this as someone who has had quite a number over the years. Of course the only model I’m vaguely interested in now giant decided not to import in my size, but still. I work on my own bikes and after many ‘mistakes’ by local shops I know I do a better job and am a safer rider because of it.

Really giant shouldn’t need to question this warranty request because it’s been a known issue for them for a long time.

That fork thing is quite insane, but it probably doesn’t exclude as many purchases as we imagine.  I only know a few riders that would be comfortable with removing and refitting forks compared to all of the riders I know (even though it is a relatively trivial piece of work)

Im guessing ian@giant is now ex ian@giant as he costs them thousands in sales 😀

Giant not coming out of this very well. :-/

I wouldn’t touch them with a shitty stick after this.

#Message_typed_whilst_wearing_very_nice_trousers

I wonder if the fork removal message is just the same CS guy  making shit up because he realised he had to follow on from the bullshit reason they rejected it in the first place. I mean his response is the logical conclusion to the policy so he kinda had to make it up. I realise this puts actual Giant policy in a better light,  but it might just be some entrenched always rightism of the individual rather than a reasonable response.

That fork thing is quite insane, but it probably doesn’t exclude as many purchases as we imagine. I only know a few riders that would be comfortable with removing and refitting forks compared to all of the riders I know

What about a wheel, or related to the OPs case, a seatpost?

leffeboy

That fork thing is quite insane, but it probably doesn’t exclude as many purchases as we imagine. I only know a few riders that would be comfortable with removing and refitting forks compared to all of the riders I know (even though it is a relatively trivial piece of work)

By the same logic, you need to go to a dealer to change a puncture

Has anyone tried popping into a Giant dealership and asking about the Warranty. Do I need to bring it in drop the forks out? Etc

Aye Giant is crying into its millions right now 😉

Has anyone tried popping into a Giant dealership and asking about the Warranty. Do I need to bring it in drop the forks out? Etc

There are so many conflicting explanations from Giant, their employees, their partners and previous warranty customers that the waters are going to be muddied further. Ian@giant has had a first pass at explaining the situation, and he’s the top Giant guy in the UK apparently, so presumably  his word is gospel, although I don’t really think it’s the immutable truth- I would be really surprised if things don’t change dramatically over the next few days, and it’ll probably take Giant a few more goes to put out something that sounds coherent, thought through and reasonable rather than the utter garbage that has been pushed out so far.

It’s threads like these that remind me why I love this forum. Everyone gets a chance to join the pile-on, some idiot turns up with an ill-advised defence, then we all go back to wondering what colour anodised bits would go well on our fantasy frame.

Perhaps Ian at Giant would like to explain in his best corporate-doublespeak whether inserting/removing/adjusting the height of a seatpost is something that should only be done by an authorised Giant dealer as a “service” item. After all, this is something that:

Everyone on here would consider trivially easy
Might be something you do regularly – just to transport your bike
Is presumably something that you’d still need to do if you ordered on-line and your bike was delivered “assembled” by your local Giant dealer
Appears (based on what we know from this discussion) to be at the crux of why Wysiwyg’s warranty claim won’t be entertained.

So we can’t run the three chains to prolong drivetrain, we can’t change tyres, replace brake pads. What about putting lights on? All need to be done by a giant authorised mechanic?

vinnyeh

Ian@giant has had a first pass at explaining the situation, and he’s the top Giant guy in the UK apparently, so presumably his word is gospel

His words are pretty much worthless, given the fact that the people actually dealing with warranties don’t have the same interpretation

Going back to my Whyte warranty experience, due to the original supplying shop’s inability to see me due to their covid policies at the time I went to another Whyte dealer and they did the wheel strip/rebuild for a fee, but gave me a receipt to send to the original retailer for a refund.

I wonder if this is the scenario the OP’s LBS recreated but without telling the OP about the refund?

Either way, good luck OP, given that the large bike shop that supplied the bike in the first place did a really poor job of setting it up I too will  stick to doing my own servicing and rely on Whyte continuing to be reasonable should I need them in the future.

So not bothered that forks are serviced by TF, are they a Giant retailer then?

Theres a lot of stuff in this thread that has me shaking my head but the thing thats currently puzzling me most is how the hell did that Ian chap get the top job at Giant UK ? I still hold the opinion that submitting a small claims court claim would sort this out PDQ but I know first hand from a cultural perspective Giants executive team back at HQ would be very embarrassed and disappointed the matter was not resolved long before this thread became such a saga. I think this thread should be brought to their attention.

So not bothered that forks are serviced by TF, are they a Giant retailer then?

Presumably the Fox forks wouldn’t be warranted by Giant. Is it Silverfish for Fox in the UK?

Presumably the Fox forks wouldn’t be warranted by Giant. Is it Silverfish for Fox in the UK?

Presume nothing with Giant it seems

Oh come on @ian@giant, it’s an open goal, make up some ‘special circumstances in this situation, considering the disassembly was performed by a qualified mechanic’ bollocks and send the guy a new frame. It’s getting silly.

What if I want to go on holiday with my bike? To preserve the warranty, do I need to take it to a Giant retailer to pack it into a bike bag, and then take it to another Giant retailer on the other side to reassemble it?

Perhaps Ian at Giant would like to explain in his best corporate-doublespeak whether inserting/removing/adjusting the height of a seatpost is something that should only be done by an authorised Giant dealer as a “service” item. After all, this is something that:

Everyone on here would consider trivially easy
Might be something you do regularly – just to transport your bike
Is presumably something that you’d still need to do if you ordered on-line and your bike was delivered “assembled” by your local Giant dealer
Appears (based on what we know from this discussion) to be at the crux of why Wysiwyg’s warranty claim won’t be entertained.

I would also love to hear someone from Giant explain this one, with the final point being the key bit.

Oh come on @ian@giant, it’s an open goal, make up some ‘special circumstances in this situation, considering the disassembly was performed by a qualified mechanic’ bollocks and send the guy a new frame. It’s getting silly.

That’s nowhere near good enough any more imo.

If I were to ever consider buying a Giant again in the future, I’d want some sort of assurance that the warranty was actually worth something.

Giant introducing their new so called direct to consumer option seems to suggest it’s for people who live a considerable distant from an authorised dealer, (otherwise what’s the point) so how are those customers supposed to adhere to their ridiculous terms, and as already alluded to, what would be the waiting time to book your bike in if every customer adhered to the draconian irrational rules, and surely they’d be sick of the sight of you even if they’re taking your money on a regular basis, and when you buy a giant off the shop floor do they come home with you in your car to put the front wheel back on before you give them a lift back to the shop, seems time consuming 😀

make up some ‘special circumstances in this situation, considering the disassembly was performed by a qualified mechanic’ bollocks

Only remotely useful for those of the rest of us who also hold a proper ticket

Wow, not much to add except this has resulted in me never looking at Giant for a bike again, shame as I’ve owned two in the past.

Not only the initial denial but then doubling down – that’s not a company that cares at all about what its customers think.

In my experience, it’s more common for manufacturers to not cover shipping / admin (which can take a lot of time in terms of online form filling / emails etc), and labour unless it’s a recurring issue or recall. Kudos to the companies that do!
In this day and age, sending parts back is a bit of a joke unless it’s a weird issue. Where I am, Trek, Norco and Transition has just accepted the dealers word along with photographic proof along with serial number and photo of the complete bike where relevant.

I used to work for one of the larger brands (not Giant) and we hardly ever asked for full bikes for inspection unless it was a bit unusual – we’d just go by photos uploaded by the dealers.

Giant will be fully aware if this frame is prone to cracking in this way. If it’s a known thing just send out a new frame job done.
If it was an unusal failure I’d have thought they would show a little more interest and not be so hard nosed about it!

I think it was mentioned above but it sounds like an order has come down from HQ to save as much as possible on warranty spend.

Can I just say how shocked I am that most mental thread of the year so far is actually centered around bikes.

the thing thats currently puzzling me most is how the hell did that Ian chap get the top job at Giant UK ?

Without Ian Giant would be GT.

Oh dear giant. Wish I’d seen this before getting a TCR 12 months ago. Looks like it’ll be my first and last giant. Shame as they make nice bikes and I was looking at getting an xc bike soon. I think Ian needs to get back on and try to sort things. Sure this thread won’t break giant, but suspect it’ll lose them a few sales and if the more people know how hilariously crap giant’s warranty policy is the better. Hope then OP gets this sorted.