Open letter to the industry: Bike Warranties-Time to wake up guys!

Triathlon Forum
1

Your bike has a warranty right? You have an important event this weekend. You find out the frame is broken on Thursday. You need a new by Sunday morning- built, tuned, fitted and de-bugged and ready to race- after all, that is what you bought it for right?

Our industry is not equipped to fulfill that need. Without question (IMO) ever warranty program in place with bike vendors- EVERY ONE, is inadequate and does not answert the needs of the end-user or the dealer.

Bike companies expect me to take in a bike with a broken frame, strip it, obtain a return authorization and then send it back to the company for “evaluation”. Based on their “evaluation” they may or may not repair or replace it at their convenience.

Bike companies: This is not adequate.

Customers are buying these bikes to race. They need them to race. Warranties need to be turned around, door to door a the retailer, without fail in under 48 hours between Monday and Friday.

If companies are going to represent a “warranty” to consumers, they need to also communicate that the dealer must incur an (approximate) $450 in costs for every warranty processed.

In the last three days I have warrantied four bikes OUT OF MY OWN POCKET becasue companies told us, “Just send it back and we’ll look at it…”

Wrong. I cannot look across the counter at a customer and tell them they cannot race this weekend becasue the bike they just waited eight weeks for is broken and they have to wait 2-3 more weeks for warranty service. not acceptable people. NOT ACCEPTABLE.

I have a running tab and I am visiting you at Interbike with my bill for performing your “warranty service”. It is thousands of dollars.

This is NOT directed at any one vendor. It IS directed at all you bike companies. You need to either stop pretending you have “warranty” or actually have one. What you are representing now is a fraud. People think they can get their bikes replaced in a timely manner. Either explain to them why they can’t BEFORE THE SALE or, better yet, turn around warranty claims in under 48 hours door to door (including shipping time).

You guys have more money than me. I can;t afford to give away any more frames for free.

2

I can understand your frustration and I think your passion to please the customer is honorable but can you name an industry where they can turn around a replacement in such a short timeframe? The only thing I can think of is ‘super stores,’ but those are taken out of their own stock.

3

Just be like the big box super stores and offer your own so called “protection plan” for some outrageous price.

4

I own a Ford Lincoln Mercury dealership and we have free reign to repair anything broken within the warranty timeframe (or mileage guideline). There are some exceptions like batteries and glass…but as a whole we get 90% of all broken vehicles back on the road in 24-48 hours. Now…the factory has every right to audit my warranty repairs for up to x (I forget actually…it’s never happened) amount of months. I can be charged back any repair that isn’t in their guidelines. And if we fall out of their repair cost/frequency guidelines (an unintelligible complex formula using repairs across the country) we can be put on probation. But…the bottom line is that we have the freedom to make our customers happy. And on some occasions, people that are just out of their warranty can get things repair free to them. The bike companies should take a lesson from the automotive industry.

5

Everybody is writing “Open Letter’s”, I need to write one of these things. I would think that if you were an “authorized” retailer that you should be reimbursed for any repairs or exchanges. It’s not like that $3000 bike actually costs the bike company anywhere near that amount of money, especially if it is just a frame swap.

6

Wow, Tom takes on the bike companies, and I step in to defend them. This is a genuine first. :wink:

I can understand your frustration, Tom, but how can this work? If my Acme Aero1000 frame cracks, how can the bike company handle this is 48 hours? Remember, the original frame took months to get here on a slow boat from Taiwan. Is it feasible to ship a bike off, have a bike company inspect it, then *repair *it, then ship it back, all in two days?

7

It would be reasonable to assume that if Tom had the right size frame, he should be able replace the defective one for the customer and the company would reimburse Tom.

8

if Tom had the right size frame, he should be able replace the defective one for the customer and the company would reimburse Tom. Oh, yeah, I agree with that 100%.

9

agree with your points Tom, but not necessarily your time frame.

Take Felt as an example, a relatively small company, who are having trouble meeting demand on some lines. It would be impossible for a company like that to supply a frame on demand.

For the bigger companies like Cannondale if their factories are close it may be possible.

In my example I wouldn’t expect that sort of turnaround. I live in Australia and I own a Litespeed. A friend had problems with a Merlin recently and it had to be sent back to the States for review. The frame was eventually replaced but it took months.

Overall I agree, there needs to be some sort of guarantee on turnaround times based realistically on where you are geographically.

11

This is 2004. We can invade a country in 72 hours.

Warrantying a bike frame in 48 hours is NOT a problem.

Here is how it SHOULD work:

10 June, 2004, Thursday. 11:30 Hr.s Eastern Daylight Savings Time, Dearborn, Michigan:
-Customer enters store and discovers frame is broken.

11:34 Hr.s (local) Bikesport phones bicycle vendor with warehouse in California- local zone time 08:34 Hr.s Pacific Standard time.

11:36 Hr.s Local. Bike vendor acknowledges damage to frame as warranty situation based on dealer evaluation and/or digital photos transmitted via e-mail. Authorizes warranty replacement of frame.

11:54 Hr.s Local. Consumer leaves Bikesport with warrnaty repair tag as original bike is being diassembled in anticipation of arrival of replacement frame via UPS Red Label Overnight Air, guaranteed delivery by 10:30 Hr.s local zone time +24 hrs.

09:37 Pacific Standard Time: Bicycle vendor prints warranty pick ticket for replacement frame and labels for overnight shipment. UPS driver makes pick-up that afternoon.

11 June, 2004, Friday. 09:10 Hr.s Eastern Daylight Savings Time, Dearborn, Michigan:

Replacement frame arrives via UPS Red Label. Frame goes to the top of Bikesport store build schedule. Bikesport phones customer to arrange time for pick-up and final fit on warranty rebuild.

16:35 Hr.s Local zone time: Customer arrives for fitting on rebuilt bike with new frame, is fitted, bike is checklisted and customer leaves.

Boom. Done. How hard is that? It is what I have been doing here all week out of my own pocket.

12

Tom, I hear your frustration, and commend you for your customer service, but I don’t think anyone could reasonably believe that they are represented anything other than the terms you describe. It’s std for the industry. The fact your customers have purchased from you for some premium over a nameless-faceless website might add to their expectations, or do you set their exepectations a little high? Does it suck to find a crack the week before a race? You betcha. Think of the guys at B&L and their laundry list of broken stuff in the days before Ironman each year. That’s gotta suck. But it happens. And it was no doing on your part. If a premium warranty with instant replancement was offered do you think people would buy it? I doubt it. The vast majority of frames serve their useful life without issue. If companies with design flaws and a tendancy to break don’t service promptly and fairly via their dealer network, they will soon find themselves out of consumers and dealers. Haven’t you discontinued “problem” companies?

Is the cost of servicing the very small percentage of frames just part of doing business? I know that all shops hate to incur the tear-down, clean, re-build costs. Maybe this would be a good topic to queue up at one of the Interbike forums in the fall. Or, work with you suppliers to cover/split the labor cost of the warranty.

We as consumers also play a roll here. I would have loved to have been paid everytime a customer broke something “JRA”. Keeping one’s bike clean enough to notice broken parts is step one. Don’t just clean as it’s being packed to go to the race and go looking for what’s been creaking the last few months.

I think you are amazing for keeping your customers up and running. I hope you do address this with your suppliers. I hope you find resolution.

I wonder if Gerard would care to weigh in with a manf view having heard stories of them hustling turn-around on friend’s bikes, but even that takes time.

13

Not hard by theory but we are talking about the bicycle supply chain, they can’t even get it that good in the healthcare supply chain.

Hopefully someday…

14

Boom. Done. How hard is that?

Well, when you put it that way, it sounds pretty easy. What I mean to ask is, considering the amount of frame shortages/delays the smaller bike companies seem to be stricken by, is it reasonable to assume that they have a stock of replacement frames in all sizes sitting around? (That’s a question, not an argument.)

15

But I am responsible for their satisfaction- as I am consistently reminded on this forum- and that is true.

A lack of preparedness on the part of a bike vendor should not constitute an inconvenience on the part of the consumer.

Being at the pointy end of the customer service spear I am the one who has to walk the walk for the bike company, even when they only talk the talk.

It pisses me off. Especially since the FOURTH (as in 4, like 4th!!!) busted frame just now walked in the door. Guess what!?! They’re racing this weekend!!! We are putting their parts on a new frame (that IIIIIIII paid for) right now. I don’t even bother wasting time calling the bike company any more. Their inability to move fast makes me puke. I hate hearing the excuses. “We’ll fax you an R.A. number… blah, blah, blah…”

Damn. I could rebuild the pyramids faster. I’ve blown $3000+ on bikes for customers this week in addition to cutting the checks for many times that for the race they are doing this weekend.

Bike companies: Are you accountable?

16

I can assure you that if I was given this kind service for a broken frame from you, you would have a customer for life. If the bike company is dragging their heels, they would not have me as a customer for my next purchase or any thereafter.

17

I’m with JayC. If I lived there you would have a customer for life for doing such a deed. I hope the athletes realize the level of service they are receiving and show the appropriate appreciation.

18

<<It pisses me off. Especially since the FOURTH (as in 4, like 4th!!!) busted frame just now walked in the door. Guess what!?! They’re racing this weekend!!!>>

My question is: Why are these broken frames just now being discovered, right before race weekend? It seems to me that there is some responsibility on the athlete to have this checked out sooner.

Flame away…

Brett

19

“responsible” and “athlete”- two words that can never be used in the same sentence unless seperated by the word “not”.

I had an athlete e-mail me the other that they needed three flight cases for Ironman for three bikes and that the bikes did not need pre-Ironman tune-ups. Yeah right. I can’t wait to see them. I bet they will each require $200 worth of work.

You should have seen the bike a guy dragged in here last night that he was going to race on this weekend. Mark T. worked on it unitil well after midnight last night. Seth put in three more hours on it this morning. It was 'jacked. Final tally- $530.18. He said it just needed the gears adjusted. Every cable needed to be replaced and there was a pint of water in the seat tube (sand too!). The guys seat post clamp was broken, binder bolt stripped, saddle rails bent and headset was wasted.

But it just need a gear adjustment. I shudder to think of what would have happened if he raced on it this sunday in the shape it was in. When it left here, it was squeeaky clean, freshly waxed, new handelbar tape and running like a top.

20

"My question is: Why are these broken frames just now being discovered, right before race weekend? It seems to me that there is some responsibility on the athlete to have this checked out sooner.

Flame away… "

This time of year, I have a (bicycle) race 3 out of 4 weekends and a Crit every Tuesday so essentially all problems show up just before a race.

21

<<This time of year, I have a (bicycle) race 3 out of 4 weekends and a Crit every Tuesday so essentially all problems show up just before a race. >>

In that instance, then I can see it going undiscovered.

Brett