The more I think about this idea that lifetime bike frame warrantees only apply to the original owner, the less it makes sense to me from a liability standpoint on the manufacture. An original owner is just as capable of abusing a bike as a second or thirdhand owner. Obviously I understand that it’s a way for them to mitigate losses down the road on bike frames that are getting long in the tooth, but from a value added at initial point of sale, through the bolstering of added resale value, it seems like this would be a beneficial feature for a big manufacturer to offer. Take Cervelo for example, which already has a strong resale value. If they were to offer warranty support for future owners of the bike, their resale value would be unstoppable and I think it would undoubtedly drive more new sales.
It would be easy enough even to have a certificate of transfer process that people paid say $100 for, and a certified Cervelo dealer handles the title transfer.
Am I way off on this? Should they be paying millions of dollars for my genius idea?
They want to encourage people to buy new bikes from them, not barely used examples from their customers. That’s pretty much the long and the short of it
They want to encourage people to buy new bikes from them, not barely used examples from their customers. That’s pretty much the long and the short of it
Exactly, why would any manufacturer care about second or third owners? Plus most of them don’t make you register the warranty anymore, so they are pretty much inviting people to transfer the warranty unofficially!
They want to encourage people to buy new bikes from them, not barely used examples from their customers. That’s pretty much the long and the short of it
Exactly, why would any manufacturer care about second or third owners? Plus most of them don’t make you register the warranty anymore, so they are pretty much inviting people to transfer the warranty unofficially!
Let’s take Cervelo as an example on this last statement. You’re selling me a 2014 P3. How do we “unofficially” transfer the warranty? Walk me through this process.
I’ve registered my Cervelo, in which case I kindly say 'here’s my login, any problems let me know and I’ll help you out with the warranty.
If I hadn’t registered it (which you don’t need to anymore) I’d say ‘here’s my original receipt’. No name on it so can’t see how they would know…
They want to encourage people to buy new bikes from them, not barely used examples from their customers. That’s pretty much the long and the short of it
Exactly, why would any manufacturer care about second or third owners? Plus most of them don’t make you register the warranty anymore, so they are pretty much inviting people to transfer the warranty unofficially!
Let’s take Cervelo as an example on this last statement. You’re selling me a 2014 P3. How do we “unofficially” transfer the warranty? Walk me through this process.
Not an argument I have any interest in getting into cheers dude. No plans on selling my cervelo but if I ever did I would help the buyer out with any warranty issues without a second thought. If that makes me a criminal I really couldn’t care less!
A business needs to keep actual cash and/or product in reserve to account for reasonably expected warranty costs. If the warranty is limited to the original owner, the business can make a reasonable assumption about retention/turnover rates, and at any point in time know roughly how much exposure they have, and keep liability limited to less than “everything ever produced”.
Most every product has a finite lifetime. If you have a true lifetime warranty, at some point you will replace everything, maybe even several times. This is particularly true for higher performance products; the higher the “performance”, the shorter the lifetime. (We are not talking about 5lb commuter frames here. We are talking about bikes where reduced weight is a performance feature.) So a business could offer you a lifetime transferable warranty, but the product would necessarily cost MUCH more. That could be worth something, and could keep used prices higher. But that would require a relatively stable technology. But cycling technology is changing fast enough that the useful life of a frame is short (<10 years), and also unknown. (I.E. we’ve gone from 125mm rear axle spacing to 127.5, 130, and now even 142 thru-axle. Rim brakes → disc. No front derailluers. Position changes; look at stack/reach changes just in the last 5 years.)
They can afford to offer a lifetime warranty knowing it really only means 3-5 years. If it really was the lifetime of the bike they would be in trouble. However there is nothing to stop you buying a bike new and riding it for 10-20 years and having a good chance of a warranty claim, but then what are the odds they will still be in business ?
A manufacturers warranty covers manufacturers defects. So unless you don’t ride the bike, it should find out that issue soon after you purchased the bike. Several bike companies offer “Crash replacement” deals to original customers to help with accidents, not covered by warranty. Fewer bike companies doing “lifetime” anymore.