Gold Standard for Warranties:
Trek/Bontrager - I have never seen a company royally hook up so many people for warranty issues. Break a freehub on a carbon wheel? Whole new wheel is sent. Crack a front triangle? You can have another frame or a credit so large buying another complete bike ends up at sub 500 bucks. 9 times out of 10 Trek encourages US to make the warranty call - they trust our judgement and are willing to stand by our expertise and judgement. I've also seen some absolutely stupid stuff covered by their 2 year extended carbon wheel warranty, and some absolutely stupid stuff covered by their bike warranty. - For these things, we haven't gone to bat for the customer (because our rep would be on the line if we did) but just submit and leave it up for Trek to decide - and I've seen some VERY shocking but positive results for the customer.
We Are One - I mentioned this I think yesterday in another comment section but these guys are good. They say the warranty doesn't cover driving over your bike with your truck, but pretty much everything that can happen on a bike gets covered. It seems true to me. Plus in my experience they are FAST.
Annoying Tier - a certain company whose recent-ish restructuring has lead to their out of province accountants getting in charge of things and making us fill out an incredibly annoying and tedious form that isn't integrated with the rest of their systems or websites for ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. Warranty issue? Fill the form out. Crash replacement? Fill the form out. Someone wants to buy a chainstay at retail because they know they screwed up and are being good about it? FILL OUT THE GOD DAMN FORM AND YOU HAD BETTER HAVE PICTURES AND SERIAL NUMBERS.
Trash Tier - Any company that's using cheap non-branded parts on their bikes. Most common culprit is front hubs. Hub breaks? Phone up the company who sold the bike to find out who makes the hub. Ok it's brand X (No, not actually Brand-X, but a hypothetical brand... although Brand-X does make some of these components). Can you guys replace the hub? No. OK, great. Who's the Canadian distributor? Oh. There isn't one. Here's a contact e-mail for some guy in his basement in the USA who has a tiny distribution company that isn't interested in dealing with a warranty claim for someone who he didn't sell product to and isn't even in the same country as he is. He isn't going to reply to your e-mail so don't even bother. You're not happy, your customer isn't happy, and the bike brand you phoned isn't really happy either because they're too busy dealing with their dumpster fire of a backorder system which wasn't designed for every single shop to backorder 1.5-2 seasons worth of stuff all at once. So now you get to either piss off the customer (who may have bought a really nice bike - these hubs are appearing occasionally on 7k plus carbon bikes these days!) or eat it yourself. Good times.
Feb. 9, 2021, 9:04 a.m. - Lu Kz
Gold Standard for Warranties: Trek/Bontrager - I have never seen a company royally hook up so many people for warranty issues. Break a freehub on a carbon wheel? Whole new wheel is sent. Crack a front triangle? You can have another frame or a credit so large buying another complete bike ends up at sub 500 bucks. 9 times out of 10 Trek encourages US to make the warranty call - they trust our judgement and are willing to stand by our expertise and judgement. I've also seen some absolutely stupid stuff covered by their 2 year extended carbon wheel warranty, and some absolutely stupid stuff covered by their bike warranty. - For these things, we haven't gone to bat for the customer (because our rep would be on the line if we did) but just submit and leave it up for Trek to decide - and I've seen some VERY shocking but positive results for the customer. We Are One - I mentioned this I think yesterday in another comment section but these guys are good. They say the warranty doesn't cover driving over your bike with your truck, but pretty much everything that can happen on a bike gets covered. It seems true to me. Plus in my experience they are FAST. Annoying Tier - a certain company whose recent-ish restructuring has lead to their out of province accountants getting in charge of things and making us fill out an incredibly annoying and tedious form that isn't integrated with the rest of their systems or websites for ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. Warranty issue? Fill the form out. Crash replacement? Fill the form out. Someone wants to buy a chainstay at retail because they know they screwed up and are being good about it? FILL OUT THE GOD DAMN FORM AND YOU HAD BETTER HAVE PICTURES AND SERIAL NUMBERS. Trash Tier - Any company that's using cheap non-branded parts on their bikes. Most common culprit is front hubs. Hub breaks? Phone up the company who sold the bike to find out who makes the hub. Ok it's brand X (No, not actually Brand-X, but a hypothetical brand... although Brand-X does make some of these components). Can you guys replace the hub? No. OK, great. Who's the Canadian distributor? Oh. There isn't one. Here's a contact e-mail for some guy in his basement in the USA who has a tiny distribution company that isn't interested in dealing with a warranty claim for someone who he didn't sell product to and isn't even in the same country as he is. He isn't going to reply to your e-mail so don't even bother. You're not happy, your customer isn't happy, and the bike brand you phoned isn't really happy either because they're too busy dealing with their dumpster fire of a backorder system which wasn't designed for every single shop to backorder 1.5-2 seasons worth of stuff all at once. So now you get to either piss off the customer (who may have bought a really nice bike - these hubs are appearing occasionally on 7k plus carbon bikes these days!) or eat it yourself. Good times.