I made an NSMB account just because of this thread.
I've posted this similar thing elsewhere as well so those that have Pinkbike or Vital accounts have probably read this before.
I have similar stories to the above. Ordered my bike, told Date X but didn't get it until Date X + 2 months. It was winter time so it didn't really bother me at the time.
However, when stuff started needing warranty work was where the big flaw in YT's business model shows up. My dropper post failed in three rides and my rear shock blew up after a month of regular riding. Both times, it was difficult to get JM on the phone or get him to respond to an email. After a lot of waiting, he did get my stuff warranty repaired for me but I had to drive to Squamish to pick things up. I was living in Vancouver at the time so it wasn't too bad. But only a small percentage of customers would be able to do that.
When my Sram Guide RSCs failed, and I couldn't get a hold of JM for almost a month, I had had enough. I eventually got a hold of him and he had me send in my brakes to him, and he'd send them on to Sram. Seven months (7!) went by before I saw them again. After about a month I started emailing and texting JM once a week asking questions...never heard back. I put in a complaint to head office...never heard anything. My theory is they were shipped to YT canada, and they laid around on a table somewhere for a few months before somebody noticed and sent them off to Sram.
I ended up buying a set of Shimano XT brakes online for cheap and installing them so I wouldn't miss a very important 3 week road trip I had been planning for almost a year. If I were to have waited for YT...I would have had to either cancel my trip or rent bikes along the way. My Guides were shipped back to me a few weeks after I got back from my trip. Except....they were shipped to the wrong address and I had to get a random dude in Vancouver to forward them to me.
I actually really like the XTs and I'm sticking with them, but the whole thing was a pretty big inconvenience. JM was nice about it, and sent me some swag as an apology, but even that took a long time to get to me.
Fast forward to this year, and things seem to be a bit better. My dropper post died again (it IS a reverb, after all), and I had it fixed and returned to me in a week. So that was top notch. But I pretty much feel that I can't be a repeat customer until they have things sorted out.
Another odd thing is that I had a few bike shops completely refuse to service my faulty brakes or dropper post, even if I fully paid for the parts and labour and didn't worry about the warranty piece. They basically decided that they're busy enough with their own clientele and don't want to create longer service times by fixing direct-to-consumer brands, I guess?
