View Full Version : warranty: Bikes shops!!
OK guys i need to know how the warranty works in bike shops. The story is, about 2 months ago i handed in my shox which had snaped. They said they can do it on warranty. so anyway they have sent 3 sets of wrong parts out and its pissing me off. Who is to blame for the time that it is taking. The bike is a kona roast and the forks are marzocchi EXR.
The warranty works by you sending in your fork to the manufacturer and they either repair it or send you out a new one depending on what has gone wrong with it, it also depends on the conditions to, such as if you "accidently" ran over your fork with a car, your not going to get warranty. For a snapped fork, you should be able to get it back for free no worries, as for labour on the bike shops behalf, i am not sure about that.
Almost right, and1, (and I'm being a little pedantic here) but one of the problems with warranties on all the imported stuff is the number of people/companies along the "manufacturer-to-retailer" trail. Unfortunately that trail CAN be as complicated as manufacturer (in name only) to actual parts manufacturer (as in Taiwan for instance) to another company that assembles to freight company to the Australian "importer" to national distributor to state distributor to independant sales rep to bike shop.... whew!
Different manufacturers do, of course, have different arrangemnets with the importers of their products in each country and depite the terribly convoluted example above MOST goods sold in bike shops around Aus get there from manufacturer to an importer WHO ALSO acts as distributor and sales rep... so as a general rule warranty claims are the joint responsibility of both the retail outlet the goods were purchased through and the importer (who is authorised by the manufacturer to handle warranty claims for the company)
The reason I tell you all this is to make the "chain of command" and "responsibility" clear... as a general rule warranty claims are the joint responsibility of both the retail outlet the goods were purchased through and the importer... but of course that "chain of comman/responsibility" can be long so things sometimes take more time than the customer likes.
Most importer/wholesalers will NOT deal with the public, therefore you have no option but to have the warranty claim passed onto them THROUGH the point of purchase. So if wrong parts are being supplied and you're having to put up with undue delays, get your BIKE SHOP to put a rocket up the importers/distributors.
Which leads me to a WHOLE other can of worms I might open in another thread sometime... and that is one of actual SERVICE in the bike industry here in OZ. Which is, of course, DICTATED (important word that!) by a bunch of faceless nuffs with as much understanding of (and more importantly CONCERN FOR) customer relations as a dog crapping on the footpath and worrying about who might step in it!
In fact I think the question asked by Lex has been answered so I officially deign (hey.... this is my first Mod decision) that this thread is now hijacked to the subject of CUSTOMER SERVICE in the Australian cycling industry overall.
Now where are my red pills?
At rockshox.com Grip, but be careful, you don't know what's in them yet!
Anyway, you want someone to "blame" eh... hrm.
Have you been politely reminding the shop about it? Or just expect them to call you back? Because dropping in every few days/weeks can help give them a hurry-up.
Did you "snap" your forks doing something that shouldn't be done on them? Because that's going to affect things as well, they may be farting about trying to assess the situation.
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