After sales

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Sittingduck

Legendary Member
Location
Somewhere flat
You may as well ask which are the best brand of tea bags. You will get 10 different responses from 10 different posters, depending on anecdotal experiences. Which type of bike are you specifically interested in, maybe narrow down the question a bit and it will help with a slightly more useful set of replies? Just my thoughts.
 

vickster

Legendary Member
What can you get hold of in the required style/size.
Warranty usually only for original owner so if buying used it’s not relevant.
It’s mostly the big global manufacturers with lifetime frame/ fork warranty (assuming failure not crash of course). But you’ll pay a premium usually over eg Planet X who have shorter warranties typically (except Decathlon who are cheaper and have lifetime on frames).
Aftersales, I’d say that’s more down to the selling LBS as much as the manufacturer (although most LBS have a fairly narrow range of manufacturers). If really interested on the manufacturer side, I’d ask the LBS for their exoeriences (although the pandemic has messed up availability and supply so delays to say a replacement part might not be down to lbs or manufacturer).
 
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Biker man

Senior Member
You may as well ask which are the best brand of tea bags. You will get 10 different responses from 10 different posters, depending on anecdotal experiences. Which type of bike are you specifically interested in, maybe narrow down the question a bit and it will help with a slightly more useful set of replies? Just my thoughts.
Kalkhoff is the bike I have at the moment and I find them excellent I had a Byocycle before they were good also but emailing a couple of makes they refused to answer a question ,so you draw your own conclusions.
 

Cycleops

Legendary Member
Location
Accra, Ghana
If you were to take this at face value then the big retailers like Decathlon and Halfords would seem to offer the best deal. Decathlon offer a lifetime frame warranty plus one year on parts and Halfords would Like to be seen as a dealer defending its reputation as a being fair and offering good service. However we all know this doesn’t always tell the true story, it’s all about the experiences of customers and what sort of service and expertise they receive.
Your LBS might best bet as they are on hand to sort out any problems you might have and know that a good reputation is paramount in maintaining a good local customer base.
 
OP
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Biker man

Senior Member
What can you get hold of in the required style/size.
Warranty usually only for original owner so if buying used it’s not relevant.
It’s mostly the big global manufacturers with lifetime frame/ fork warranty (assuming failure not crash of course). But you’ll pay a premium usually over eg Planet X who have shorter warranties typically (except Decathlon who are cheaper and have lifetime on frames).
Aftersales, I’d say that’s more down to the selling LBS as much as the manufacturer (although most LBS have a fairly narrow range of manufacturers). If really interested on the manufacturer side, I’d ask the LBS for their exoeriences (although the pandemic has messed up availability and supply so delays to say a replacement part might not be down to lbs or manufacturer).
I think they play the covid card bit to much.
 
OP
OP
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Biker man

Senior Member
If you were to take this at face value then the big retailers like Decathlon and Halfords would seem to offer the best deal. Decathlon offer a lifetime frame warranty plus one year on parts and Halfords would Like to be seen as a dealer defending its reputation as a being fair and offering good service. However we all know this doesn’t always tell the true story, it’s all about the experiences of customers and what sort of service and expertise they receive.
Your LBS might best bet as they are on hand to sort out any problems you might have and know that a good reputation is paramount in maintaining a good local customer base.
A friend gave me Kalkhoff s number in Germany they weren't to pleased when I phoned them .🤔
 

Cycleops

Legendary Member
Location
Accra, Ghana
I think they play the covid card bit to much.
I don’t think it’s so much to do with Covid but the big rise in demand for bikes plus the production problems Shimano are having.
 
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Biker man

Senior Member
What made you think that?
if you bought in the UK your contract is with the supplying dealer there. It’s up to them to deal with any warranty or other problems.
They weren't they took the word of someone who said they would do a software update them didn't check up to see if he had follow it up.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
All of them are suffering due to parts supply issues. Hellfrauds, who have an otherwise pretty poor rep, were known to be generally quite good with Carreras, swapping parts and even whole bikes without demur due to a rich supply of parys and bikes from the importer, but parts shortages has knocked that on the head.

Therefore it's a lottery - even the most dilligent shop/distributor are liable to leave you dangling a long time for repairs or warranty work at the present time, and there is little prospect of that changing in the foreseeable,p.
 
A couple of years ago I bought a Raleigh ebike from the LBS
Turned out they had recently made a small change to the system - which caused me loads of problems
The LBS were great about it - great support
But Raleigh were excellent in helping the lbs sort out the problems at no cost and, after a few months, fixed the whole problem by upgrading my bike totally so as to fix my problem and the LBS's problem at the same time

So - a good LBS is the place to look for good initial support - but if the manufacturer is rubbish then the LBS can be limited in what they can do
 
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