Can Working On Your Bike Void The Warranty?

Of course, you can void the warranty by not working on some parts.

Popcorn anyone?

Before it even gets to the tea/biscuits/popcorn point - thanks @Mark and @stwhannah for doing this. Fab.

All sounds very pragmatic from all the firms. But what Giant have said is completely at odds with what their warranty team said to WYSIWYG when dismissing his claim, so I would expect him to hear from them very shortly (surprised they have not contacted him already with an apology), otherwise they will be judged by their actions, not by whatever flim-flam they've sent to Hannah.

Giant seem a little confused internally.
Sounds like they need to figure out their line internally before coming out with anything further

I like how clear Bird are - Giant - hah !

And now having read the article: Thank you STW, this is helpful. I hope more bike brands would contribute.

As ever, seems like rule No.1 applies on both sides by manufacturers and customers in the comments above.

I have no idea what’s been said 🙁

Should have asked them what 'lifetime' means to them.

Giant's answer's for this article has made me even more angry than ian@giant's initial response.

Two Giant bikes in my shed and I can confidently say there will be no more.

We are not able to discuss individual cases however....

Why do companies so often think it's ok to hide behind this sort of bullshit?

Individual cases [where they have singularly failed to cover hemselves in glory] are exactly what people want to hear about. We don't want waffle, bullshit or flannel. We want to hear about concrete example of how they are actually operating in real life with their real customers.

Thank you STW for the work on this.

Many brands operate well above that baseline in a zone we shall simply call pragmatic customer service. It’s a grey area but all brands understand that if you get it wrong you could face a costly backlash when word gets out.

^ and that grey area is where Giant have effed up in @wysiwyg's case which started all this off. Giant's answers within the article clearly conflict with the reality of how they've applied their warranty approach here.

Individual cases [where they have singularly failed to cover hemselves in glory] are exactly what people want to hear about. We don’t want waffle, bullshit or flannel. We want to hear about concrete example of how they are actually operating in real life with their real customers.

Bikes must only be worked on by a Giant authorised retailer?
Is this the same Giant as that which are going towards a direct sales model?

Eejits.

Seems a simple enough division to me.
Your Giant handlebars have fallen off your giant stem attatched to your giant bike, because you too them off and didnt put them back on again properly. Fine, i can see your argument.

My Giant frame has cracked at the weld.
Theres limited things you can do with your hand tools to crack a frame. A clear warranty case.

Theres limited things you can do with your hand tools to crack a frame.

well in this case you could have installed a seatpost without enough insertion. I'm not suggesting the OP did it, but it would be something you can do with hand tools that cracks the frame in exactly the same spot

Paywall dropped

Ian at Giant had one too many sherry's on Sunday afternoon.

Thanks @stwhannah, @Mark. During the q and a process, did Giant get asked for an explanation of the logic which led to rejection of wysiwyg's claim, and how that fitted in with their explanation of the warranty terms?

It's fine saying they're going to review processes, but that's pretty meaningless. Not trying to nitpick, but if your questions could have been a bit more pointed it might help. I guess most of us are still hoping this is resolved in wysiwyg's favour- do you think that Giant is hoping that they've put the issue to bed now?

Thanks to STW for doing this survey. Absolutely brilliant and us purchasers know where we stand with a few bike companies now.

There's also the question of why the Giant retailer was trying to charge the customer for investigating a warranty claim, which is why he disassembled in the first place. Scope for some follow-up questions here...

Thanks for doing this. Useful info into how various companies view some of their customers.

I guess a company like Bird or Santa Cruz probably puts a lot more thought into the warranty process as a much higher proportion of those companies customers are going to be thinking of it when purchasing, using it, chasing it up and ultimately talking about it to their cycling buddies. Companies like Giant and Trek sell a much wider range of bikes cost wise and I can't imagine the average purchaser of a £450 hybrid (surely the bulk of their sales?) is ever going to worry about a warranty or need to use it.....

well in this case you could have installed a seatpost without enough insertion. I’m not suggesting the OP did it, but it would be something you can do with hand tools that cracks the frame in exactly the same spot

Ok this is true. But let’s say I did that. I’d obviously then just push the seatpost back into the frame to the ‘legal’ limit and giant wouldn’t know any better would they?

The only way giant can make an educated call on what has caused the issue is to inspect the frame. Something they aren’t offering to do in the aforementioned case.

Also, it should be bloody obvious to giant that the min seat post height hasnt been exceeded because it’s a dropper post. The chap would need to have legs of giraffe length proportions!

I’d obviously then just push the seatpost back into the frame to the ‘legal’ limit and giant wouldn’t know any better would they?

I think there would be a mark at the height you normally rode it at. Giant could have covered that inspection requirement by asking him to include the seatpost with the stripped down frame.

Ignoring Giant, damage has already been done to their reputation, but...

I like how clear Bird are

and Trek's - we'll get you back on a bike somehow... Great attitude 👍

Whilst I commend stw, unfortunately the response from giant clearly contradicts what has actually happened. As such, It’s as worthless as the warranty that comes with their bikes

I wish i was considering a Giant bike in the future so i could make a point of not buying it.

But i wasn't, utterly bland bikes, so this small hill is going to be an easy climb.

@stwhannah - I was one of those on the other thread asking if you/STW could ask the questions to Giant.

Really didn't expect a thorough article like this, so thank you very much.

I'm not looking to buy a bike just now, but if I was I'd be considering a Bird based on their reply here. Of course in practice a) I don't expect to need the warranty (knock on wood) and b) what happens in practice may be different from the warm words in their reply (just like Giant, in fact). Still, it's nice to feel that you are buying from decent people.

It's as though Giant have one set of (happy smiley) words for Journos, and another ,(gofheckyerself) set for actual customers !

Hmmm.... I wonder why 🤔

Agree with other posters About Bird - absolutely spot on. Canyon and Cotic too.

I’m not looking to buy a bike just now, but if I was I’d be considering a Bird based on their reply here.

If I can't chop the head tube off and weld it back on without voiding my warranty I'm out.

unfortunately the response from giant clearly contradicts what has actually happened. As such, It’s as worthless as the warranty that comes with their bikes

Maybe there's a new guy in the warranty dept who applied a fall-back rule literally. A warranty can have terms in clauses to be applied if needed and they might be written in a very B+W sense because it's had a company lawyer sign it off. Rule #1 and common sense or customer relations would overrule those clauses normally.
Yes they represent the company, but people make mistakes and to apply that one round of communication as gospel to every bike they ever sell might be a stretch? Something like not attributing to malice that which can be attributed to misunderstanding.

yes but a head honcho said the same thing IIRC

I’d be considering a Bird based on their reply here. Of course in practice a) I don’t expect to need the warranty (knock on wood) and b) what happens in practice may be different from the warm words in their reply

I had a grand total of 6 hours, between the discovery of a crack, to riding my new rear triangle in the woods. Probably would have been faster if I didnt have a job getting in the way.

This thread makes me smile for a few reasons…

The power of STW

The great journalism at the mag

The fact I bought a bird last time I bought a bike frame

I am wondering if GT were asked and whether they would cover @weeksy’s headtube issues though!

I am wondering if GT were asked and whether they would cover @weeksy’s headtube issues though!

From my time in bike shops, GT were one of the better ones - especially around their numerous LTS failures.

Since it was supposed to be the full sus of the decade, they kind of kept quiet about the back end snapping and just replaced them, no fuss.

Lol 2nd owner at least, plus they don't warranty DH bikes in same way. I'm cool with it

Companies looking at this (eg Giant, Norco) should review their warranty wordings compared to Specialized's. I bought a Norco last year and went to check the warranty wording vs a few others after reading the wysiwyg's thread.

Fair enough to exclude damage caused by improper maintenance or fitting of incompatible parts - if you want to do that, say that, a la Spesh. If you want to make it clear who pays for labour, shipping, do that too.

Edit: @jameso calls this "serviced by authorised dealers only" language "fall back" language, but it's worse than useless - it's in conflict with standard practice, your distribution model, the instructions in your user guide, the tools you sell and the pictures on the your warranty page depicting your customers using them. A s soon one of your dealers or warranty managers relies on the words to repudiate a claim, it's shown up to be laughable, and you're forced back by media pressure or lawyers' letters to a more reasonable position - and possibly into a corner of replacing something you could might have been able to deny due to improper maintenance or something.

Eventually though, wording or not, your warranty response will be known, and form part of your offering.

A nice screen grab from the SC part .. and will be kept for the next round of emails with Jungle !

Not my experience with trek, I'm afraid.

yes but a head honcho said the same thing IIRC

I looked that up, I don't think he said the same thing. I read it as they prefer it all to be dealt with via a Giant store and if that store does do all the work your claim is stronger. He's not saying the guy's bike there had an incorrectly applied change or not, or 'take your bike to a Giant store for a new chain or your warranty is invalid'.

There are B+W warranty points in writing (eg on modifications) and generally they're written to the strictest application needed, warranty staff then apply experience and sense to resolve the issues around those terms. So there's judgement needed and it'll go wrong sometimes.

generally they’re written to the strictest application needed, warranty staff then apply experience and sense to resolve the issues around those terms

I tried making this very point in the original thread, but it got lost in the pile on.

Something like not attributing to malice that which can be attributed to misunderstanding.

That's called hanlon's razor.

Can understand how that applies, and I think most people would appreciate everyone can make mistakes including the warranty department.

Whilst an initial mistake can be excused, the continued stupidity and inconsistency of the position giant is maintaining, I don't think can be excused.

That’s called hanlon’s razor.

Yeah, I misquoted it for the post as 'stupidity' or similar isn't fair to the situation here. Heuristics and mental models are good things. A warranty policy might even benefit from including a few of them for the benefit of interpretation.

Whilst an initial mistake can be excused, the continued stupidity and inconsistency of the position giant is maintaining, I don’t think can be excused.

Doesn't seem to be maintained to me? Mis-comms in error to begin with, clarified here. But I'm hesitant to have an opinion on this and contribute to dragging it on. I get that some don't like how it reads to them.

BTW I have no stake in or knowledge of Giant but I've experience of warranty from writing the clauses they way I think they should be to working through them with legal counsel, to dealing with fall-out in instances like this. You can't write a foolproof warranty policy for a big company, it's all too nuanced. Particularly because the bigger the company the more piss-take claims you probably get so the fall backs need to be tight.

Trek wouldn't solve an issue with a re:activ shock on a brand new bike because they said it was up to Fox to deal with. Fox said it was Treks responsibility.

Dolan refused to warranty a cx bike because 'it had been used in mud'.

I have no faith in any big companies full stop. They are professionals at wriggling out of what the rest of us would consider fair.

So, after reading that with a glass of wine, not tea and biscuits, I have come to the following definitive conclusion:

1. Bird & Santa Cruz top my list of future potential pedalling machines, not that I could ever afford either of them 😂
2. Whyte - love the use of emoji and the statement "so mates welding it up" - at least they seem like humans
3. Giant - never getting a penny off me and I no longer love the old-time Giant VT with the curved seat tube 🙁

YMMV 🤷‍♂️

Trek wouldn’t solve an issue with a re:activ shock on a brand new bike because they said it was up to Fox to deal with. Fox said it was Treks responsibility

I sent mine to Fox service center, they fixed in 48 hours

I gave up trying after a year and bought another shock. This was in 2017 though so maybe they're wonderful now.

I'm OK with "fall-back" T&C but if they're as apparently explicit (and yet simultaneously poorly-phrased and vague) as Giant's then potential customers should be very wary IMO.  No amount of "we'll see you right" works as a follow-on from what the letter of the terms is, or wysi's experience was

Whilst I welcome the article it’s all a bit irrelevant. Under U.K. law your warranty is with the retailer you bought the product from and not the manufacturer. I am week e aware the retailer will want assurances from their suppliers so they don’t get left carrying the cost but that’s not what the law states

To give you an example I had a problem with an 18 month old iMac. Took it into the apple shop to be sorted. They said they would warranty it because I had bought it from the refurb site which is legally in Ireland so it had a 2 year warranty. Has I bought it in the store I was stood in then it would be no can do as only a 1 year warranty with the shop

then potential customers should be very wary IMO.

I don't disagree. There are terms that read as more realistic like 'no unsuitable modification parts' but then you're into what is or isn't suitable etc, there's always grey areas so a lot of it will come down to reputation and communication.

Generally you'd expect the best from a small specialist brand who really knows their market and customers. Big brands who always act like small brands are great, it's a hard thing to do.

My experience with Trek warranty, all handled by the supplying LBS (Two Wheels in Stourbridge)

1. Microfractures around spoke holes on rear wheel rim -  new wheel supplied.

2. Trashed hub on rear wheel - new wheel set supplied as the replacement rear wouldn't match the existing front. This was Trek's idea, not a request/demand from me.

3. Cracked lower shock mount on frame. - discovered on a Saturday morning, taken to shop that day who started themwarranty process on Monday. Trek responded to the warranty claim the next day with the offer of either a replacement frame or the RRP of the fame set off any new Trek.

Whilst I welcome the article it’s all a bit irrelevant. Under U.K. law your warranty is with the retailer you bought the product from and not the manufacturer.

Your statutory rights are with the retailer eg the Consumer Rights Act, a manufacturer's warranty is with the manufacturer. 2 different things but the manuf warranty must go beyond the basic statutory rights.

Before it even gets to the tea/biscuits/popcorn point – thanks @Mark and @stwhannah for doing this. Fab.

Agreed! Well done.

Under U.K. law your warranty is with the retailer you bought the product from and not the manufacturer

Don't confuse statutory legal rights with the manufacturer's warranty.

Your statutory legal rights are with the vendor as you state, and your statutory legal rights include a warranty. but the warranty offered by manufacturers is usually over and above your statutory legal rights (and usually exceeds them) and is as per the t & c stated by the manufacturer in the warranty docs and rests with the manufacturer. It's the manufacturer warranty that is being discussed here.

Doesn’t seem to be maintained to me?

Apologies quite right - I stand corrected. I hadn't seen on the other thread that Giant've caved.

Still, it clearly should never have been dragged on so long in the first place with Giant so clearly in the wrong.

I would still not be filled with confidence that either Giant's customer service, warranty or escalation routes are functioning well.

1. Bird & Santa Cruz top my list of future potential pedalling machines, not that I could ever afford either of them 😂

Bird are way less pricey than Santa Cruz. They’ve got around £1k off some full bikes at the mo.

https://www.bird.bike/

When a bike is not serviced by an authorised dealer we historically have more issues, simply because if a technician does the same work on a specific manufacturers bike, goes on all the relevant pieces of training, and has access to all the diagrams, updates and service spare parts as well as the in-house customer care and global warranty teams it naturally builds up knowledge to undertake the jobs efficiently and without issue.

The irony is that almost every bike i've had through my hands that has come from, or been worked on by an "authorised dealer" has had significant errors on the build. In some cases even on their own proprietary parts.
If i could be arsed, and if i needed the money, i could probably make a reasonable income sorting them out.

But i can't be arsed, so unless it's a 2 minute job, they just go back to the "authorised dealer" to be "fixed" (again).

This is excellent work, well done STW

........currently adding insight into 'bought new parts threads' at every bike forum im on. Especially for Giant owners.

Sounds like Giant owe someone a frame.

Conclusion, Giant are a lying set of *****, we fully understand individual cases can't be commented on but they weren't pressed on the fact that simply stripping down the bike has led to a flat and abrupt warranty refusal at the first hurdle, contrary to their above statement, and can people stop questioning wysiwyg's seatpost insertion, it's obvious to anyone with average or above IQ what he meant, nobody is inserting their seatpost by only 2", it's clearly less than 2" from full insertion.

Great stuff. I always check warranty conditions before buying bikes.

I did a survey too, to see how important warranties are.

I surveyed myself and discovered that of the 11 mtb frames I’ve owned 4 of them have required warranty replacements. Two of them were barely ridden before being stolen so I’m going with a frame failure rate of 44%!

Raleigh, Cotic and Kona all did the right thing with minimal hassle. Cotic went beyond.

Xfusion also replaced a fork I bought from Cotic, even though I told them I’d serviced myself.

Specialized on the other hand wouldn’t warranty a six month old seat that wore out, claiming it had “sun damage” when the fabric was clearly not fit for purpose.

On the Emtb forum i got an answer over this from an American rider.

He stated this sort of thing, Insisting work is done by them alone is illegal. I've added the quote to the other thread on this.

The really daft thing about this, is that as more and more people are choosing e-bikes, the warranty is becoming even more important.

I believe that this is why Bird have backed out for the moment. Presumably, they don't want to risk damaging their great reputation.

Sounds like Giant owe someone a frame.

They've offered words instead - like clapping, a cheap empty gesture.....

The really daft thing about this, is that as more and more people are choosing e-bikes, the warranty is becoming even more important.

Yeah, it really does make buying from a local retailer look increasingly sensible as well, even if they are (generally) useless.
Waiting a couple of weeks/months for your local dealer to sort out a replacement controller or whatever is one thing, but having to ship your bike back to another country, or half way across this country. Or get them to deal with a manufacturer whose bikes they don't even sell... Or, for you guys outside the EU, dealing with customs as well.

Nah.

I know there’s been a few positives aimed at Whyte/ATB sales but I’d like to add mine;

Whyte S150 - the Whyte branded freehub was a bit grouchy & rough. It hasn’t been used that much so I enquired whether it was covered under warranty. They replied that they would normally replace the whole freehub as the bearings can be a bit fiddly, but unfortunately they didn’t have any spares and didn’t have bearings either (it was just after final Covid lockdown). However, the fella also said that if I’m happy doing the work pressing bearings in & out then he’d be happy if I sourced my own bearings & fit them, so n order to keep me riding. He also said that if & when the freehubs came back into stock he’d send one out to me. I was very impressed with that - he seemed more interested in keeping me on the trail than whether I’d use a wood chisel to remove the bearings.

Anyway, I sorted it with some eBay specials and carried on riding. About 4 months later when I’d forgot all about it a freehub arrived in the post.

Absolutely brilliant customer service from Whyte UK 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

“We are not able to discuss individual cases however we are reviewing the process that lead [sic] to this situation.”

So for now, the position Giant have laid out in their responses to our questions above is seemingly the definitive position.

It's not clear whether adding in this last line was a sop to Giant, or just a poorly thought-through way to try and round off the piece - but the last sentence is hugely dangerous. Nothing in this article is a "definitive statement". The wording of their warranty is unchanged by any comments made by Giant for the benefit of this article. Their statement is that they're reviewing the process, not the warranty itself. For the foreseeable future, Giant's warrany has to be regarded as caveat emptor until they've demonstrated over the longer-term that they can be trusted to do the right thing in dealing with warranty claims.

Can I give a mention to Orange bikes customer service and warranty process here.

I found a crack in my Orange four frame, when replacing the pivot bearings. The frame was a year out of warranty but I contacted them anyway, hoping for a deal on a replacement frame. They instantly offered to replace the frame in a colour of my choice, or upgrade at a discount, no questions asked.

Based on that level of service I always recommend them and I'm not sure I'll ever buy anything else now...

Just being lazy but what is it about Specialized's warranty?

I've just seen this and love the fact that the leading photo is of a Sick! frame with their legendary approach to warranty issues.