Destroying things for warranties

What does Harold think about it 😆

It does seem wasteful. Can't they take it back and repair it?

Would tubeless sealant do the job?

What does Harold think about it 😆

He's asked can he get off the board before it gets cut in two.

Photo shop it....

I did think that 😂

Edit - Nailed it!

Not for Warranty - but my industry regularly destroys prototype cars and provides images of the destruction to the vehicle manufacturer.

Some are perfect but the vehicle manufacturer doesn't want the risk of a, theoretically unknown, car making it into the market place.

I'm guessing the board makers don't want to end up paying out a second Warranty claim for the same board.

When I worked at Halfords HQ I helped the product development guys clear out their store. I smashed numerous prototype/test/warranty inspection carbon frames, metal frames, wheels and forks against the mahoosive metal skip to destroy them so no one could use them. I couldn’t take anything, it all had to go. It made me realise how tough carbon frames are!

It does seem wasteful. Can’t they take it back and repair it?

Would tubeless sealant do the job?

I'm guessing it's not worth it economically.
I suppose with a point puncture you can patch it, but with a seam, it could lead to the seam failing in other places later.
Very high pressures so you can't mess about.

Tubeless sealant would be unlikely to work long term if at all, I'd have thought.

Seems to be the way warranty claims are going these days...anything that can't fit through a letterbox seems to be left with the customer and asked to be destroyed and pictures of the destruction. It makes sense as someone has pointed out above - they don't want to do a second warranty claim on the failed piece of kit.
It does seem wasteful...I'd hope when things were destroyed, they were recycled to something else useful, but I suspect a lot of stuff is just horsed into the bin and off the landfill in many cases.

I’d hope when things were destroyed, they were recycled to something else useful, but I suspect a lot of stuff is just horsed into the bin and off the landfill in many cases.

Jobe did say the other option was to contact this recycling company and get a receipt. I have emailed them and they say they will get back to me with a quote.

I don't know, cut it in two and it goes in landfill, or package it up, send it across the country in a truck for them to cut up and I imagine not get an awful lot of useable stuff out of and chuck the rest in landfill...
The guy who replied initially asked me if it came with a puncture repair kit, so I imagine he'd thought he might get a board out of it. 😊
Not sure how much it'll cost but supposedly they would reimburse me.

It's not quite the same, but I had a faulty Garmin HRM which they didn't want back. They advised me that they'd permanently deactivate it remotely (apparently they can do this to various devices - I assume through Connect and/or a web connection).

Yeah, the whole thing seems a bit heavily-skewed still to just throw out. We should be doing more to encourage as much recycling as possible - including warranty claims. (this is me just talking out loud, not aimed at anyone, just the current trend with this kind of thing)

It saddens me to see Maxxis etc at big bike events doing a "swap your tyres here for a tenner off"..and clipping the bead on the donated tyres and chucking them in a skip...

My uncle used to work at BodyShop HQ, and remembers them burying many thousands of pounds worth of stock, from an overstock/overproduction... If they had given it away, it would simply have devalued all their products.

I guess companies (understandably) must not only care about the environment, but the market value of their products.

DrP

In the specific case of the paddle board, don't they see it as a safety thing? It's faulty, if you then sell it on or keep using it and then it fails in use and someone is dumped in the sea they could be liable for the consequences.
Wasn't it Jobe that had a major recall last year for failures due to incorrect glue on the seams? In that case they asked people to send them photos of the boards cut in half, and only after that told them that due to the size of the recall it could be up to 6 months before they had a replacement available to ship to them?

recall details

Ask Sonos how decommissioning their original Play 5 went. Basically they offered 30% discount on more modern players to brick a perfectly functional older device. Not a warranty claim per se, but they wanted to stop support for legacy devices. Consumers rebelled and they eventually backed down. I still have my Play 5 and used the discount for a new Amp. It runs on a second network.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/30/21042871/sonos-recycle-mode-trade-up-program-controversy

There was a long read article in the Guardian the other week about electrical recycling. It's very lucrative - a lot of rare earth metals in electricals - but the security and secrecy around it was something else. Brands were shipping in hundreds of new TVs, monitors etc for scrapping because they didn't want to have their old product out there at a lower price competing with a new product.

Data was a big concern as well - a lot of Government agencies scrapping laptops, phones etc and demanding proof that the thing was completely shredded.

Exped were great in this area recently. They advertise as working to Net Zero and will repair/replace faulty goods as part of keeping kit going rather where possible.
I enquired about getting my old Downmat7 repaired as the baffles had blown. They confirmed that it was not covered under their manufacturing warranty as it was bought in 2011 and that it was not able to be repaired due to the nature of the fault. But they offered me 40% off the cost of a new item and would accept my old item back so that they could investigate the fault as part of their R&D and to recycle the down and any other recyclable parts.

I know where my money will be going in 2035 when my new roll-mat eventually kicks the bucket.

I was asked to destroy an entire bike because of a crack in the frame. Sent photos and got my refund, no problems, but I could have given the full groupset, wheels, etc to a local bike recycling charity. Hey ho 🙂

Wasn’t it Jobe that had a major recall last year for failures due to incorrect glue on the seams? In that case they asked people to send them photos of the boards cut in half, and only after that told them that due to the size of the recall it could be up to 6 months before they had a replacement available to ship to them?

recall details

Wow, thanks for that @pocpoc, I had no idea about that. That explains a lot.
My board is a Duna 11.6, as detailed in the recall.

I never got any contact about that at all, so I guess it was only a matter of time.
Good job me and Harold didn't attempt that Atlantic crossing! 😲
We did go across a very cold Scottish Loch together so it kind of makes you think.

Maybe it's best to be cut up then I suppose.

I was looking at a SUP the other day and wondering if this happened often? Idle curiosity that's all.

My experience with welded seams has been either 'Ortlieb and Thermarest, all ok' or (so far) a 100% fail rate on products, from high end clothing suppliers through to Vaude and Berghaus gear. Heat bond seams let go every time, I'd guess the heat/pressure was out in production. I generally avoid products using this technique now, if there's a stitched alternative.

On warranty waste, I agree, any waste bothers me. Seems that the vast majority of Amazon returns end up in landfill and from supplier experience a customer return can be just cosmetic. Most of the Al and steel frames I've known going through warranty depts have a cut in a tube to write off and then go into the recycling. Carbon.. previously into landfill, though there are some recyclers now.

(edit - perhaps SUPs are glued based on earlier post, dunno)

I recently did this with a damaged Fox helmet for the 50% crash replacement.
Have done it with shorts too.

Buuuut, the best example I have is the opposite.
I had two Cotic frames fail. Both replaced on the basis of a photo. Because I’m on the other side of the world Cy told me to keep the frames and didn’t require me to cut them up.

ooh...a mate had a santa cruz megatower, and the paint was fading excessively.
SC offered him a new frame...he took it to a SC dealer in the surrey hills, where they showed him a loft full of perfeclty useable, but slightly faded frames...

DrP

Jobe did say the other option was to contact this recycling company and get a receipt. I have emailed them and they say they will get back to me with a quote.

This interests me as I thought (and a quick google backs it up) that SUPs were not recyclable and it was straight to landfill. Good news if that's no longer the case....but getting the hundreds of thousands of them that are being churned out at Lidl etc to recycling rather than landfill when they start taking up space in the sheds and never used is going to be a problem.

It's very elitist I appreciate but SUPs to me are a product that has not scaled up in sales very well from an environmental perspective. When the market was Red and a few other quality brands and it was an expensive rather than impulsive purchase there was some chance they would be used and the QC and manufacture standards mean it should last. I suspect we are well down the planned obsolescence rabbit hole with SUPs now and that's a shit ton of very hard to recycle polymers ready to be seen again in a few thousand years time when they are dug up again from whatever landfill they end up in.

p.s. You appear to be paddling in my pea soup!!!!

My mate had to do that with his Yeti frame before they sent a replacement - although he cut the chain stay on one side so he could still hang it on the wall!

I was asked to destroy an entire bike because of a crack in the frame.

Is it just me or is it awfully presumptuous for a company to expect that a customer would have the means to destroy a bike (or paddleboard or whatever)? What would be the process if you didn't have access to saws, grinders, hammers etc?

judo chop innit....

DrP

Is it just me or is it awfully presumptuous for a company to expect that a customer would have the means to destroy a bike (or paddleboard or whatever)? What would be the process if you didn’t have access to saws, grinders, hammers etc?

https://www.toolstation.com/minotaur-hacksaw/p63460?store=NF&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&mkwid=_dc&pcrid=&pkw=&pmt=&gclid=CjwKCAjwsvujBhAXEiwA_UXnAGSUA9gF6IvNSUWZ2A6pbB8oY75DL05ZnMt_KQF-nNP1-p8IIRDWBhoCD_oQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

friend had to saw his yeti sb130 rear triangle and send pics before they would send replacement next day

I’m guessing the board makers don’t want to end up paying out a second Warranty claim for the same board.

Well that or the think that:

lighter paddlers like kids

I don’t suppose they’d accept me donating it to a youth club or something…

Is a safety issue and they don't want to encourage it (by the way any youth club with the skills/capability to run paddleboarding doesn't want your leaking or patched board either.

Can’t they take it back and repair it?

They are made in China.  Skilled labour in this country to repair it, even if it is possible, would cost more than they would get for a reconditioned board.

The guy who replied initially asked me if it came with a puncture repair kit, so I imagine he’d thought he might get a board out of it. 😊

No - I suspect he either needs to know for the H&S form (cos the kit contains solvents) or its the one bit that can be reused!

It’s very elitist I appreciate but SUPs to me are a product that has not scaled up in sales very well from an environmental perspective. When the market was Red and a few other quality brands and it was an expensive rather than impulsive purchase there was some chance they would be used and the QC and manufacture standards mean it should last. I suspect we are well down the planned obsolescence rabbit hole with SUPs now and that’s a shit ton of very hard to recycle polymers ready to be seen again in a few thousand years time when they are dug up again from whatever landfill they end up in.

Tents... so many aren't much better than £2.99 umbrellas and are seen as disposable items.

Ask Sonos how decommissioning their original Play 5 went. Basically they offered 30% discount on more modern players to brick a perfectly functional older device.

I'm very glad they backed down on that - I've saved nearly a grand over the last couple of years by buying old Sonos stuff on eBay and then using the 30% discount towards new kit.

If they replace it under warranty, it's theirs to dispose of as they see fit. It's not worth their time to try and repair damaged stuff. You have the choice of accepting their offer or not accepting it.

Carbon Juliana maverick (Hightower) had a slight issue with the moulding for the dropper cable routing, saw it up before they’d send a warranty replacement. Did seem a bit overkill but they sent me the more sellable SC Hightower in a general colour so I wasn’t going to complain!

"I’ve got a lovely Jobe paddleboard that I noticed had air escaping from a seam in a couple of places the other week.

Jobe have been helpful and communicative, but to carry out my warranty and send me a new board, they want me to cut this one in two, sending them a picture.

I can’t bring myself to do it! 😭"

With the pressures in a SUP the consequences of a sudden failure could be serious, I would have thought. Its not worth the risk of a repair and continued use.

If they replace it under warranty, it’s theirs to dispose of as they see fit.

Only they don't want the actual board back. They're wanting a photo of it in two and for me to dispose of it.

Might just cut it up and chuck it in me pea soup.

I would just comply and thank them for sorting your warranty claim out in a timely manner.

I used to work for a WEEE recycling company. The waste is horrendous at all levels in the chain.

Manufacturers junking old stock because the new version has been released.

Customer returns of new products which haven't even been out of the box - probably buyers remorse.

Consumers ditching perfectly working stuff because there is a new shinier version.

Large organisations chucking out working stuff because of refurb - hundreds of white printers came in once from a massive finance company because they changed them for identical black printers because they suited their office better.

Ever wondered what happens to all the electrical kit from companies that go bust? It's not sold, it's scrapped for £110/t. Even the design agency that went bust with dozens of less than one year old high end Mac and IPads - all smashed up.

At least 80% of electrical stuff that's sent for recycling is fully working and modern enough to be functional. A chunk more is easily repairable. The level of waste is very depressing.

they wont repair or sell it, its not up to snuff. If you post it back to them they have to pay to dispose of it as well as pay the postage.
Equally, they need to protect against people putting bubble bath on their boards and claiming MOAR BOARDS.

Pretty standard stuff. Im sure people have talked about having to cut frames in half to honour the warranty claim, but then only cutting half way through the seat tube before having it welded back up again.

I get perhaps from a safety perspective they dont want 'faulty' stuff getting used, and it makes them feel better that the customer isnt getting one over on them, but isnt it just reducing their postage costs (returning the item) and waste reduction costs by not asking for stuff back?

Its just like when trades come and do stuff in your house these days, they now leave a bag of rubbish for you to dispose of because it will cost them money

I don't know what the answer to all this is but it's not whatever we are doing now

Not for Warranty – but my industry regularly destroys prototype cars and provides images of the destruction to the vehicle manufacturer.

Some are perfect but the vehicle manufacturer doesn’t want the risk of a, theoretically unknown, car making it into the market place.

Also tax implications, if the car gets too old, or has been in use for too long, or gets sold on, the manufacturer isn't allowed to write any of the cost of the prototype off. And will become liable for the full tax cost as well.
Which considering the cost of a typical early stage prototype car (especially if it's a complete platform/driveline) might well be over a million quid a pop.

A guy i worked with bought a late stage prototype engine from the scrapyard at work to use in his race car (might have been a hillclimber?) and we got audited later that year, while they were beginning to enforce existing rules and tighten up with new rules, and this engine got flagged up as there was no evidence of destruction, so the eventual cost to the company was about 20 thousand quid (on a "scrap" engine with all it's ancillaries and a programmable ECU still attached).

Plus the fine for financial irregularities, which was about 11 million quid. That was in 04 or 05.

So now everyone has to buy their own wheels, tyres, part worn discs and pads etc.

(yes, there was quite a trade in used parts from the workshops!)

BiL works for a waste disposal company. A shredder place for everything.

Can't see how he does it. The stories he tells about the contracts he gets and what they customer wants destroyed. Depressing.

Recently told about a 40t truck full with pallets of branded water. Rather than remove the labels and give away free water it was disposed of.

@mert is there not a thing where prototypes don't have VIN numbers either so couldn't be sold to the public in any case?

I had a nukeproof mega TR frame warrantied because the chainstay broke, they asked for the serial number and pictures and sent me a new frame (in the meantime I had sourced a chainstay (new) from someone on here) after the frame was delivered I bought the chainstay and fitted it and it sat up my loft for a couple of years then I sold it to a local lad for £150 (who was well chuffed with it)

Can’t see how he does it. The stories he tells about the contracts he gets and what they customer wants destroyed. Depressing.

If you want a depressing lack of recycling, a friend of mine works in a lab where her job (in part) is to care for the test animals.

They can't risk rehoming them because the first time there's an incident, like a dog bites someone or some such, the potential for fallout could be headline news if someone decided to kick up a stink. "I got this dog from the lab and then my next-door neighbour went blind..." etc, you know what people are like and it'd only take one.

Sadly most of these procedures are put in place due to past experience with the general public.

There are plenty of people out there who, if you send them a new item will try and flog the old one on Ebay or down the pub, then when it causes an issue down the line it'll be the manufacturer's fault and the person who he sold it to will see you in court with their no win-no-fee lawyer in tow.

@mert is there not a thing where prototypes don’t have VIN numbers either so couldn’t be sold to the public in any case?

Depends on the maturity of prototype, and *what* is being prototyped (engine, gearbox, suspension, facelift, whatever).
Probably over 75% of the prototypes at work will have one.

Sadly most of these procedures are put in place due to past experience with the general public.

Yeah, it's too open to abuse and there are people who will take any opportunity to game the system. I've known people who would see it as a personal challenge.

It wouldn't be hard to fake the photo in the OP, that looks like the foam density you'd get from bubble bath.

It wouldn’t be hard to fake the photo in the OP, that looks like the foam density you’d get from bubble bath

Screenshot from a video. I had to do a video of it.

I had to destroy my Wahoo Bolt. The gits make it impossible to change the battery and offered a discount on new device, but I had to destroy the old unit completely, break the screen, pull the rubber buttons off and twist out the charging port.

I put it off for a few months until it couldn't manage a ride over 4 hours, and having failed to find a photo of a destroyed unit online I had to kill it. A shame as it would have still coped with short pootles on the pub bike.

A few years ago I was paddle boarding across Thunersee (Interlaken) early one morning and though the air temp was 15 degrees the water was very cold. There was a low mist on the water but standing up you were above it (pretty cool actually). Though I heard a cry for help but couldn’t see anything. Then as I paddled on out of the corner of my eye I saw something under the mist - it was a German bloke in a pair of boardies clinging to a mostly deflated paddle board…..he was turning nicely blue and obviously going into hypothermia. I had no phone and was about a km or more from the shore. Luckily a wakeboard boat was passing and I managed to flag them down and get the guy and his board over the side and they shot off with him. No idea if he was ok but hope so! At the time I assumed his valve had failed but I guess it was more likely to have been a glue failure. I must say it made me less likely to do long distance on an inflatable and I bought a hard board. I also always wear a BA now.

But yes it’s a liability issue

Exped were great in this area recently.

Total opposite to my experience, my baffles also went. I contacted exped but didn't even get a response. I sent 3 emails to 3 contact email addresses I could find. I dint think I'll use them ever again. My mat sadly went in the bin.

if you send it back for a replacement, the company will destroy it. if you destroy it it saves the hassle of shipping it back

To fix this properly, you can take it to a guy that repairs and fixes RIB inflatable boats.
It's just glue and PVC plastic.
It will be perfectly safe but the new seam maybe a different colour.
Criminal to throw away when it's basically putting a burley bike patch on.

I used to work in a bike shop where it was common practice to cut the BB shell and frame sticker off the frame and only post that bit back to the supplier.
Nearly got caught out once when asking the Saturday boy to fulfill this duty to the failed frame in the corner while vaguely flapping my finger in that direction from across the shop.
A few minutes later another member of staff asked me if Callum should have that whole bike in the workstand and be approaching it with a hacksaw and intent.
Note to self, show more clarity when vaguely flapping the finger of delegation

Depends on the maturity of prototype, and *what* is being prototyped (engine, gearbox, suspension, facelift, whatever).
Probably over 75% of the prototypes at work will have one.

Cheers!

Recently told about a 40t truck full with pallets of branded water. Rather than remove the labels and give away free water it was disposed of.

Crisis Fareshare and alike happily distribute surplus food/drink far fancier than bottled water.

😭😭😭

Alpin

Recently told about a 40t truck full with pallets of branded water. Rather than remove the labels and give away free water it was disposed of.

Erm.. that seems doubly ironic. It literally falls from the sky.