How great are Merlin?!?!

Penylope

Hi, thanks to a post yesterday from Mr Wu, i went on to Merlin site and ordered a M770 XT chainset for £109.








It arrived at 08:30 this morning

top class service from Merlin, and thanks for the heads up Mr Wu

Dazzza

My wu is good, saed me from selling my avid juicy 3's at a silly price. 8)

stu8975

And ive just recieved my new XT cassette today aswell..bring on the Formula R1s for £250..bargain

Salsa

Yeah when they sent me a 31.6mm Thomson seat post that would only go 2" into my £600 frame before getting stuck, I wasn't too happy with them.
They said it was within 'tolerance' & charged me a 10% restock, plus their delivery costs, plus my return delivery costs & refused to just send me a replacement for what was a blatantly faulty item.
Awesome, well at least they took it back but it makes me wonder how the 3 other 31.6mm posts I tried all fitted fine..

Saying that though I agree they do deliver quickly, have great prices & at least they reply to emails, also the set of wheels I bought from them in 2004 have been faultless, I'll certainly give them another chance.

_Ferret_

If your seatpost doesn't fit it is usually the frame that is at fault. That's why some shops offer a machining of the seatpost tube. I had my new frame machined to the correct dimension and my post that fit snugly into my last frame falls into this one...

Mr Wu

Penylope wrote:

Hi, thanks to a post yesterday from Mr Wu, i went on to Merlin site and ordered a M770 XT chainset for £109.








It arrived at 08:30 this morning

top class service from Merlin, and thanks for the heads up Mr Wu

:-) No Probs.

Salsa

_Ferret_ wrote:

If your seatpost doesn't fit it is usually the frame that is at fault. That's why some shops offer a machining of the seatpost tube. I had my new frame machined to the correct dimension and my post that fit snugly into my last frame falls into this one...

Yeah but as I said my frame is not a cheap one (£625 Hard tail frame) & the three other seat posts I tried (Easton EC70/Syncros/Ritchey WCS 1 bolt) all went in fully, perfectly, so my seat tube does not need to be reamed.
I checked the inside of the seat tube & it was perfectly clean with no burrs or anything stopping the post.
I put vernier callipers on the Thomson post & the diameter changed by a fair bit after about 2", so the post was at fault.
I do have acsess to a seat tube reamer but there was no way I was willing to shave that much material off to make a badly made post fit.

gezzza

stu8975 wrote:

And ive just recieved my new XT cassette today aswell..bring on the Formula R1s for £250..bargain

Shame they are not the carbon lever ones or i would of had a set

antfly

Merlin sent me a Gobi saddle when I ordered an Arione so they`re not perfect.

blister pus

antfly wrote:

Merlin sent me a Gobi saddle when I ordered an Arione so they`re not perfect.

how quickly did they rectify the mistake though?

antfly

I rang them and asked if they would send the Arione straight away which they did. I`ve since used them a few times and they are always pretty good.

blister pus

How they respond when things don't go according to script is the thing I find. Companies who respond honestly and promptly to rectify mistakes with minimum fuss are usually decent companies. They always get repeat business from me.

Lapierre t 400

ordered a front XT 700 front and rear mech on thursday morning,came friday at 11.30

Indigo Gorilla

blister pus wrote:

How they respond when things don't go according to script is the thing I find. Companies who respond honestly and promptly to rectify mistakes with minimum fuss are usually decent companies. They always get repeat business from me.

Yeah, I work in retail and find that mistakes do happen (sometimes more often than wanted maybe) but it's the way they are dealt with that matters most really.

I used Merlin when I needed a new front wheel and went for the XT/Mavic 717 combo and I'm really pleased with the time it took (about 4-5 days) and the quality of the build.

When I've got the money I'll be using them again to replace my rear wheel and order a few bits and bobs just because.

Where are my stabilisers?

Merlin were great when I had a problem with my front brake. Emailed them, they said to post it back and they sorted it within a few day's - excellent communication the whole way through and no charge!

That's good service that is 8)

ellsbells1973

i used merlin to fit a full new slx groupset with wheels, it was done in 24hrs and even threw in an xt shadow rear mech as they had run out of slx mechs, cant complain

vikingboy

Merlin do offer excellent prices thats for sure. £250 for R1s is a bargain...I wanted to pick up a set of my wifes ride.

However their customer service stinks. I've ordered three times from them so far, the first time no problem, next time they were out of stock even though both items showed as in stock, causing several days delay to fixing my bike. After missing several expected dates, they did refund me but I got a bad attitude on the phone which soured the experience.

This third time things have gone pear shaped, admittedly not all Merlins fault but their tone and helpfulness has been really off. I'm hoping they resolve this issue because I really do want to shop further with these guys but right now Im thinking of going elsewhere even if it does cost me more. I'll post back when it resolves itself, or not.

ccc

blister pus wrote:

How they respond when things don't go according to script is the thing I find. Companies who respond honestly and promptly to rectify mistakes with minimum fuss are usually decent companies. They always get repeat business from me.

True, my Commencal from them had the wrong dropouts fitted (not sure how it happened, but it's beside the point). They didn't seem that interested when I called them and simply suggested I sent it back. It took me a while to get it back to them as I don't live anywhere near them and I'd been overseas for a few weeks, but when I did send it back, they fixed the problem the next morning. The rear rotor also got bent in transit on the way to them and they replaced it free of charge. They sent the bike back to me the same day, so I was only without it for 2 days.

Obviously I'd rather it hadn't have happened in the first place, but they did sort it quickly and restored my faith in them. Just bought a new wheelset of them today in fact

passout

They are good - just fixed my bike under warranty and threw in a mini service... I guess due to the delay or perhaps they charged it to Commencal. Anyway, I was pleased.

adb1006

Small (ish) orders they've always been brilliant with. When i ordered a frame, headset and XT crank off them though they managed to fcuk it up royally. Sent it to my home address by mistake while i was at work, which was a pain in the a-hole. Also they didn't take the time to line the Hope decals up on the headset when they pressed the cups in - not a major fcuk-up, but something i would have liked to have seen - it wouldn't have taken them any longer and would have shown that a little bit of care was taken. Now i just have to look at it and curse everytime i get on the bike - plus every fcuker i meet likes to point out that it's wonky :evil: They also didn't fit the bottom bracket to the frame like they agreed - meaning once i'd eventually fcuked about and picked the frame up (as there was nobody home to accept delivery), i had to then go out and buy the ht2 tool to fit it myself.

stayhigh65

I had the same thing with the headset logos being lopsided from an lbs who took offence when I asked them to refit it and tried to charge me for it :shock: As you say it doesnt alter the performance however its the thought that goes into it and the pride we have in our rides.

I've always found that Merlin's delivery time has always been super fast aprt from a pair of shoes that took a week to arrive as they were waiting for stock :roll: Whan I had to send my rear wheel in for a warranty job it was done and back to me in 4 days which was a big bonus