trek frame warranties are they worth the paper

italianshoppingbike

I have a 2009 trek fuel 9.8 carbon and it has cracks in the frame and rear arm, now a new frame is around $3,000 australian so i thought i would make a claim thru the life time warranty offered by trek and all would be fine.Ha how wrong could i be now the bike is regulary serviced and has been upgraded a great cost but it seems all they trek have to say is "Ah it appears to be down to crash damage so tuff luck". Why offer life time warranties if at the 1st sign of an expensive frame they weasel their way out of it. So its off to buy a new bike from someone other than trek. they even offered to sell me a new frame at 20% dicount. Has any one else had less than tip top service from Trek???

njee20

Well you know they have, as you posted on the other thread about the same thing...

They've always been the same, certainly wouldn't buy a Trek for the quality of their warranty! They do things very 'by the book', but that includes replacing half a frame, if they offer you anything!

estampida

a long time ago a mate broke a trek 9800 oclv (1994 or there about)

was a high profile xc racer and worked at the trek dealership

lifetime warranty claim and ..... he got his money back and told never buy a trek again, from trek..... if he didn't work in that shop I reckon he would have been told go get to f*ck

20 years later and nowt has changed.....

I have also had the same conversation with kona 2 years ago and was told to get to f*ck, so its not just trek

jayson

This is slightly worrying, ive had my remedy 2 yrs now and although i havent managed to break it yet im not the smoothest slickest bike rider out there.....

YeehaaMcgee

Not sure about other scenarios, but to be fair, it's very rare that damage due to crashing would be covered under a warranty. They can't warranty against rider error.

VWsurfbum

How did it crack?
Was it crashing?

RevellRider

At work, I can only recall one frame where Trek haven't replaced it. And that was a Session 8 which cased one of the big jumps up at Fort Bill

chez_m356

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Not sure about other scenarios, but to be fair, it's very rare that damage due to crashing would be covered under a warranty. They can't warranty against rider error.

about as rare as rocking horse poo, not even spesh and there famous limited lifetime warranty covers crash damage

italianshoppingbike

Sorry did not make the OP clear enough what i meant to say was that i did not crash the bike and the cracks were found when doing routine servicing .My point is that in order to get out of replacing an expensive frame the trek boys play their get outta jail free card in "oh its a mountain bike so you have obviously crashed it". When the lads at my LBS who are'nt trek dealers heard they agreed that to cause these cracks in a crash i would have wrote the bike off. In an update trek have said that i can at my expense send the frame to them in canberra which from brisbane is a lot, so they can inspect it and then stick to their crash damage theory!! The bike is a u.k spec that i brought with me when i moved over here so maybe they dont like that. If you are'nt gonna honour warranties on high end bikes either dont offer them at all or make them limited to 1-2 yrs dont sucker people in with false promises

cooldad

Maybe I'm a bit slow, or you type too fast, but has anyone except your LBS seen the damage?

italianshoppingbike

yes mate the local area trek dealer has been handling the claim he too agrees with me that the cracks are not caused by an accident but is reluctant to back me for fear of treading on toes as he puts it

The Rookie

I ride with 2 trek riders, one has had one frame replaced without any question, the other is on his fourth (yes 4th) frame, of course this is a different Trek agent in a different country.

Under most countries laws (and Australian law tends to be very close to British law) you can of course sue, when it gets to court they (trek) would have to prove why the warranty wasn't applicable, not the other way round, so they would have to prove (balance of probabilities) that you had crashed it, that the crash wasn't part of normal MTB usage and that it contributed to the failure, I would guess they would pay up rather than go to court.

RevellRider

italianshoppingbike wrote:

In an update trek have said that i can at my expense send the frame to them in canberra which from brisbane is a lot, so they can inspect it and then stick to their crash damage theory!

Just be happy they don't make you stick to word of your warranty and take it back to the retailer you purchased it from

warpcow

Isn't a frame with 3 cracks in it 'written off' by definition? I suspect they might be doubtful due to it being 3; maybe they think they all occured at once (crash), and that at least the first couple should have been noticed before now.

I know a guy who had a 9yr old Trek FS replaced with a new Fuel EX frame (forks and all different sized bits included too). I wouldn't say it's too unreasonable to pay to ship it for inspection, on the condition that they reimburse if the claim is accepted. Then you just get doubley p'ed off though if it's not accepted, but, personally, I'd let them inspect it.

estampida

thats a good point the old fs bikes

they had a thermoplastic rear end and no bearings, and due to a DESIGN FAULT all those bikes rear ends failed eventually, they had a recall on all models...... (is that right)

better have a good Google and see if any trek out there has similar cracks, because as a bet - if they are crashed I bets the cracks are in the same place every time..........

cracks somewhere weird and its manufacture /design flaw