Lifetime warranty what's covered? Bad experience?

Anvar.p25

I'll start from beginning and will do my best to keep it short.

On morning ride of 11/03/14 I took my best bike out(as it finally stopped raining), it's eddy Merckx carbon bike, bike came with lifetime warranty. 45 minutes in to my session to my huge disappointment I was to suddenly stop because I couldn't pedal due to some obstacle in crank arms way. It was a bolt which had come off the chainring which holds it on to crank arm(by the way it's campagnolo centaur group set) please see attached pic of damage. The bolt stuck between (bottom part) chain stay and crank arm and damaged the frame.

I purchased the bike on 27/09/13 and rode it maybe 10-15 times covering 300 miles tops hoping to do more in spring and summer, in meantime I was using my winter bike for training.

The bolt coming loose, falling out and the subsequent damage that it has
caused was absolutely outwith my control and as such I believe I should be
able to have the damage repaired under the warranty .

So I contacted the online store I have purchased my beloved "tricycle"(winstanleybikes.com on 17/03/14) and asked to make a claim on my behalf as the manufacturer insisted WB.COM to deal with it on my behalf. I gave all the details, provided them with as many pictures as required by EMC(eddy Merckx cycles) as well as the original purchase invoice and bike passport and finally written instructions I received from manufacturer.

I was calling and chasing the case up on daily basis. On 26/03 I've learnt that even WB.com after all my instructions haven't followed them and emailed the claim to the wrong email address. I asked them to fix it and escalate it to right place.

I found Winstaleysbikes.co.uk being very inadequate, unhelpful and unprofessional. Obviously this experience thought me of using lbs instead of paying 200 less.

Today, after chasing both parties I've learnt that manufacturer declined my claim. I'm absolutely disappointed and still believe that the damage caused out with my control should be covered by Lifitime warranty.

Could you please advise what can I do further to have this problem solved please

DeVlaeminck

Something like that wont be covered by a lifetime warranty on the frame as the fault was nothing to do with the frame. Your normal consumer rights may apply though - which I think would be against the retailer.however, you've had the bike 6 months, it may be reasonable for them to argue you should have checked how tight the bolts were at some point - that this was not due to manufacturing or assembly but poor maintenance.

Anvar.p25

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Something like that wont be covered by a lifetime warranty on the frame as the fault was nothing to do with the frame. Your normal consumer rights may apply though - which I think would be against the retailer.however, you've had the bike 6 months, it may be reasonable for them to argue you should have checked how tight the bolts were at some point - that this was not due to manufacturing or assembly but poor maintenance.

I agree about the the frame warranty, but I don't think you are trying to put yoursel in my shoes. Think about it, you paid almost 2k for a bike and covered not more than 300 miles on it, doesn't matter if you had it for a month or a year what matters I the use, then the chainring bolt comes off, and messes your bike up. What would you do?

The point being, in all of your cycling experience, how often have you checked the tightness of bolts on chainring?

nicklouse

Often.

Most manual state you should check bolts etc before every ride.

Lose chain ring bolts are not silent. You must have ridden the bike with some odd clicks and clacks for some time not to mention chain rub.

Anvar.p25

nicklouse wrote:

Often.

Most manual state you should check bolts etc before every ride.

Lose chain ring bolts are not silent. You must have ridden the bike with some odd clicks and clacks for some time not to mention chain rub.

You must be super careful then! In my experience it was more of a problem to take the bolt off rather then to tighten it, and as you know, most of mechanics use torque gels to tighten any screw/bolt with more than 10 nm.

When it comes to noise or chain rubbing, you're being presumptuous, as I had no funny noise or chain rub unless it was a "chain crossing" which you'd know is a bad practice in general!

But thanks for your comment

DeVlaeminck

Anvar.p25 wrote:

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Something like that wont be covered by a lifetime warranty on the frame as the fault was nothing to do with the frame. Your normal consumer rights may apply though - which I think would be against the retailer.however, you've had the bike 6 months, it may be reasonable for them to argue you should have checked how tight the bolts were at some point - that this was not due to manufacturing or assembly but poor maintenance.

I agree about the the frame warranty, but I don't think you are trying to put yoursel in my shoes. Think about it, you paid almost 2k for a bike and covered not more than 300 miles on it, doesn't matter if you had it for a month or a year what matters I the use, then the chainring bolt comes off, and messes your bike up. What would you do?

The point being, in all of your cycling experience, how often have you checked the tightness of bolts on chainring?

Well you can look at the terms of the warranty, if it refers to the frame I think you are screwed on that. Then your only avenue is to look at your consumer rights, it's probably arguable that a chainring bolt properly tightened will not fall off after 300 miles...if the shop wont budge then you are looking at taking it to the small claims court or something...I've no idea how likely you are to get a result there.

I would probably have checked the bolts on a new bike were tight - I don't check them regularly but I did once buy a bike second hand (off Malcolm Elliott) and on my first ride the chainring bolts started dropping out so since then I tend to give all my new bikes a once over to make sure they haven't been assembled in haste.