shady trek dealings

just thought id share my recent experiences with Trek with everyone in case
you were thinking about purchasing one of their carbon frames.

It seems that even if you have been a trek dealer for 6 years, and buy their
top end bike (5900), which supposedly has a lifetime warranty, and never
crash the bike, they will still not warranty the frame if it develops a
crack. apparently the drive side chainstay, approx 4" from the BB, is "not a
high stress part of the frame." so if it cracks there, chances are you
either "stepped on the bike," or "picked up a stick or something on a ride
which cracked the frame." it seems that in the course of normal riding a
magical stick can be unnoticably kicked up from the road with enough force
to snap a chainstay, while somehow not damaging the wheels, or getting
caught up in the drivetrain.

Even though they wont warranty the frame, the nice folks at trek will be
happy to charge you to repair it (plus shipping no less) so you can be back
on the road and riding in only 4-6 weeks. awesome.

I am now riding a Specialized frame which i have been more than pleased with
thus far, and from recent experiences through the shop, specialized will
indeed warranty a cracked driveside chainstay, and have a frame for you
within a week. word.

In conclusion if anyone wants to buy a newly repaired trek 5900 frame/fork
(56 cm) in 4-6 weeks, drop me a line or look for it on ebay because i will
never ride (or sell) another one of their bikes again. thank you and have a
nice day.

Hmmm. crossposting.

Well, I've had a couple of wonderful experiences with Trek's warranty
service. Read all about it under this guy's crosspost to
rec.bicycles.racing.

Bob C.

"Ryan Fisher" wrote in message
...
just thought id share my recent experiences with Trek with everyone in
case
you were thinking about purchasing one of their carbon frames.

It seems that even if you have been a trek dealer for 6 years, and buy
their
top end bike (5900), which supposedly has a lifetime warranty, and never
crash the bike, they will still not warranty the frame if it develops a
crack. apparently the drive side chainstay, approx 4" from the BB, is "not
a
high stress part of the frame." so if it cracks there, chances are you
either "stepped on the bike," or "picked up a stick or something on a ride
which cracked the frame." it seems that in the course of normal riding a
magical stick can be unnoticably kicked up from the road with enough force
to snap a chainstay, while somehow not damaging the wheels, or getting
caught up in the drivetrain.

Even though they wont warranty the frame, the nice folks at trek will be
happy to charge you to repair it (plus shipping no less) so you can be
back
on the road and riding in only 4-6 weeks. awesome.

I am now riding a Specialized frame which i have been more than pleased
with
thus far, and from recent experiences through the shop, specialized will
indeed warranty a cracked driveside chainstay, and have a frame for you
within a week. word.

In conclusion if anyone wants to buy a newly repaired trek 5900 frame/fork
(56 cm) in 4-6 weeks, drop me a line or look for it on ebay because i will
never ride (or sell) another one of their bikes again. thank you and have
a
nice day.

"Ryan Fisher" wrote in message
...
just thought id share my recent experiences with Trek with everyone in
case
you were thinking about purchasing one of their carbon frames.

snip...

Don't expect better luck with your Specialized, durability-wise. I'd have
to say that Trek was one of the better companies we dealt with for warranty.
I'm not sure why your experience was so bad. In general, I'm surprised at
the number of failures I hear about with CF frames and people's acceptance
of this. It's great that Trek warranties their frames so well
(usually..maybe not in this case...), but isn't it shocking to anyone that
$5k bikes need to be warrantied so often? Is this just considered the price
of having a really nice CF frame? I've serviced thousands of bikes and
never seen the failure rate as high as with CF frames. Has this been anyone
else's experience? Or am I just biased in my "statistical analysis"?

Cheers,

Scott..

"S. Anderson" wrote in message
.. .
"Ryan Fisher" wrote in message
...
just thought id share my recent experiences with Trek with everyone in
case
you were thinking about purchasing one of their carbon frames.

snip...

Don't expect better luck with your Specialized, durability-wise. I'd have
to say that Trek was one of the better companies we dealt with for
warranty.
I'm not sure why your experience was so bad. In general, I'm surprised at
the number of failures I hear about with CF frames and people's acceptance
of this. It's great that Trek warranties their frames so well
(usually..maybe not in this case...), but isn't it shocking to anyone that
$5k bikes need to be warrantied so often? Is this just considered the
price
of having a really nice CF frame? I've serviced thousands of bikes and
never seen the failure rate as high as with CF frames. Has this been
anyone
else's experience? Or am I just biased in my "statistical analysis"?

Cheers,

Scott..

I'll put it this way ... were it not for Trek's superior handling of my
warranty issues, I certainly WOULDN'T be riding a Trek anymore. (Truth be
known, I bought a K2 Mod5 frame on a closeout several months back. I hung a
hodgepodge of old parts on it and I just plain love that bike. The ride and
handling are much more enjoyable to me than the Trek. Not as light, but
lots of fun to ride. The Trek will remain my "event" bike. The K2 is what
I'll ride all the rest of the time.)

Bob C.

"S. Anderson" wrote in message
.. .
"Ryan Fisher" wrote in message
...
just thought id share my recent experiences with Trek with everyone in
case
you were thinking about purchasing one of their carbon frames.

snip...

Don't expect better luck with your Specialized, durability-wise. I'd have
to say that Trek was one of the better companies we dealt with for
warranty.
I'm not sure why your experience was so bad. In general, I'm surprised at
the number of failures I hear about with CF frames and people's acceptance
of this. It's great that Trek warranties their frames so well
(usually..maybe not in this case...), but isn't it shocking to anyone that
$5k bikes need to be warrantied so often? Is this just considered the
price
of having a really nice CF frame? I've serviced thousands of bikes and
never seen the failure rate as high as with CF frames. Has this been
anyone
else's experience? Or am I just biased in my "statistical analysis"?

My experience with carbon fiber bikes (NOT Trek) has not been very good.
I've also seen a number of the older Trek Aluminum bikes fail at the glue
joints so often that even the local Trek dealer stopped riding them. You'll
note that Trek no longer makes that sort of construction.

The Trek carbon bikes have given problems almost immediately. For those who
don't remember the 5000 - the original was a bike made by someone else that
looked very much like the present model but was a one piece layup. They
failed at the front derailleur hanger with perfect regularity. The later
models started out with really flexy forks and again cracking down at the
front derailleur.

The original posting in the string that said that Trek wasn't honoring their
warranties if the damaged looked like it was caused by customer carelessness
is a demonstration that the present frames are failing with such speed that
they can't keep ahead of the failures and so they're discounting any
failures they can.

I'm a big guy and I have a hard time convincing myself that a carbon FORK is
safe. I'm sure as hell not going to trust my life to a frame that might fail
beneath me on a really fast descent.

So most of my bikes are steel but my Eddy Merkx EX ti bike is really nice.

If you absolutely must have a light bike - go aluminum and EXPECT it to
start failing after a couple of years.

Tom Kunich wrote:

If you absolutely must have a light bike - go aluminum and EXPECT it
to start failing after a couple of years.

Why is that? I have a Klein Adept Pro aluminum frame with a lifetime
guarantee on it. Would Klein guarantee an aluminum frame if they expected
everyone to become a warranty within a few years??

--
Perre

You have to be smarter than a robot to reply.

I can vouch for Specialized. They replaced the frame when my chainstay
cracked. It took about 5 weeks though, which sucked.


"Ryan Fisher" wrote in message
...
just thought id share my recent experiences with Trek with everyone in
case
you were thinking about purchasing one of their carbon frames.

It seems that even if you have been a trek dealer for 6 years, and buy
their
top end bike (5900), which supposedly has a lifetime warranty, and never
crash the bike, they will still not warranty the frame if it develops a
crack. apparently the drive side chainstay, approx 4" from the BB, is "not
a
high stress part of the frame." so if it cracks there, chances are you
either "stepped on the bike," or "picked up a stick or something on a ride
which cracked the frame." it seems that in the course of normal riding a
magical stick can be unnoticably kicked up from the road with enough force
to snap a chainstay, while somehow not damaging the wheels, or getting
caught up in the drivetrain.

Even though they wont warranty the frame, the nice folks at trek will be
happy to charge you to repair it (plus shipping no less) so you can be
back
on the road and riding in only 4-6 weeks. awesome.

I am now riding a Specialized frame which i have been more than pleased
with
thus far, and from recent experiences through the shop, specialized will
indeed warranty a cracked driveside chainstay, and have a frame for you
within a week. word.

In conclusion if anyone wants to buy a newly repaired trek 5900 frame/fork
(56 cm) in 4-6 weeks, drop me a line or look for it on ebay because i will
never ride (or sell) another one of their bikes again. thank you and have
a
nice day.

"Ryan Fisher" wrote in message
...
just thought id share my recent experiences with Trek with everyone in
case
you were thinking about purchasing one of their carbon frames.

It seems that even if you have been a trek dealer for 6 years, and buy
their
top end bike (5900), which supposedly has a lifetime warranty, and never
crash the bike, they will still not warranty the frame if it develops a
crack. apparently the drive side chainstay, approx 4" from the BB, is "not
a
high stress part of the frame." so if it cracks there, chances are you
either "stepped on the bike," or "picked up a stick or something on a ride
which cracked the frame." it seems that in the course of normal riding a
magical stick can be unnoticably kicked up from the road with enough force
to snap a chainstay, while somehow not damaging the wheels, or getting
caught up in the drivetrain.

Even though they wont warranty the frame, the nice folks at trek will be
happy to charge you to repair it (plus shipping no less) so you can be
back
on the road and riding in only 4-6 weeks. awesome.

I am now riding a Specialized frame which i have been more than pleased
with
thus far, and from recent experiences through the shop, specialized will
indeed warranty a cracked driveside chainstay, and have a frame for you
within a week. word.

In conclusion if anyone wants to buy a newly repaired trek 5900 frame/fork
(56 cm) in 4-6 weeks, drop me a line or look for it on ebay because i will
never ride (or sell) another one of their bikes again. thank you and have
a
nice day.

If the frame shows no evidence of a crash, and it failed, they should have
warrantied it to the original owner. Period. Otherwise the warranty is
meaningless. Is there more that you're not telling us?

Have you talked with management at Trek about this? Have you sent them a
letter of complaint, addressed to the CEO and cc'd to the P.R. department?
Make sure to attach a printout of your Usenet postings on this topic. If
you're a Trek dealer, as you say, then how can you now sell Trek bikes in
good conscience?

Just some thoughts.

R

Rocketman wrote:
"Ryan Fisher" wrote in message
...
just thought id share my recent experiences with Trek with everyone
in case you were thinking about purchasing one of their carbon
frames.

It seems that even if you have been a trek dealer for 6 years, and
buy their top end bike (5900), which supposedly has a lifetime
warranty, and never crash the bike, they will still not warranty the
frame if it develops a crack. apparently the drive side chainstay,
approx 4" from the BB, is "not a high stress part of the frame." so
if it cracks there, chances are you either "stepped on the bike," or
"picked up a stick or something on a ride which cracked the frame."
it seems that in the course of normal riding a magical stick can be
unnoticably kicked up from the road with enough force to snap a
chainstay, while somehow not damaging the wheels, or getting caught
up in the drivetrain.

Even though they wont warranty the frame, the nice folks at trek
will be happy to charge you to repair it (plus shipping no less) so
you can be back on the road and riding in only 4-6 weeks. awesome.

I am now riding a Specialized frame which i have been more than
pleased with thus far, and from recent experiences through the shop,
specialized will indeed warranty a cracked driveside chainstay, and
have a frame for you within a week. word.

In conclusion if anyone wants to buy a newly repaired trek 5900
frame/fork (56 cm) in 4-6 weeks, drop me a line or look for it on
ebay because i will never ride (or sell) another one of their bikes
again. thank you and have a nice day.

If the frame shows no evidence of a crash, and it failed, they should
have warrantied it to the original owner. Period. Otherwise the
warranty is meaningless. Is there more that you're not telling us?

Have you talked with management at Trek about this? Have you sent
them a letter of complaint, addressed to the CEO and cc'd to the P.R.
department? Make sure to attach a printout of your Usenet postings on
this topic. If you're a Trek dealer, as you say, then how can you
now sell Trek bikes in good conscience?

Re-read his last paragraph.

Bill "are you Barry Sanders or not, BTW?" S.

It seems that even if you have been a trek dealer for 6 years, and buy
their
top end bike (5900), which supposedly has a lifetime warranty, and never
crash the bike, they will still not warranty the frame if it develops a
crack. apparently the drive side chainstay, approx 4" from the BB, is "not
a
high stress part of the frame." so if it cracks there, chances are you
either "stepped on the bike," or "picked up a stick or something on a ride
which cracked the frame."

That's normally the second part of the conversation, which comes after TREK
has inspected the particular damaged piece and found that the manner in
which the carbon has broken indicates an impact that came from the outside.
The broken strands tell a story.

It seems highly unlikely that TREK (or any other manufacturer) would
automatically dismiss a warranty claim without inspection.

For what it's worth, we've seen one broken chainstay in the area you
describe, and it was not a JRA (as in Just Riding Along and it broke). The
owner had to go back in his memory a bit, but eventually remembered there
had been a rather significant event there. It helped that he had previously
asked us, when it had happened (a crash), if it might have caused damage.
We sorta reminded him of the earlier conversation...

As for what it would take to crack a chainstay, I don't know about sticks,
but one of our employees did pick up a piece of scrap insulating wire that
the local utility company had left lying on the road, and it caused his
steel fork to fold in half. It wasn't pretty (both the fork and his face).

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
http://www.ChainReactionBicycles.com