Dehan Recall lack of notification
 

Okay, I own a Dahon MU P8 and I actually registered with the company. But wait, when there was a recall that if I ignored it, it could cause an accident if a hinge collapsed, did the company contact me directly? Nope. They apparently don't give a good goddamn.

Fortunately I read a sign in a bike shop and I knew about the Dahon avoidance of responsibility. I took the bike there, but I will never buy another Dahon.

Was it taken care of?

Wait, let me understand this: You register with the company. The company issues a recall. You ignore the recall. The company is to blame for this. Am I missing the gist of your complaint?

I believe you misread him. The "ignored" part is, I believe, him saying that there was a catastrophic failure recall but Dahon did *not* contact him, even though he registered with them. Rather, he luckily found out about it at a local shop (Bikes@Vienna? College Park Bicycles? Mt. Airy?) and had it repaired there.

he didnt buy it from me as all my customers got personal letters /emails

dont quite understand his frustation
Dahon replaced literally tenthousands of stems after hearing about 3 or 4 broken ones. The dealers could order replacement stems for their customers and usually got them send pretty quick, plus they received a check for their work. Dahon waited to fix their own bikes in their warehouse until the bikes on the road were fxed, than they supplied exchange stems for the dealers stock and than their own stock. In the meantime these bikes were not allowed to ship from the dahon warehouse to the dealers.

Alone this self restraint has cost them mega bucks as Dealers were selling bikes they couldnt get during the busy spring months ....

not receiving a personal letter ? Well .....
when did you sign up ? after the official recall when your bike should have been fixed already from the dealer ? or before ...
Have you checked the address you typed in the form ? I get many orders where people give me the wrong address , sometimes a little thing like place or street makes all the difference. In any case the news was plastered all over the place , even in his bike shop .. what more than following cpsc guidelines can they do ?



thor

Thor, do you imply that Dahon mailed recall notifications to all affected customers that signed before the recall and gave correct address?

Kam

I purchased a Mu P24 that I like, however I also found out about the recall completely on my own while on line. Neither Dahon or my LBS alerted me to it, however my LBS did solve the problem when I questioned him on it.

I bought the bike and registered it with Dahon last year in August, well before the recall of May, 2009. The only reason I knew anything about the recall at all was because I saw the notice in a bike shop. This recall did finally suggest to me just why the hinge felt a bit wobbly. I called Dahon, which affirmed that I had a defective part after I read off the serial number.

After a couple followups by my bike shop, Dahon eventually sent the part to them and it was fixed. How many riders are still out there with a defective part, just because Dahon doesn't care to notify its customers directly?

As I wrote earlier, I will never buy another Dahon AND I will discourage anyone I even sort of like from going out and buying one.

I don't think I would use "doesn't care" as an accurate description of a large global corporation such as Dahon is. I have 2 Dahons 3-6 years old now. When I buy a bike, or any other large purchase consumer product, company's or maker's ownership is transfer over to me as I am now the legal and moral owner of it. So as an adult, it is up to me to keep abreast of all developments of the company's products, including recalls. If I don't like the product, then I have to option to sell it, give it away, or dump it-whatever. But I do give them a chance to contact me and use the product if it is safe to do so. If the wires are crossed, then that's where the Internet comes in. I am grateful for the Internet. Before it was in use for the average user, I had to rely on the paper based newspaper or magazines or even "luck" for information. No rapid information exchange anytime or anywhere let me tell you.

Is the bike's performance itself the issue here? Or is the company's customer service? Try to separate the two before recommending or rejecting the product (in this case the folding bike). Because I have used these bikes for 6 years, I can safely & confidently evaluate the product itself in a fair matter. After a year and new models appearances, Customer Service does not recognize me as a Dahon owner or even a live person anyway.

That is absurd, FF. I don't expect to have any sort of personal relationship with Dahon. I do think the company owes its customers a little concern and some direct action when a product of theirs can break and cause accidents and they have a record of who actually bought them.

Okay, let's agree that this unreliable company makes mostly very fine bikes, except when they get recalled.

In hindsight, I would definitely have bought a different brand, and when I go to replace this very good bike, it won't be a Dahon, no matter how great any of their models are. When anyone asks me my thoughts on the bike, I offer them my opinion of the company and the bike, one of which I like.

I just set up a weekly google news alert for --- Dahon recall. Although a second recall on another part for this bike seems unlikely, it is better to be safe than sorry.

it seems funny that you are able to access the Internet and post here, however never seem to hear about the recall before..... there were several posts and links and all kinds of help offered on these very pages .( and all other folding bike related forums as well of course) ...

but no duende ...
now after all is fixed
in retrospect so to speak . you are a frequent poster ...

hmmmm ?
thor

According to the CSPC, the burden of recall notification is on the vendor.

http://www.cpsc.gov/businfo/8001.pdf page 8.

Kam

Clarification is in order as I (and others here) are totally depended on world usage here, rather than voice/body cues mixed in as other media offers. "Taking care of" implies for most as a more personal relationship in nature. I would use probably for a business sense "dealing with a problem or set of problems" for a impersonal corporation as a business entity such as Dahon is (forgive me here-the teacher in me has to rear her head). You did clarify here that you found Dahon to be "very good" in spite of your business with Customer Service or whoever is responsible for notifying recalls of their products. Now that you separated your feelings of the bike itself & the corporation's actions, you seem fine with the bike-for now. That would imply growth in your present knowledge and experience of folding bikes has happened and will continue to grow. Sometimes it takes many years. Sometimes it is very quick as in your case.

You paid around $729.00 dollars (mfg.'s suggested price) for this bike. I think it is safe to say that you will get your money's worth for this bike if you keep it for at least a year depending on how much you actually use it. As for "extras," I never expected Dahon (or Acer, Sanyo, or any other large import corporation I did business with in the past) to contact me or even give me any sort of acknowledgment) beyond the dealer after the true limited warranty-which is usually when you go out the door with the product. I now am a bit picky about buying fewer things now. And those things are not from huge import companies of any type unless I can't avoid it or have no other option.

As for where my money is going.....I will let you see for yourself as one pictured here passed the test of time and the other (the bike I own) will do so.

I would have thought if any blame was to be attached for non-notification, it should be directed at the vendor of the bike, namely the dealer you bought it from.

It's up to them to do this job.

I tend to agree with datako. My LBS should have notified me. Only after my inquiry was the problem addressed. I'm fairly certain the more casual riders that have purchased from him are still riding with the defective part.

Let me say this
if somebody doesnt get help from his own lbs, please contact me and we will work out something, no matter what source you bought your Dahon from. My customers all are fixed up and I can spend a little time to make others happy as well. Now that doesnt mean I have those parts just laying around . After my initial order to Dahon for all my customers I simply dont have spare ones just sitting there.
but I am sure I can get more ....

thor

Dahon should have this stats since they know how many bikes are subject to the recall and how many have been fixed.

Kam

I don't get it. The OP said "I ignored it". Okay, so Dahon didn't contact him in the first place and he became aware of the recall from reading about it in a bike shop. Yes, Dahon dropped the ball, but once the OP knew about it why would he then ignore that and then blame Dahon for his decision to ignore it?

I think that he said "... if I ignored it...".

"If I had a hammer" does not imply that I had a hammer. ;-)

Kam

i never received a recall notice or whatsoever for my bikes. but as soon as i found out about the recall i brought my bikes to rei and they fixed it - no questions asked. it doesn't bother me at all. my point is as long as they fix it i will have no problem. and rei was pretty good in fixing it. brought it in and was able to bring it home after an hour or two.

Bikeline in Newark Delaware was pretty good in fixing my bike, once Dahon sent the backordered part.

I did get around to poring over the CPSC guidelines and I think, that although the bike shop is expected to help, it makes it pretty clear that Dahon should have been in the driver's seat with the recall. That is, unless you think that every bike shop is expected to name a recall coordinator.

I went to the CPSC website and reported the incident as follows:

This is regarding http://www.cpsc.gov/CPSCPUB/PREREL/prhtml09/09214.html
I am concerned that, although I had registered with Dahon, I did not receive any notification from them or from my bike shop about the recall. The only reason that I knew anything about it at all was that I was watinging in line at another bike shop and noticed a recall poster. This worked out fine for me, and I got the part replaced, but what about people who almost never go into a bike shop or get quickly through a line?

Below you will see sections of the requirements that show what Dahon should have done


chief executive officer.



1.

Quality control records. Documenting the

results of quality control testing and evaluation
associated with each production run often
helps companies identify possible flaws in the
design or production of the product. It also
aids the firm in charting and sometimes

limiting the scope of a corrective action plan.

The OP complained about insufficient notification, not about the fixing once you are aware of the recall.

Kam

Did the OP sell his Dahon afterwards and get something else? I don't know whether he has or not. There are so many other choices to be had. He is disappointed by Dahon enough to never buy from them again so shouldn't he rid himself of the company's product that inspires indignation and lack of trust? Or should he ignore it? Stay tuned....

Thanks, this alert reminded me to sign and return the copy of my complaint to the CPSC. I will keep the bike for travel and the remaining four years on the service policy with Bikeline, which will presumably be the last one I buy from them as well.

A dios, dos svidanya, Bye......

BTW, why does Dahon require the birth date (and gender) in their registration forms? It is a turn off for me in this age of identity theft.