Reversal

Recently ordered a bike from bikesdirect and only received the package an hour ago. Ordered a Windsor Hour and I've heard before that assembly is a piece of cake. I open the box put the front wheel on the fork, then I noticed that a lot of things were missing from my package. I don't have a stem for the handlebars, pedals, rear brake and lever (promised by the BD page, which I guess is featured as a bonus to the purchase). I'm sure my situation is rare to most purchases from BD, but this seems like such an egregious error to make.

There goes my plans to bike over the weekend. Has anyone experienced this before from BD? I contacted them via email and the website saids I won't get a reply until Tuesday. Now I have an incomplete bike and shreds of packaging material all over my living room! Cool.

Kayce

Bikes direct is often crappy on the front end, but to make up for it they usually have good customer service. Nothing you can do about a giant low market warehouse screwing up.

carleton

Lay everything out and take photos to show them what you did (and didn't) receive.

TejanoTrackie 

I've bought 2 bikes from bd (Kilo WT and Motobecane Messenger) and there were no missing parts, although the wrong size stem and bars came with the Moto. The pedals, stem and brake were packaged together in a separate small box. I'd double check before you throw any packaging out. Perhaps this small box was omitted when they packaged it at the factory in China. Anyways, contact their customer support (not sales), and they will take care of this. Meanwhile, you need to get your wheels trued, hub bearings adjusted, cranks and chainring bolts tightened, cog and lockring tightened and properly adjust the chain tension.

hamish5178

I've ordered three bikes from BD and they all came with a LOT of extra stuff. This is definitely weird and I don't think you should let it reflect poorly on the company at all, in fact, I'd never judge a company before pointing out a problem to them. I'm sure they'll be as mortified as you and fix it immediately.

Street rider

I had a few extra nuts and bolts, none that were immediately important to the bike, a few that wouldn't fit anywhere.

Dean7

Suck.

camashtorcal

Did you explain the problem to them? In the end you get what you paid for. I know a few hundred bucks is a lot of money to some people(me included) but in the biking world that's nothing. I can understand you writing this after taking pics and sending them and talking to customer service and them telling you, "it's not our problem." You deal with cheap companies, for the cheapest bikes you can find, you are bound to run into some problems. And if you don't, then you are one of the lucky ones. And I'm not knocking bikesdirect just the people who expect for this bargain bin company to be perfect.

evilcryalotmore

I've bought parts and bikes from bikesdirect and bikeisland, And they both have screwed me two times. First i ordered two road bikes, And one of the road bikes where COMPLETELY the wrong bike. And second, I ordered eggbeaters from bikeisland, And they sent me a used product, And the product was defected. Simply enough, Take some pictures, contact mike or something.

two days later, New bike. Or new pedals.

Reversal

Honestly, I didn't expect a high quality bike, which is something I can't really comment on yet for obvious reasons. I did, however, expect the product that I purchased. Yeah, BD is probably not the most reliable site there is, but getting less than what I paid for should never be the norm. I'm sure if I ordered a more high end bike it would be a different story. I contacted them via email because I can't seem to find a phone number anywhere. And for the record, they haven't replied back to me. Appreciate the replies, nonetheless.

cc700

i'm astonished you didn't just throw the small parts out with the rest of the packaging.

i mean, not that i doubt you but...


DOUBBBBBT

yummygooey

BD will fix the issue. Don't worry.

hamish5178

When did you email them? It is Saturday.

If it hasn't reached your brain yet: it's really ****ty to go online and ***** about a company before giving them any chance to make things right. You are not a special flower. Also, +1 to what cc700 said, are you sure you didn't just throw out the small cardboard box? I think they're taped to the inside of the bike box sometimes.

If BikesDirect emails you back and tells you to go **** yourself, then ***** all you want. But until then, chill out.

Scrodzilla

Seriously...coming online to gripe about this before even getting any sort of response back from them is asinine. While I'm not a huge fan of BD and many of their half-assed practices, I also realize that mistakes do happen.

Kayce

Bikeforum's as a group love BD and blindly recomends them pretty regularly. So it makes sense for some to calmly and pretty fairly point out that they have a problem with them. It serves as a fair criticism and counterpoint to the people that automatcily shift into get a kilo mode. This is a very public forum, with a large viewership that doesnt have an account. I want it to have as much info as it can.

Missing several parts of an order is a big issue, even if it gets resolved quickly and fairly. So it does not matter if BD sends out the new parts, or not. It does not change the problem.

yummygooey

Mistakes happen. I'm sure we've all messed up at one point and been given a second chance. Yea, it's annoying, but such is life.

Scrodzilla

I'm just saying that I've seen more than one occasion where Fuji has accidentally left out the small parts boxes from bikes that arrive at the shop. When it happens, we call them and they send the missing stuff instead of complaining about it to anyone who will listen.

TejanoTrackie 

But the question is whether it's an endemic problem or just very occasional. This is the first time I've heard of major parts missing from an order. I did hear once of a small section of cable housing missing, but that's about it. The defective Kilo TT forks was indeed a "big issue", because it happened to many orders. I'm not sure the current situation has reached the status of "big issue" yet. As to your stereotyping the majority of BFers as BD ass-kissers, that's just plain ignorant on your part.

Verbose

Every company that produces items in this manner has the same problem. The prices are low because production cost is low and service is limited. That doesn't make the products bad or the company bad. It's just a choice customers make by shopping there. IKEA for example has many loyal customers, and many people that hate them. Their production process is similar(in terms of cost/price) and results in many random problems that need fixing, but they fix them and people end up mostly happy. You get what you pay for.

Hell I found BD before finding this forum, and I looked at the quality of the site itself and moved on to more searching. It was only by the positive response here that I gave them a shot and as a result I am a very happy bike owner.

Jaytron

BD is a nice place. Give them some time to respond. Matt from BD took a day to get back to me when I had an inquiry.

solbrothers

bikesdirect is awesome. great people and great products. OP you should email or call them and get this all sorted out. coming on an internet forum and bashing them before contacting them is really stupid.

Reversal

I'm sure I didn't throw the parts away. There was no small brown box to begin with. I'm frustrated as hell, but I don't doubt that BD can provide some decent customer service. I contacted them on Friday, and as posted in my first post they won't respond to me till Tuesday. I mentioned they have not responded to my email in response to some posts jumping the gun and saying there is nothing I can do if they don't want to help me.

solbrothers

the way bikesdirect is able to sell the bikes so cheap is they have the bikes shipped to you from the factory. they dont have a huge warehouse of bikes sitting around. someone in taiwan probably just forgot to throw the little box of parts in with the frame. not a big deal. definitely not serious enough to make a thread about.

even if you get the itch and go to the lbs to buy pedals and a stem, you're still only paying about half for a comparable bike at the lbs

cc700

exactly.


people just whine and complain like the world is their mommy these days instead of handling their ****.

what, is this some travesty you can't manage yourself?

TejanoTrackie 

Incorrect. They have one or more warehouses in Texas, and ship from there. In fact, if they are out of stock in Texas, they won't process your order when you try to do checkout. However, when they receive the bikes from China or Taiwan, they don't bother to open them to make sure all the parts are included and that they are correct before shipping them locally via UPS ground to the customer. This is the difference between an outfit like BD and Universal Cycles, which not only opens the boxes, but actually does a complete assembly and adjustment of bikes, before breaking them down again sufficiently for shipment. I bought a Salsa Casseroll from UC, and it took me less than 15 minutes to make the bike ridable after unpacking.