Originally Posted by
pierce
that practice is very different than here. in the States, the bike assembly, adjust and inspection is part of the sales price. most good bike shops include a 90 day free checkup and readjust. on a high end bike, its often a year. even department and discount big box stores sell the bikes assembled, although they are notorious for sloppy work.
Same in the UK, so don't really understand where the OP is coming from. The largest chain also offers yearly maintenance plans, from talking to mechanics from that chain, for the customer, it's very good value for money, and most who purchase it take full use of it.
For the warranty, just about everything sold in the UK has a 2 year EU warranty, even if the shops advertise shorter, never seen a bike with less that a 12 month advertised warranty.
So OP, where did you get the bike from/ what is it? If you purchased it from the largest chain, it would have come assembled / safety checked; as you are saying it didn't, this indicates that it was a BSO you got, not a bike, which would also indicate very low quality components, which could fail under normal use. Bikes aren't normally sold unassembled, unless mail ordered, or they are a BSO, as you said you got it from a store, this indicates a BSO.