Originally Posted by
Redbullet
To give you an example: last yearI needed to replace a fork on another brand bike (not Canyon) which was a little above average tier in 2015 when I bought it. I had a lot of discussions with the company for selling me the fork (which they still had in stock), but they insisted to send them the bike for repair, not in my country but in the country of origin of producer, at almost 2 times price of the fork including service. Finally, I hardly got a compromise to send them the damaged fork on my expense and they send me the new fork 1.5 months later at full price and transport cost. I doubt that I can get such "compromise" again, I would probably be obliged to send the full bike back and support their high service costs and transport on top of the price of the part. This is unfair business.
Or they've been burned by selling a fork direct to a customer who then had it installed by a mechanic friend (i.e., a guy who works at Jiffy Lube and usually manages to put the plug back in without cross-threading it, sometimes on the first try).
Then, the installation having been screwed up and the fork damaged as a result, the customer insists on being sent a "nondefective" fork for free.
Anyone who has worked in a bike shop for any length of time has likely encountered this at least once, to say nothing of distributors that sell to hundreds of shops. With a manufacturer that sells high-end bikes, all it takes is one such event for the company to adopt a blanket policy: "No direct sales of parts to consumers."