brakemeister

That is not correct
its a 2008 Curve SL which is sold for 769.... I do it for the same money shipped. The 09 shipments are sold out and the current ( 010 ) will be 999
and yes its a good deal :-)

back to the thread .... I wish the dahon bashers would make a thread with the correct heading and than leave other threads alone ..I dont jump into a Downtube thread or Friday or Brompton thread either and praise the bikes I love
.....

thor

owenfinn

Seriously? It says and shows a 2009 Dahon Curve SL clear as day - "3 left in stock - order soon"

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00277Z1Z8

Deceptive advertising or bait and switch?

Another reason to buy from your favorite LBS or trusted source e.g Thorusa

folder fanatic

+1 for Feijai's statistical analysis of heavily skewed toward complaints. If people don't have a problem, they don't have much to talk about or any great incentive to go online and discuss it so openly. As for Customer Service, let me be the one to talk about that. I always thought that "Customer Service" is intended to be a bouncing wall of mostly negative feedback. At least it was when I was employed at Sears. The executives were too busy running the show & the showroom help was busy with the merchandise. So the customers were channeled to us and we usually were able to handle most complaints by exchanging the merchandise or refunding money. 99% of the time, that was enough for the harried customer especially during and after the holidays.

I merely was pointing out the experience of a major problem cropping up after the purchase of each Dahon. The Boardwalk had a bad front hub on the front rim, and the Piccolo had a bad stem. Each of them (purchased 3 years apart & from 2 different dealers) were quickly attended to at the first tune-up about a month after purchase. I feel that this is strongly in Dahon's favor.

Actually the basic bike was about 200 dollars. I upgraded it at the time of purchase (3 speed hub & other parts) which doubled the price to 400 dollars since Dahon did not offer the 3 speed Boardwalk at that time in the US. I have both in storage for different reasons. The Piccolo needs it's annual tune up and I have to go 15 miles to do that. The Boardwalk is kept in the Living Room for now until my new kitten (see below for photo) is bigger-I am hoping for by the end of November. I am afraid the 30 pound bike will fall on him & crush him if I keep it in the same room with us! So this is not the Dahon bikes fault. I can't even ride the Brompton until he is more independent.

Agreed. Both of my dealers were more than happy to address & fix the problem, including additional parts.

Perhaps this could be explained by the "spot check" method used by many people in the clothing construction field. When you use many yards or meters of fabric, you don't have the time to roll out all the fabric go inch (cm) by inch (cm) and look for imperfections. You will do a quick look over a sample or part of the roll or bolt and hope for the best and cut around something if a imperfect part shows up. Perhaps that what occurs too in the mass produced devices market. You gamble for a individual unit not damaged in some minor or major way.

No, no this not a bike bashing forum, but an educational forum. Let us try to remember that.

brakemeister

well it clearly says 2009 so it mustr be a 09 and the pic is an 09 as well ....
sorry my mistake

... although Dahon is sold out since months on the 09 version and is waiting for the current model it might be that a dealer still has some of course ...( while 08 are indeed still available )
The price violates the Dahon dealer agreement however and is the same price which is for the 08 Curve SL . I would be very careful if you like to receive an 09 bike ..
Having said that there is nothing wrong with either one of them ( as long as the recal is fixed )

Thor

randya

I almost never take any newly purchased bike in for free or scheduled tune ups, even when purchased from a local LBS. I expect it to be completely functional as purchased or expect that I can deal with and resolve any minor tuneup or mechanical issues myself. Things like cable or shifter adjustment, etc., I perceive as non-issues. Defective parts or serious mechanical flaws are another story entirely, and I would be extremely displeased to find either in a new bike.

folder fanatic

In the old days of 30+ years ago, it was my experience that major problems of anything (this includes bikes but also many other mechanical devices too) was generally nonexistent, period. I never had a major problem with 99% of the devices and if I did, I would exchange it-not repair it-within the allowed warranty time period. I guess that there was more emphasis in quality control like actually inspecting the device before packaging & shipment from the factory. Now I am not so sure. Much of these issues seem to spring from a complete lack or limited superficial inspection of these devices. When I was actually working with apparel, I was shock with how these expensive ($100 US dollar and up) were hastily cut, stitched, tossed around, and thrown into boxes with absolutely no quality check beyond counting the merchandise. When they arrived at the store, did you know the process was completed by jamming a thumbtack through a seam to mask the hole better and a plastic detection tag was snapped over the hole? This insured that the company was protected from shoplifters and employee theft, but the customer pays dearly by buying a already damaged garment. So why not with any other mass produced device?

So Randya, don't be upset about something that is seems to be built into this system no customer or dealer can control. I find that even a simple prayer seems to work when facing the new way of buying things. It calms my nerves. Most of the time, I can deal with major problems as they crop up. Most of the time, the item is fine with no problems at all-the computer I am typing this right now is a good example. It now seems to be a game of "Russian Roulette."

PDR

Ok, I can only say as I find.....

One of the advantages of a forum like this is that owners can give real feedback of their ownership experiences of different brands good or bad. This may or may not help prospective purchasers form an opinion as to what a certain model is really like rather than relying on the marketing material proclaiming a certain bike to be the best thing since sliced bread.

My ownership of 3 Dahons has NOT been a positive one but I will leave it at that.

The question has been raised as to any problems I’ve had with my Brompton.

There was one:

I ordered my B-Spoke Brompton with Schwalbe Stelvio tyres. They looked OK when the bike arrived but when I inflated them to 100 psi they developed nasty, uneven bulges. I believe there was a bad batch of these tyres made around this time. I don’t consider Brompton to be at fault and I ought to send the tyres back to Schwalbe UK. I then switched to Schwalbe Kojaks which I prefer.

I have now owned my Brompton 7 months and it has worked perfectly, no issues at all. It has been serviced once by the dealer (1st free service). Unlike the first cheap folder I bought and the Dahons (I thought I was upgrading to a better bike) the Brompton is showing no signs of wear nor has picked up a single scratch.

The only other “problem” is that since crashing a motorbike on 20 September and busting my collar bone I can’t ride my lovely Brompton... or even test ride the B-Spoke Brompton my sister picked up from the store last night and will be taking back to Germany with her this weekend.... (she has a pink Dahon D3 but wanted to upgrade). Would have liked to take the 3 Bromptons out for a family ride this Saturday and get some photos but it is not going to happen.

mconlonx

I'd be willing to bet something like this went down at BF:

Customer relays complaint, BF says send the bike back. They read customer description, assign job tag to it that says "fix the fork." New fork manufactured, shop faces crown race shoulder and installs crown race, fork into bike. Just like the work ticket instructed. Then everything was buttoned back up and sent to the customer.

BF shop policy might insist on test ride. But maybe it was raining that day, or whatever, so no test ride by the technician who reassembled the bike.

Still, I've never put a bike together and not given the wheels a spin while it's in the stand; can't figure out a sensible excuse why this would not have been done. Owner--was the bike shipped with the front wheel installed or not? If it was shipped with front wheel off the bike, then that simple fact, combined with no mention of wheel damage by owner, no test ride by BF staff, could easily account for it. Wheel installed prior to shipping? I run out of excuse.

But really, any other company would look at something like that, with the usual excuse (JRA: Just Riding Along...), and it could go any which way. They could turn down the warranty claim as user abuse. They could replace the fork under warranty, but leave the customer or shop left holding the bag for dis- and re-assembly. I bet in BFs fine print, it says something about warranty only applying to the frame, not parts or limited warranty on parts, so the fact that they are willing to deal with the wheel/brake issues, even though it is obvious that it was the fork failure that caused the damage, is another plus on them.

While an issue like this might seem part of beta-testing unfairly foisted onto the public, the economic realities of a small business like BF might dictate that this is the way it has to be. Otherwise, it might not have been at all economical to do the R&D which might avoid something like this. Would the world be a better place without the Tikit due to economics?

As it relates to BF, I see nothing in this story so much as a small company going way out on a limb with a new, chancey product line, and dealing with a specific customer complaint in a manner over and above what other bike companies offer. If you're really in a huff over the way this customer was treated, godz help you and customer service type people you run across out there in the real world...

DFTR

After reading more on his blog, it sounds as though, he may be using his bike more rigorously than most. Apparently, previously using V-Brakes, he went through a rim which was why he changed to disc brakes. It also looks like he had only canceled one commute due to heavy snow so the bike's seeing a lot of extreme conditions. This doesn't put the blame on him or excuse how BF managed the repair initially, but it's more reassuring to see that this isn't a bike failing under "normal" conditions.