Warranty service question
 

My road bike has been at the LBS where I bought it for 4 weeks, waiting for replacement frame or bike from the manufacturer. I have heard a few different target dates for arrival.

Specialized Dolce Elite road bike, bought Sept 2004. lifetime warranty on frame from Specialized to original owner (me). Around 1000 miles on the bike, crack in head tube. I may have a few more miles on bike, due to flaky bike computer, but certainly less than 2000 miles.

Is this a typical experience? LBS has told me several different dates for arrival of my replacement, including telling me that it has shipped already (twice).

I have no idea whether Specialized is flaky, or whether LBS is flaky.
Does anyone have experience with dealing with Specialized for warranty?
thanks in advance.

A guy I know had a problem with his Allez and he says it took a couple of months to get a new frame. From what he said the problem was with Specialized, They didn't have a frame in his size and color in stock so they had to have one made and shipped from Asia. Specialized was not apologetic either according to him

Well, on 9/3 at 11:30, warranty replacement had not arrived.
LBS called me at about 8:15pm that night to say replacement had arrived, and a mechanic had transferred a lot of my parts to the replacement bike. Specialized shipped a whole bike, not just frameset.

My 2004 Dolce Elite has been replaced with a 2009 Dolce. Parts which the shop left on the replacement bike appear to be downgrades. They are:
- 32 spoke count wheels (were 20 count and lighter wheels)
- Shimano Sora brake calipers (were Shimano Ultegra)
- Sugino crankset (was Specialized Comp) - equivalent
- Shimano Sora front derailleur (was Shimano Ultegra)

The opener thingy on the brakes is plastic. I didn't know they made those out of plastic.

The shop transferred my other parts to the new frame (shift/brake levers, rear derailleur and gear cluster, seatpost, stem, handlebars).

I wouldn't accept the loss of the Ultegra stuff, but that's me. Especially switched to Sora stuff.

Huh? Why would the shop keep your old parts? That doesn't make any sense at all to me.

Me neither. Shops I go to give you the old parts back unless you specifically say to keep them. In any case, I would not accept downgrades on equipment. You may need to pay labor to transfer the old parts, but they are yours. Frankly, even the new parts that were sent that you didn't need should be yours to decide what to do with.

There's no reason at all for them to rob you of your wheels, brakes, and cranks. Sometimes a different front derailleur is needed.
The frame was replaced under warranty. Demand your Ultegra stuff back.
This shop sounds like it's a joke.

Thanks to all who agreed with me.

I wimped. I asked my husband to argue with LBS for me. He had to do some stiff arguing (we have to send all the parts back to Specialized) and kept harping on "for a defective frame, why should my wife lose lighter wheels and better parts?" My husband eventually won the argument.

I turned out to have relied on an incorrect reference - my front derailleur was Tiagra, not Ultegra. But that is still a couple of grades better than Sora. I can see that it's problematic that between 2004 and 2008, Specialized changed the parts line for the Dolce Elite from Ultegra to Sora, but I did not buy a bike with any Sora parts.

I had already paid $70 in labor to transfer my parts. It was actually more work for them to transfer my rear cassette and derailleur to the new heavier wheels, and then move them back to my wheels, but they didn't try to get my husband to pay anything extra.

With all of my old parts (except bottom bracket and crankset) the replacement unit is lighter now than when the store first handed it over.

I would be happier if Specialized had shipped a 2009 Dolce Elite triple frame to me (prettier color), but I am satisfied enough. Surely the store was meant to move all of my parts to the new frame, since a Dolce Elite was being replaced with a Dolce, but I honestly don't know if anyone at this LBS was actually thinking during this warranty transaction.