MattP.

Which companies in the mtn biking world have you been inpressed/unimpressed by in terms of customer service? Why?
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I recently EP'ed a Chris King ISO hub set, called them up, promptly answered the phone (an actual person) and asked if they had red in stock. The lady there was king and told me they didn't have the heavy duty rear hub on the floor, but they could make one and it would take 10-15 buisness days. A few minutes later, I faxed in my order, changing my color choice to blue and that was that. The next day I'm at the shop, phone rings, it's a guy from Chris King! He wanted to let me know they have to make a batch of the blue hubs, and they will be sent out on Monday. That's customer service

mlts22 

A couple I can recall offhand, mainly being able to answer loads of my banal questions:

Kryptonite
Urbanbiketech
Peter White Cycles
SB/Harris Cyclery

free_pizza

Crank Brothers:

i rounded one of my wrenches on my multi-tool, emailed them and told them what happened, and no questions asked, they sent me a replacement, made it to my house in 2 business days, and i didnt even have to send them my wrench. I was very impressed.

rea1high

Hope! they were great.

had a supposed problem with a head race, called them up and they sent out another, received it next day free of charge, simple and sorted!


On the flip side though Pace sucked bawls!!
head race problem turned out to be steerer tube on forks. Pace are rubbish at answering phone, it rang off a couple of times. Incredibly rude once i did get to speek to them too.
Charged me postage for returning their faulty forks and didn't refund the postage for the initial purchase.
Cheeky B'stards!

Whoa, bit of a rant!


Hope are great!

LowCel 

DT Swiss / Hugi in my opinion is the absolute best. I have two personal reasons.

1) About four years ago I had a set of Bontrager Race Lite wheels. These came with bontrager labeled Hugi 240 hubs. I was changing cassettes one evening and I made a huge mistake. I stripped out the cassette body when I was putting my lockring on. It was entirely my fault. I checked around every where for a cassette body, best I could find was $70. At this time I was not doing too well financially so this was going to hurt. I called up Hugi and told them that I was an idiot and I stripped that out. I asked them if there was any way I could get one cheaper. There response was no, they are made in Switzerland and they are not cheap. However......he did have some warranty hubs laying around that had perfect cassette bodies. If I wanted he could send me one of those. I couldn't believe it, I asked how much and he said nothing, just happy to help out. He wouldn't even allow me to pay shipping.

2) A couple of years ago I cased a nasty water break and split my rear hub 3/4's of the way across. I called up Hugi (different set of wheels) to tell them what happened. They told me to just send the hub in and they would replace it. I explained to them that I don't build up wheels so that would be a slight problem. They told me no problem, just send the complete wheel to them and they would replace the hub and rebuild the wheelset, it would just take an extra week or two. I told them great and shipped them off. Less than a week later I had my wheel back with a new hub, no charge.

My next company I want to brag on is Kestrel. I have a Kestrel Pro EMS carbon bar on my IF roadie. A couple of years ago I took the bar off my past bike (carbon Giant) and was going to put it on my new at the time IF. When I was looking at it I noticed a crack. I knew it was my fault since I would have had to overtighten it to crack it this way. I ordered a close out Easton carbon bar and forgot about it. A couple days later I decided to call up Kestrel just for the heck of it. I explained that I was an idiot (kind of a pattern) and overtightened the bar. I was wondering if they had some type of crash (idiot) replacement program. They told me that they would be happy to send me a new bar this time just to be more careful next time. They also mentioned that I needed to use a different stem, the one I had been using had a couple of sharp points on it which could have contributed to the failure and that they had not posted that anywhere. Great company.

Next up is Saris (PowerTap). I just called them a couple of days ago and told them that the left button on my PowerTap SL isn't working to well. I expected them to tell me to send it in and they would check it out and fix or replace it. This wasn't the case at all. They asked me for my address and told me they would ship me a new one. They told me once I received it to just put my old one in the mail. The only thing that sucks is that it has been having this problem for months but I hadn't called them because I didn't want to be without it for a week or two while they fixed it.

Next is crank brothers. About four years ago I purchased my first set of eggbeaters. I had them a couple of months and then developed a little play in the bearings. I gave the company a call and they said no problem. They imediately sent me out a new pair of spindles and a rebuild kit no charge.

My last company is Topeak. I have a Topeak Alien and I managed to break the pin that goes into the chain breaker. I sent them an e-mail asking if I could purchase a new one. I didn't get a reply so I gave them a phone call a couple of days later. The guy was very nice and told me he would ship me out a new one. A couple of days later I received a package with three new pins, I also received another package with two new pins due to the e-mail. Great service. I ended up giving four of the pins away to friends.

mx_599

were they the pace carbon rigid? what was wrong? did it need a facing?

i was thinking about a pace rigid 29er...do they suck?

Maelstrom 

Transition. They helped remedy a problem with the original purchase of the bike from a vendor. It was a warranty issue but a bad sale. Transition proceeded to hook me up with what I needed.

santiago

Crank Brothers
I once lost the plastic end cap on one of my Candy SLs. I emailed them asking if I could just buy the end cap. The reply I got was no problem. Next thing you know I got an entire rebuild kit in the mail for no charge.

Turner Bikes
The level of customer service is outstanding. I have seen enough from the MTBR.com Turner forum to know that Turner customers are well taken care of.

DylanTremblay

I was actually disappointed with Specialized customer service. I've been planning to upgrade my fork on my Enduro so I emailed them to see how much travel I could put on it. In the email I wrote that I have 130mm travel and was wondering if I could go up to 160mm or if that would stress the head tube too much. They wrote back that I shouldn't put any more than 130mm travel which I already have, due to what I mentions. I just laugh out loud because clearly an Enduro Expert has 150mm travel. I wish that someone that actually knew what they were talking about would have answered me.

Maelstrom 

Dylan,

While that is true the linkage plate is likely different, or possible the rear triangle. If the bearing system is similar you likely have to replace the entire rear end to make it work. Same deal as the early bighits,.

Dan Drew

HOPE.
Called with a sticky disc brake question. The phone was answered right away, and the guy that answered gave me the solution. Call to solution, 2 minutes.
It's been a year and the caliper still does not stick again.

Dan Drew

Oh ya, Thompson too.
Cracked the stem face, recieved a new one no charge.
The guy that answered the phone was not mr Jolly, but he did get down to buisiness and did what they said.

Overall, every Mt Bike company I've worked with has been great. I'm guessing that when you buy high end parts, you get good service!!

JR_Sith

I recently has a good experience with FSA. I snapped five a spokes in a month and called them and actually talked to one of there tech guys. I sent it in and had a new set within a week.

Dan Drew

It broke, but whats the service story?

babetski

My big rant is negative and its about Northwave. I bought a set of Kameleon shoes this spring and on the third of fourth ride I look down because the shoe feels loose and the ratchet buckle has bent and won't latch properly anymore. I wind up having to tighten it every 10 minutes riding now because I've been emailing and calling all summer long and haven't gotten any response from anybody there. They shoes felt great, too. I'm really bummed about the situation. Sucks to them, come spring I'll replace them with Sidis and give another set of Italians a try.

On the positive side, I for one love Specialized. I worked a shop for a number of years and they always seemed to go out of their way to help the customer out. Broke your frame? It was clearly your fault and you were using it way out of spec? Cool. They can either replace it(free, almost always) or they'll offer you an upgrade a ridiculously low price.

DylanTremblay

How would changing the fork effect the rear end? Even with that I have different link plates that came with the manual.

womble

I've found Giant Australia to be surprisingly responsive and friendly to telephone enquiries.

I've found Cannondale to be completely inept and apathetic for a similar enquiry.

Dan Drew

Oh, that makes it clear....

MattP.

Sounds interesting, care to elaborate?

mx_599

FSA: nay for fighting with me on the phone, won't use them ever again

Transition: yea for fixing FSA's problem -- thanks Kevin

cyccommute 

Specailized. I've broken two frames and both were replaced without question. I did have to pay for a bike shop to assemble them (I'd rather do that myself ) but I can understand why they require that.

Avid. I had a warped rotor which they replaced without question.

Park Tools. I have a Park floor pump. It has given me nothing but trouble - chuck doesn't work right and two gauges have go bad on it. I emailed them and said that I was about to give it up and get something else. A brand new pump showed up on my door step 3 days later and has worked prefectly.

Niterider. I bought a bulb from them that lost its silvering on the reflector and was fogging the lamp. I called them and told them about the problem. A new lamp was in the mail within the week.

Wayne at the Touring Store. He may not be mountain bike related but if you need racks or bags for that epic tour on the Great Divide Trail, he's very, very helpful. Be prepared for a long chat however.

concernicus

camelbak. the chest strap on my 05 mule came off the wire bead. i called em up, they asked me to ship it to them, and two days later i had a brand new 06 mule on my doorstep.

also, i was at sea otter a few months later and after visiting their booth i had a free cleaning kit.

Maelstrom 

Ain't that the truth. I don't know very many people happy with romic. Losts of hype, followed by tonnes of purchases, followed by more breakages, followed by poor service, follow by a new"ish" product with more hype.

Very glad I dumped the romic for the dhx.

Maelstrom 

It is funny how this is regional/country based. Specialized and Marz have different warranty/tradein rules in canada.

Marz in the states on the west side traditionally gets amazing reviews, east side, not so much, canada (through norco I might add) they reduce the quality of their warranty (this coming from someone who only buys marz, but I also only warranty it through my buds shop in WA)

Pheard

Not really a bike part company-

everytime I'm looking for an item, I seem to always find the best price or some kind of deal at Jensonusa. Now the mavic crossrides are 180 everywhere, but jenson offers free shipping with them. Plus this company promply responds to emails and has helped me through problems I've had with certain issues. I definitely love this online retailer.