sbxx1985 

Honestly, I think it's time for you to move on. Eight pages later and we understand your frustration.

tagaproject6

I say tap away! I want to see how this works out.

campyman099

I have read the ENTIRE thread. Having been riding/racing bicycles for the better part of 20 years I have tossed my chain off the chainrings a few times, mostly due to poor FD adjustment. Having said that, none of my frames suffered any damage. I understand the CR are flexy and that would cause you to dump your chain, but to cause damage to the frame? You stated that there was/is damage to the frame. I would assume it is merely cosmetic damage, since you are still riding the bike. I was asking for pictures to assess the damage.
I have managed several bike shops and still work in the industry which has provided me with 20+ years or excitement. It seems like you are searching for a new frame and/or reimbursement of you $200 from a manufacturer that has made things right with you. Your "beef" is with the shop, not Specialized.
Also, for the record, the bicycle industry doesn't even begin to compare with any other industry, especially cars!!!
BTW, I did have frames for sale. I may have another if you are looking for one...

tombailey

+1. For me it would have gotten to the point where I wouldn't waste any more of my time (about 1 year ago). More important to me to be out riding. But then I don't have 20,000 spammers following me on twitter.

garysol1 

+1 ..... In the meantime I guess the OP will continue to blackmail Specialized by bad talking them on the internet until they agree to do what he wants.

longbeachgary

Sorry to hear about your trouble with Specialized. I've reported on here before that my experience was exactly the opposite - a cracked head tube on a 5 year old bike replaced in a week. Too bad the Lemon Law doesn't apply to bikes.

mike868y

Specialized has admitted to the ring problem and fixed it. It was your shops fault for not knowing this.

jwible

I want to see what you Twitter and blog that got you all those followers.

tjspahr

My Giant uses a BB86 BB. Came with Dura Ace, and switched out to the SRAM GXP BB86 BB as I was using a Quarq with SRAM cranks. Long story short, the bike is great, the BB is noisy, and the size of the frame's tubes almost seems to amplify the squeaking. If that's the worst thing I have to deal with, I'm pretty lucky...

briscoelab

Well, it sounds like they told you up front it was going to be a problem. You should have immediately walked out and went to another shop.... or asked to speak with the manager and ask if it was their policy to not respond to warranty claims for a bike brand they are a dealer for. If they insisted they wouldn't work on it... you should have contacted Specialized directly about the issue. BUT... regardless, you should have never went back to that particular shop.

Also, it isn't Specialized problem that your shifter broke... I don't understand why you don't get that.

Honestly, this isn't going "viral".... don't give yourself that much credit. The more you write the more you are just making a fool out of yourself and coming off like a jerk. I doubt the big S cares at all if you post this and anyone that would read this and then have doubts about buying a Specialized from a good LBS is an idiot.

Have a good weekend

cfblakeman

I don't know if the damage is cosmetic or not. I'm not an expert and I don't want to become one. I know the carbon used to be black and now it's chipped and white around the BB. I've asked Specialized to have an assessment done of whether the damage is cosmetic or structural.

And no, Specialized did not meet my needs. They pushed me off for nearly a year on all these problems while I was spending money needlessly trying to fix the symptoms when defective parts were the cause. So I'm out money I shouldn't be well beyond even the cost of installing the replacement parts. And they did not pay for the shifter - I'm having to foot that myself.

None of the defects were caused by the LBS or made better or worse by the LBS. And the LBS isn't who stonewalled me for months while I spent money on symptoms.

Funny how there are so many techies here willing to throw stones at the consumer and protect their loyalties to the company. I'm spending more time defending my character against people who have never met me than we are talking about the problem.

Why don't you have the same suspicions about the manufacturer? Has 20 years of being in the business given you a jaded perspective of customers? Seems like you're making a lot of assumptions about me being a bad actor while assuming Specialized is squeaky clean here.

mike868y

watch out. this guys got his own social network. Specialized better be ready for this.

briscoelab

The crappy (if your side of the story can be trusted at face) LBS didn't meet your needs. Did you ever deal with Specialized directly during that time? It really sounds like the LBS was infact doing the stonewalling.

ALso, I thought you said Shimano was sending you a shifter for free??

kayakdiver

Someone who spends $6,000 plus on a bicycle should at the very least have a backup. None of my bikes come close to the price you spent, yet I will never be without if the bike is in the shop. The reason is that I have multiple options available to me. Consider a backup so these things don't cause you to miss training or riding. As for the cable issue.... If you don't replace those suckers every 12 months or so you are rolling the dice. They do and will break from time to time if not replaced as a part of regular annual service. I replace mine every spring... regardless of what they "look" like.

cfblakeman

That is exactly what I did. I spent the next few months getting adjustments from the non-Specialized shop 2 blocks away while talking with Specialized who kept telling me to keep getting adjustments. I only took it back to the Spec LBS when I found out there were possible warranty issues (which the non-Spec shop obviously couldn't deal with).

This is actually getting a bit fascinating now - we've got all the Specialized groupies in complete denial that Specialized could be imperfect who have decided that the consumer must be a complete idiot, because the alternative is too hard for them to bear.

I was sold a lemon. The parts were defective. The company hasn't stood behind it without me beating them to death and still aren't fully. Your Specialized friends aren't demons but they aren't perfect. It happens - it's OK. You can let them be imperfect. Let it soak in for a weekend, let it play with your pollyanna view of Specialized, and maybe you'll be OK on Monday.

mustang1

Oh boy, I cant take these car comparisons anymore. That's just dumb. What if you bought a low end airliner for $10 million versus a larger airliner for $50 million. Are we saying the more expensive aircraft is supposed to be more reliable?

It doesn't matter if your bike cost $1k or $7k, you shouldn't have t pay $15 every month to get the fd fixed for two reasons:
1. It's stupid.
2. It's an FD, after the 2nd visit you should have taken it to another LBS, or fixed it yourself.

I'd hate to have those problems on a $1k bike, let alone a $7k bike. Putting up with all these issues for a whole year, and stumpong up the coin and time to continuously fix these problems was kinda crazy. I had a laptop a couple of years ago, realized it had a design fault and it would continue to breakdown even after the warranty expired, so I cut my losses and sold it. If I had your bike, it's probably what I would have done also.

To be fair to Specialized, I've heard many more good things about them than bad. But it really sucks to have gone thru what you did and I'd hate for that to happen to anyone else.

cfblakeman

LOL - OR

someone who buys a $6,500 bike doesn't have money left to buy a backup. Actually I have one - it's a 20 year old Canondale with down-tube shifters and a free-wheel. Great bike to ride in the rain and snow, but not in a race. Not everybody has the dough to have two Mazeratis in the barn.

garysol1 

You are correct that I have never met or know you but I do know Specialized and as a user of there products as well as an employee of a shop that sells lots of there products I do know that they will bend over backwards to make a customer happy when the situation warrants it. Specialized is not perfect, no manufacturer is but I have never in all of my years with them witnessed them being unfair to an end user.
With that said i do feel for you and hope you get this all worked out.

briscoelab

A creaking BB and a seat post doesn't constitute it being a lemon. Those were just oversights by the initial LBS in installing them. Both easily fixed in about 5 minutes by them or any competent shop. Also, the first shop should have known about the chainring issue and replaced them.

The shifter problem is because of a cable failure... as many have said, if you don't replace those every once in a while... they will break. Specialized has nothing to do with that issue. You had an old worn cable installed and it broke. You claiming that DA parts are somehow unreliable pieces of junk is laughable.

Also, what race are you doing with a $100 entry fee? That's pretty steep!

kayakdiver

maybe you should have purchased two civics.. And a 20 year old Cannondale can win a race.

cfblakeman

Great thoughts. 20/20 hindsight I definitely should not have put up with this so long. I'm as mad at myself for that as anything. But this was my first real road bike and as I mentioned earlier, one of the reasons I bought it was to get a very reliable ride, pay others to maintain it, not become a gear head and enjoy riding. And having Specialize keep "working with me" to suggest more ways to spend money treating symptoms kept me going for months.

And I agree with your assessment of Specialized - I have heard FAR more good about them than bad. And I continue to. It's one of the reasons I bought the bike. And that's why I call this a lemon - which is another word for something that is out of the ordinary - doesn't happen to everyone, etc. But clearly Specialized Customer Service doesn't know what to do with a lemon (which shows again it doesn't happen a lot), and I want Specialized to learn they need to be able to handle the exceptions, not just the rule. I personally could care less that a million Specialized customers haven't had my experience. I have had it, and it's a crummy one, and Specialized needs to make it right. If they do, then they will have a million and one happy customers. Right now apparently they are all happy but me.

garysol1 

sorry. I chuckled.

tuxbailey

+1

A blog that has 15K readers gotta be interesting in some way. OP, would you put your blog in your signature once the situation is resolved one way or the other?

cfblakeman

Just can't let misinformation like this go. It was a creaking and SLIPPING BB, and as posted 20 other places in this thread, the LBS built it EXACTLY like the written instructions from Specialized, who ten months or so later sent out new written instructions to the LBS's telling them the first build was wrong. That's not an oversight by an LBS. If they had built it without following the specs it would effect warranty.

And how is the seat post bracket an oversight? It started to slip a month after I bought it (doesn't seem like and LBS would know that), and after pulling it back up once a month for a while it became once a week which is when I alerted the LBS. They finally torqued it and found that the s-works seat post bracket was defective, could not be torqued down to hold the post (which already had carbon paste on it), and had to be replace.
And Specialized (finally) admitted it was defective and sent a new/free s-works seat post bracket.

Have any other facts you want to skew in order to make your point?

cfblakeman

LOL - not a bad idea in hindsight. And yes the antique Canondale has served me well, but I usually only have it ready to go in the winter - it's a shambles right now and needs a major tune-up to go out for a long, hard pull.