Monday, August 29, 2011

My bike is fixed, but I am not happy

About a month and a half ago my bike broke. I was riding in Laguna Canyon when my bottom bracket started to make a clicking sound. I stopped and tried to figure out what was making the noise, but without weight on the pedals it would not do it. So, I get back on and take a few pedal strokes and not only is it making noise, but now I can feel it through the pedals. I end up walking the last four miles of my ride. On the way home I stop by one of the local bike shops and the mechanic tells me that the bottom bracket is toast. What! How could this be, it is only two months old. I tell the guy at the shop this and he says "well the good thing is that FSA should warranty this." I was relived, for a minute, then he tells me that because I did not buy the bike from him that anything he does toward getting it warrantied will be at a fee. I understand this because he will have to spend time on it, but he also tells me I can do it myself and it is obvious that it is a defective product. Just to be safe I took the bike to another local shop and had them look at it also, they tell me exactly the same thing as the first shop. When I get home I give FSA a call, this is where things take a turn for the worst, I got a man in FSA's warranty department named Brice and this is how the conversation went:

Brice: Hello, Full Speed Ahead, this is Brice.

Jeff: How's it going, I have a two month old Dyna Drive crank set that I am having a problem with."

Brice: Yeah, thats not a warranty issue. You need to take it to a shop and get a real mechanic to look at it.

Jeff: I haven't told you what's wrong with it yet, and I already took it to a shop and they told me that it should be warrantied.

Brice: Take it too a shop that knows what they are doing.

Jeff: They do know what they are doing, and so does the other shop I had look at it.

Brice: You are too heavy to be riding that crank set.

Jeff: What!

Brice: That crank set is not made for someone your size.

Jeff: Do we know each other? How do you know how much I weigh?

Brice: You probably blew out the grease in the bearings when you washed the bike.

Jeff: No, I'm always careful not to get water in the bottom bracket.

Brice: Did you ride it in the dirt?

Jeff: Yes, it's a mountain bike.

Brice: You got dust in the bearings, we will not warranty that.

Jeff: It's 2 months old!

Brice: I have had cyclocross bottom brackets seize in the first race.

Jeff: Did you warranty those?

Brice: No. (said like I asked him if the sky green)

Jeff: Thats ridiculous.

Brice: no it's not. You just don't get it.

Jeff: This is the worst customer service I have ever.....
"Click"
He hung up on me I tried to call back several times and could not get past him. I called Airborne, who has excellent customer service and spoke with Eric McKenna. Airborne told me that since they don't manufacture the part they could not do anything about it, but he would try to get through Brice (when I described the conversation I had had with Brice he knew exactly who it was before I even said his name) to someone higher up. As of today it has been a month and a half and there has been no response from FSA. I replaced my crank set this past weekend an I will not be buying from FSA again.

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