So, a bike shop made a mess of my Cannondale F-Si

make sure to publicise here and stw, bikeradar, etc.

I will do this when it's clear the shop has no intention of putting things right and negotiation comes to nothing.

@Dammit what do you think?

Hello Jonathan,

I’m writing to you because as an owner of many Cannondale bikes I've recently received extremely poor and borderline dangerous service from an authorised service agent here in the UK.

The short story: I bought a Carbon F-Si. After 15 hours on the bike the Lefty failed and needed a warranty repair. I took the bike to a UK based authorised service agent.

• Repair of the Lefty took four weeks.
  
• The service agent damaged the bike in the process of re-installing the Lefty.
  
• The service agent has made it clear they take no responsibility for this.
  
• The damage is to the OPI steerer system and the headtube downtube junction.
  
• The bike was not safety checked or ridable when I went to collect it, six weeks from first bringing it in.
  
• The service agent was prepared for me to ride the bike away in a dangerous, unchecked condition.
  
• I have no faith in their work, or the condition of the bike, going forward.
  
  

I am asking you to contact your colleagues at CSG UK on my behalf, prioritising this case, so that it can be resolved quickly and amicably and I can continue to support the brand in the future.

Thank you for your help in this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Howard

How about:

Hello Jonathan,

I’m writing to you about my experience of my F-Si. I’ve been riding Cannondales for [period] years, I’ve had [number] in total and currently have [number]. I bought the F-Si because I love the Cannondale history, the technology - it’s the brand that means the most to me for both road and mountain bikes.

I rode my F-Si for 60 glorious miles, and then (unfortunately) the problems began.

The short story: I bought a Carbon F-Si. After 15 hours on the bike the Lefty failed and needed a warranty repair. I took the bike to a UK based authorised service agent.

• The service agent damaged the bike in the process of re-installing the Lefty. It’s now unsafe to ride.
  
• The service agent has made it clear they take no responsibility for this.
  
• The damage is to the OPI steerer system and the headtube downtube junction.
  
• Repair of the Lefty took four weeks, it’s still not finished
  
• The bike was not safety checked or ridable when I went to collect it, six weeks from first bringing it in.
  
• The service agent was prepared for me to ride the bike away in a dangerous, unchecked condition.
  
• I have no faith in their work, or the condition of the bike, going forward.
  
  

I love the Cannondale brand, and I know it doesn’t stand for the service which I’ve received - I am asking you to contact your colleagues at CSG UK so that they can make this right.

Thank you for your help in this matter.
Yours sincerely,
Howard

^ amaze, thank you!

Can't help with much of this other than to offer my rather different experience of dealing with the UK distro for a product bought in Germany.

I bought my Thomson dropper from Bike24 (1. coz it was cheaper and 2. coz nowhere in the UK had stock) and when it developed a bit of play I contacted I-Ride, as Thomson's UK distro, fully expecting to be told to do one but in fact they were more than happy to deal with me. They had me send them my post, did a warranty (ie completely FOC) service and bushing replacement and sent the post back to me too.

The post did re-develop play within 2 rides but again, they were happy as Larry for me to send it in for inspection and they've agreed to replace with a new post. Just waiting for stock now...

Makes me wonder what level of training is offered to the shop mechanics, regarding Cannondale specific stuff.

AFAIK, no training were provided with Cannondale components/bicycles, usually required constacting CSG directly or reading a manual.

TBF, never got any training with anything from other companies eithers.

Seems to me that the shop weren't happy that you didn't buy the bike from them and have been shitty and not too careful with it.

But the brakes business and the rear flat tyre seem the real could not give a shit as the person that brought the bike to you has to to see that isn't right.

Can speak to some x ray people that are used in the airline industry to see prices but it ain't going to be cheap.

Can speak to some x ray people that are used in the airline industry to see prices but it ain't going to be cheap.

No, not worth it.

Seems to me that the shop weren't happy that you didn't buy the bike from them and have been shitty and not too careful with it.

Which is crazy really, as they couldn't have sold it to me anyway - none in the country at the time.

I was quite clear when I bought it in that I was more than happy for them to make some money on it through the - straightforward - brake work.

Can speak to some x ray people that are used in the airline industry to see prices but it ain't going to be cheap.

Ta for the offer :)

So I'm following up by email. This is the first shot:

Hey NAME REMOVED,

I’m emailing you because we need to keep a record going forward. Please respond by email.

Firstly:

Please do not do any more work on the bike. Given the seriousness of our conversation on Saturday I was surprised to find more work had been done to rectify the brake hose routing, brake lever placement and shift lever placement.

What do we do now?

We are in dispute:

I believe the bike was not worked on with due care and attention, and has been damaged in your care. This is evidenced through not only the marking the frame and stem that you dispute, but also through not doing the brake work as requested, and handing over the bike to the customer in an untested and unridable state. I feel as a customer I’ve been treated badly and disrespectfully. I want to take away a bike from your shop that I can believe in, and at present, that is impossible.

Although you do not dispute that the brake work was not done, you deny responsibility for any damage to the bike, and you claim that despite having some work done on the brakes and having the front end of the bike removed then replaced, a test outside of the work stand is not required. You feel under no obligation to provide me with what I want.

If this is not your view, please correct me and we’ll carry on from there.

If I do not hear from you before end of play today I’ll assume that this confirms the situation and I’ll follow up tomorrow with some ways we can resolve this.

Thanks,

Howard

I'd feel annoyed/angry that my new bike had been scratched. Just trying to give a point of view.

Hope it is settled quickly.

Oh and give a time not end of play.

Howard, do you have any paperwork from the shop? usually you get a recipe/paperwork when booking the bike in.

Moaning about you not buying the bike in the UK is ridiculously stupid, any shop that does that is best well avoided (too late I know).

unrideable

Updated:

Hey NAME

I’m emailing you because we need to keep a record going forward. Please respond by email.

Please do not do any more work on the bike. We are in dispute.

I am keen to find a solution to our predicament. Let's first confirm where we are:

I believe the bike was not worked on with due care and attention, and has been damaged in your care. This is evidenced through not only the marking the frame and stem that you dispute, but also through not doing the brake work as requested, and handing over the bike to the customer in an untested and unridable state. I feel as a customer I’ve been treated badly and disrespectfully. I want and can rightfully expect to take away a bike from your shop that I can believe in. As things stand, that is impossible.

Although you do not dispute that the brake work was not done, you deny responsibility for any damage to the bike, and you claim that despite having worked on the brakes, including hose swapping and lever positioning, and having the front end of the bike removed then replaced, a test outside of the work stand is not required. You feel under no obligation to provide me with what I want.

If this is not your view, please reply stating your position clearly and we’ll carry on from there.

If I do not hear from you by email before 8pm today I’ll assume that this matches your understanding of the situation and I’ll follow up tomorrow with some ways we can resolve this.

Thanks,

Howard

Howard, do you have any paperwork from the shop? usually you get a recipe/paperwork when booking the bike in.

Yep, receipts and email confirmation of work requested and process.

Ta :)

Moaning about you not buying the bike in the UK is ridiculously stupid

It's stupid to do it in front of customers, yes. I can see where they are coming from though - they can't match the prices of online EU sellers.

Given the context - that they couldn't have sold me the bike even if they wanted to - makes it more stupid.

But bike shops are not in a unique position of being undercut by Internet /forrins.
As a designer it was abundantly clear 5-8 years ago that competing on price just didn't work any more, you had to offer a compelling quality or customer service, or a mix of the two

And, taking the design analogy further, if someone had brought something similar, you'd maybe joke and make a point about buy cheap, buy twice, tell them you'll charge more (which you said you'd offered), but then make a really big effort in terms of service to show them why they were wrong to go cheap in the first place

But bike shops are not in a unique position of being undercut by Internet /forrins.

This is true, but their pricing is essentially controlled by their distributors - if they want to sell discount 'dales online, it's unlikely CSG will let them do it.

The result is the same, they have to complete on something else. I agree. The problem is that something else is hard to pull off.

I'm not excusing them, I'm just saying I can understand how you could arrive where they are.

Hey man, just on the last para of your email - I'm sure you know, but in this situation you can't deem someone to have agreed to the fact pattern you outline by their non-response. It might be worth keeping in there to try to get a speedier response, but if this ends up getting nasty you won't be able to rely on that para to show that the shop agree with your version of the facts.
Hope this plays out well, such a ball-ache when stuff like this happens. Good plan getting it in writing going forward.

It might be worth keeping in there to try to get a speedier response, but if this ends up getting nasty you won't be able to rely on that para to show that the shop agree with your version of the facts.

Ah yeah cheers - you are right, I will follow up with a call first thing tomorrow. Did you get my email if not why not etc.

Have you got any photos of the frame/lever set-up/cabling etc before it went into the shop? All useful stuff if you do. Might also be worth popping in to photograph the bike in its current state (even if that is rather awkward) in case they do more work to it against your will.

Yes, and I did take more photos yesterday.

I found more defects too, which I'm not going to share with them for now.

Ah cool, well it sounds like you're in as good a position as you can be at the moment. Dammit's plan to hit up the PR guys is certainly a good one to help speed things up. Fingers crossed.