jodz1984
02-03-2012, 03:24 AM
Hi. My husband bought me a Specialized Amira Expert for my birthday last September and being a non-cyclist he relied apon the opinion for the LBS that I had been riding with for over 2 years. I was very close to the owner and his wife, they considered my son (who I had during the riding period) their nephew. Anyway I rode with the specialized rep the week before the bike was ordered. The rep told the owner to order the medium (51cm) but the owner outright told him that it would be too big and I needed the small (48cm) frame. So I got the 48cm one on the day of my birthday. Which I said straight away wow, that's tiny. LBS dude said no its the perfect size. So I rode it, got sore knees and complained and said I wanted the next size up, everyone else's opinion was the same thing too including the other LBS. he ended up swapping the cranks from 165mm to 170mm to try and make me happy but that wasn't going to change the fact I felt like I was riding a monkey bike and it was impossible for me to get out of the saddle to sprint, being a track cyclist too that is kinda something I do a lot of.
I then found out that his employee said to a friend that he'd been in my ear about the different length cranks, also one of the other riders was talking to someone else saying that I didn't know anything about cycling and then another person told me that him and the LBS owner were talking sh!t about me in front of him, which he told them to shut up about me. I then found out that the LBS owner had told my friends wife that my husband was arrogant and treated me like sh!t. So obviously I was not happy at this stage. I also found out he had rung the specialized dealer 100km away asking them if they wanted to buy my bike off him coz he'd sold the wrong size. Meanwhile telling me every time he saw me ride it that it was a perfect size and I look comfortable on it.
3 and a half months later I finally registered my bike on the specialized website and they asked for feedback on how I like my bike and also the shop i bought it from which I answered 1 for very dissatisfied for both. Within 10 mins I received an email asking if I could explain why I was unhappy. So I wrote them a long email leaving the personal stuff out of it but in this time I'd started training with the other LBS and gone from a getting dropped in d grade standard on the road to almost b grade standard. I then rung the specialized dude to ask if he'd received my email and he said he had to ring the specialized rep of the zone and give him a day or two to get back to me because he didn't want to leave it with me thinking specialized is a bad company, but he wasn't sure what he could do because it had been so long. A few hours later he rung and told me they were sending a 51cm frame to my LBS that sold the bike to me for them to swap the frame. I asked if they could send it up to the other shop 100km away and they said no because they wanted to rebuild the relationship the with shop and I replied it has got too personal for that and I'll send someone in to get it done and I explained that just because I didn't deal with this specialized dealer doesn't mean I won't buy specialized products from elsewhere.
A week later someone rung the shop to ask if the frame was there which it was and told them I had to take my bike there and leave it for a week to get done, so I booked it in and they said bring it is in this day and we need it for a few days which I knew he would deliberately do it so it wasn't ready on the Friday afternoon so id miss out on the hardest training session on the Saturday morning. Meanwhile the other LBS had the talking to the other specialized dealer (they are friends, hence me knowing about the phone call trying to sell the bike) and they told us that specialized can't void my warranty if a qualified mechanic was to build it. Which I found out the specialized dealer in my town isn't qualified. So I rung specialized and said I want my qualified mechanics to rebuild my bike and I'll be paying them myself and he went on about rebuilding the relationship with the shop in which then I had an emotional breakdown on the phone to him and explained everything to him then his reaction was like oh ok then u can do that then. Next day my bike was stripped down and my husband took the frame, forks and seat post in to swap. He came back with a frame and forks and no seat post and he told me that I had to take the head set and spacers back to get the seat post. I instantly got on the phone to specialized and they said I had to use my old seat post, which is fair enough songs the head set and spacers and got my employee to do a drug deal kinda swap other wise I would have no seat post. A couple of hours later I get a phone call from specialized saying that we've been told you are in the possession of a 2nd seat post which I replied what am I meant to ride with no seat and seat post now because I rung u and u said that I have to use my old one. He then replied oh that's ok. Your first phone call makes sense now but then he tried to reply and say that it's hard for them to honour warranty coz a trek dealer built it, I straight out replied to him that's fine if you don't because I have my own business and I know about warranties and I also know about the office of fair trading too. Everything was then sorted. But still I was and still am furious. Sorry about the rant. Had to get it off my chest and if u managed to read the whole thing and understand it. Thank you.
I then found out that his employee said to a friend that he'd been in my ear about the different length cranks, also one of the other riders was talking to someone else saying that I didn't know anything about cycling and then another person told me that him and the LBS owner were talking sh!t about me in front of him, which he told them to shut up about me. I then found out that the LBS owner had told my friends wife that my husband was arrogant and treated me like sh!t. So obviously I was not happy at this stage. I also found out he had rung the specialized dealer 100km away asking them if they wanted to buy my bike off him coz he'd sold the wrong size. Meanwhile telling me every time he saw me ride it that it was a perfect size and I look comfortable on it.
3 and a half months later I finally registered my bike on the specialized website and they asked for feedback on how I like my bike and also the shop i bought it from which I answered 1 for very dissatisfied for both. Within 10 mins I received an email asking if I could explain why I was unhappy. So I wrote them a long email leaving the personal stuff out of it but in this time I'd started training with the other LBS and gone from a getting dropped in d grade standard on the road to almost b grade standard. I then rung the specialized dude to ask if he'd received my email and he said he had to ring the specialized rep of the zone and give him a day or two to get back to me because he didn't want to leave it with me thinking specialized is a bad company, but he wasn't sure what he could do because it had been so long. A few hours later he rung and told me they were sending a 51cm frame to my LBS that sold the bike to me for them to swap the frame. I asked if they could send it up to the other shop 100km away and they said no because they wanted to rebuild the relationship the with shop and I replied it has got too personal for that and I'll send someone in to get it done and I explained that just because I didn't deal with this specialized dealer doesn't mean I won't buy specialized products from elsewhere.
A week later someone rung the shop to ask if the frame was there which it was and told them I had to take my bike there and leave it for a week to get done, so I booked it in and they said bring it is in this day and we need it for a few days which I knew he would deliberately do it so it wasn't ready on the Friday afternoon so id miss out on the hardest training session on the Saturday morning. Meanwhile the other LBS had the talking to the other specialized dealer (they are friends, hence me knowing about the phone call trying to sell the bike) and they told us that specialized can't void my warranty if a qualified mechanic was to build it. Which I found out the specialized dealer in my town isn't qualified. So I rung specialized and said I want my qualified mechanics to rebuild my bike and I'll be paying them myself and he went on about rebuilding the relationship with the shop in which then I had an emotional breakdown on the phone to him and explained everything to him then his reaction was like oh ok then u can do that then. Next day my bike was stripped down and my husband took the frame, forks and seat post in to swap. He came back with a frame and forks and no seat post and he told me that I had to take the head set and spacers back to get the seat post. I instantly got on the phone to specialized and they said I had to use my old seat post, which is fair enough songs the head set and spacers and got my employee to do a drug deal kinda swap other wise I would have no seat post. A couple of hours later I get a phone call from specialized saying that we've been told you are in the possession of a 2nd seat post which I replied what am I meant to ride with no seat and seat post now because I rung u and u said that I have to use my old one. He then replied oh that's ok. Your first phone call makes sense now but then he tried to reply and say that it's hard for them to honour warranty coz a trek dealer built it, I straight out replied to him that's fine if you don't because I have my own business and I know about warranties and I also know about the office of fair trading too. Everything was then sorted. But still I was and still am furious. Sorry about the rant. Had to get it off my chest and if u managed to read the whole thing and understand it. Thank you.