Canyon

[pennersunited]

Oh Canyon! All I ever wanted was a little love and attention…….

I always liked the look of Canyon bikes and despite being warned about the questionable service levels, the allure of an Ultimate CF SLX 8.0 Di2 disc proved too economically good to resist. They say ‘you pay your money, you take your chances’, but I never really thought that a bike from a well known brand over £4,000 would fall into this category. Well now I know……

It started in March when I was out cycling. A guy in a car cut me up, I slammed on the anchors and stopped but couldn’t get my feet unclipped and fell to the left. Feeling pretty foolish, I got up and with no injuries carried on with my ride. Strange noises caused me to look down at the bike and I realised the top tube had snapped in 2. Wow I thought – no impact, just an innocuous stationary fall shouldn’t snap a frame? Right?

I reported this to Canyon, and then dropped the bike to their UK Chessington branch on the 22nd of April along with pictures and a warranty claim. Over a week later (really?) I got the all too familiar denial of any liability and a ‘kind offer’ to replace the frame and bars for £1300 under the crash replacement scheme…..
I requested a full report and argued my case but was given no report – just an email, and a denial of any responsibility for a frame breaking after only 5 months and very little riding.

Clearly I was going to get nowhere, and a Google search was littered with similar denials of any responsibility, so I was forced to claim on my house insurance who agreed to pay for the new frame and bars. Begrudgingly on 9th May I then asked Canyon UK to get the order placed and get the bike fixed so I could actually participate in my triathlon season. Order placed, all good – right?? Wrong!

10th May
Hi Chris
Our orders team are processing your order but there will be a delay in a like for like colour replacement. It could be up to 4 weeks before the frame is available.

With this in mind we have 2 options, 1 is that an order placed for the direct colour replacement frame. Option 2 is for you to choose another colour. Both the Jet silver and the Grand tourismo blue colours are in stock. You can see the colours here:

Frustrated, I spoke to them and chose to have the blue purely to get the bike fixed!!! All I want is my bike back – pretty please?

Response back – same day of approving the order
Thank you for your email. Please ignore this confirmation. This is a system generated response that gives an estimation based on the production schedule for new bike builds. Material orders (Frames, forks, cockpits) operate outside of the general operation procedure. We expect the frame to actually ship within the next 2 weeks.

Cool I thought, this is real progress right? Wrong…..

It’s now Saturday 9th June, I’ve already paid for the new frame forks and bars and the order hasn’t even left the German factory with no communication and 3 delays in shipping. I literally give up!
The frame and forks and bars are due to ship next week but after many lies, many extensions of shipping dates – I simply don’t believe it and am not convinced I will ever get a bike back from Canyon and the early triathlon season is over.
Given the choice, I would simply ask for my money, but this won’t happen because I can’t get to speak to anyone who knows anything or has any responsibility! All I now want to do is go to a local bike store and buy in person, from a real person. But why is the model so flawed??

1/The internet model gives you an opportunity to get a good product at a good price, but it also means the lean and tech focussed approach cuts out any kind of service layer and accountability.
2/Companies with this lean model like Canyon are difficult to contact, really really difficult to communicate with and almost impossible to get accurate answers from whereas a local shop is always on hand to help out and to talk to in person. Service is pretty much guaranteed.
3/ Companies make mistakes, people make mistakes, but internet focussed companies tend to point fingers at other teams internally and ‘wish they could help’ but can’t. A shop tends to own the relationship and fix the issue as a front line – service matters.
4/ Companies who have never had a bricks and mortar sales and service operation very rarely understand that people matter, are more than an order number and just want to feel that they are being listened to – like in any decent bike shop. Biking is a passion and people in bike shops are passionate. Bits and bytes are not!

Canyon – you make great products, I applaud your mantra help to try and drive down high st prices down but it’s all for nothing when something goes wrong and the service infrastructure isn’t there to fix it. I wanted to love you, I wished you loved me, but you have become the nightmare from which I will never wake. From now on, I will be staying well clear, buying from people and to anyone thinking of buying Canyon, ‘You pay your money, you take you chances’. Is the initial saving worth it? Short term gain is long term pain so not in my opinion, but I will let you decide for yourselves…….

[The utility cyclist]

A company who sell supposedly mid range frames at good, but not outstanding prices, that break at very low level forces who deny you full facts and any warranty claim, why did you go back with them at all?
I've heard too many negatives about Canyon over the years, wouldn't touch their bikes with a barge pole.

[delilah]

Well that's given me some thought for thought. The Canyon Endurace CF was one on my list of 3 but I'll seriously consider it now . Thank you for the information