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

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  • June 9, 2018 at 5:15 pm #28604
    Pennersunited

    Hi Forum – I would be interested in any like minded thoughts around Canyon/the internet manufacturers and why I would always buy from a bike shop in future

     

    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…….

     

    *****NEW UPDATE***** 12th June

    I literally want to cry….

    “has been chasing the issue with our German team for you, there has been a delay in getting the new frame-set on route to us. We are arranging the frame to ship as quickly as possible, this is likely however to take a additional two weeks. I understand this is frustrating, “

    Really? Frustrating?

    *****Latest update***** 14th June

    Order delayed again and no response to my request for a refund

    TRACK DELIVERY

    Your order is scheduled to leave the Canyon.Factory during this period.

    18/06/2018 – 22/06/2018

    I cant even bring myself to hope….. 🙁

    *****Latest Update*****

    19th June

    “Your frame has been ordered, however there has been a further delay getting the bike on route to us due to the location it is coming from. I apologies for the delay getting the new frame. Once we have received it within Canyon UK we well be fast tracking it within our workshop. I believe we will have the frame on the first week of July”

    Hmmmmm you expect me to believe this???? Really???? 

    I have also sent 5 emails asking for my money back and for them to keep the bike but they are now ignoring messages.

    I am now going to buy a website and SEO/SEM/Social the hell out of it with all the information on this issue so anyone searching Canyon bikes finds it 🙂

     

     

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  • June 13, 2018 at 9:57 am #921185
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    Canyon48

    Very timely actually, https:/

    Very timely actually, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2CIYRazisQ

    Ollie from Cycling Weekly damaged his carbon bike (says he doesn’t know how!) and took to get it repaired.

    The company in question mentions that they’ve had even Bradley Wiggins’ bike in with cracked top tube just because the bars swung into it.

    June 13, 2018 at 9:21 am #921183
    0
    Canyon48
    crazy-legs wrote:
    BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
    Not withstand those sort of stresses, what stresses, the bike fell over for gods sakes! Basically punters see CF bikes as throw away objects and accept it as simply that that’s the way it is, yet the BS descriptions given by manufacturers hide the fact that CF frames whilst of course have weaknesses should not simply be able to be cracked/broken by a low level impact as per the OP and indeed the above post, it’s utterly ludicrous.

    It’s not at all [,] for the reasons that Canyon48 highlighted above. You clearly have zero idea of carbon or materials engineering. Have a look at this news article:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/10534084/British-Airways-plane-collides-with-building-at-Johannesburg-airport.html

    Those wings can withstand tonnes of force, they can hold two massive engines, a load of fuel and hydraulics and electronics, they can support 300 tonnes of aircraft at 600mph, withstand temperature differences of over 100 degrees C, cope with in excess of 12G of force – but if you bump into a bit of brick with them at 15mph, they’ll fall to pieces.

    It’s called design parameters.

    edited, see below. Added the comma 😉

     

    June 13, 2018 at 8:53 am #921181
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    crazy-legs

    Quote:

    Not withstand those sort of stresses, what stresses, the bike fell over for gods sakes! Basically punters see CF bikes as throw away objects and accept it as simply that that’s the way it is, yet the BS descriptions given by manufacturers hide the fact that CF frames whilst of course have weaknesses should not simply be able to be cracked/broken by a low level impact as per the OP and indeed the above post, it’s utterly ludicrous.

    It’s not at all for the reasons that Canyon48 highlighted above. You clearly have zero idea of carbon or materials engineering. Have a look at this news article:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/10534084/British-Airways-plane-collides-with-building-at-Johannesburg-airport.html

    Those wings can withstand tonnes of force, they can hold two massive engines, a load of fuel and hydraulics and electronics, they can support 300 tonnes of aircraft at 600mph, withstand temperature differences of over 100 degrees C, cope with in excess of 12G of force – but if you bump into a bit of brick with them at 15mph, they’ll fall to pieces.

    It’s called design parameters.

    June 13, 2018 at 7:55 am #921179
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    fukawitribe

    BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

    BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
    Basically punters see CF bikes as throw away objects and accept it as simply that that’s the way it is

    No, not really.

    June 13, 2018 at 7:51 am #921177
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    Canyon48
    BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
    Not withstand those sort of stresses, what stresses, the bike fell over for gods sakes! Basically punters see CF bikes as throw away objects and accept it as simply that that’s the way it is, yet the BS descriptions given by manufacturers hide the fact that CF frames whilst of course have weaknesses should not simply be able to be cracked/broken by a low level impact as per the OP and indeed the above post, it’s utterly ludicrous.

    I assume you’re an engineer with experience of carbon design, manufacture and testing then?

    The shear stresses, to be precise. Top tubes are primarily designed to cope with compressive axial forces (and associated stresses), therefore composite tubes are layed up accordingly. As such, they perform very poorly in shear (which doesn’t matter, unless you drop the frame). Assuming the composite obeys the standard Hart-Smith rule, as little as 8% of the laminates strength can be in the shear (90°) direction.

    This, combined with the low matrix volume (to maximise youngs modulus and laminate efficiency), most likely caused laminate debonding due to the Inter-Laminar Shear Stresses, followed by fibre pull out; all of which caused the failure.

     

     

    June 13, 2018 at 2:36 am #921175
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    Anonymous

    Not withstand those sort of

    Not withstand those sort of stresses, what stresses, the bike fell over for gods sakes! Basically punters see CF bikes as throw away objects and accept it as simply that that’s the way it is, yet the BS descriptions given by manufacturers hide the fact that CF frames whilst of course have weaknesses should not simply be able to be cracked/broken by a low level impact as per the OP and indeed the above post, it’s utterly ludicrous.

    June 12, 2018 at 9:58 pm #921173
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    Stefan M

    I managed to crack the top

    I managed to crack the top tube of my Wilier carbon frame 4 weeks after getting it (knocked it over sideways into a metal post). Entirely my own fault and as mentioned they are really not designed to withstand that sort of stress. I got it repaired for £130 (bare carbon frame so no paint needed and they did a fabulous job). 5 years on it is still going strong. 

    June 12, 2018 at 8:37 pm #921171
    0
    madcarew
    joeegg wrote:
       If you read the canyon manual that comes with the bike it even advises not to use a workstand clamp on the frame.

    That same piece of advice is true on lightweight steel frames too. In the 90’s when I was a spanner monkey / wrenchwright in a Durham bike shop I put someone’s columbus slx frame in a work stand, clamped on the seat tube and dented the seat tube. Customer not happy!!!

    June 12, 2018 at 6:30 pm #921169
    0
    Canyon48
    crazy-legs wrote:
    There’s two things in this post really:

    1) is it unreasonable for the frame to fail in the manner that it did
    2) Canyon’s customer service and the inability to supply a replaement frame

    (1) we’ve pretty much dealt with – probably not unreasonable if somewhat upsetting

    To understand (2) you have to go back about 2-3 years to when Canyon (and all other bike manufacturers) will have been planning for the 2018 season (and this is what annoys the hell out of me, the bike industry’s ridiculous obsession with model years…) and working though things like ensuring all the moulds are there, the raw carbon is ordered, the component parts from groupset & wheel manufacturers were in place, colour schemes, expected order numbers across Europe, pricing, marketing…

    Basically they’ll have reached a number of frames / bikes expected to sell and ordered that many. It is not uncommon within the industry to find a spectacular cock-up somewhere along the line – you might have the best bike in the world right at that moment but if it’s the wrong colour scheme, somewhere in a back office there’ll be a brand manager crying into their laptop and a company losing hundreds of thousands of pounds. If a supplier says they can no longer sell you 10,000 pairs of [model X wheels] and you have to do a mid-season component change and all your brochures are suddenly out of date. If sales are better than expected then (just on the law of averages) some are going to be broken and some customers will want a replacement but you’ve got none left.

    And no bike company is going to have hundreds of frames just lying around on the offchance that they might sell or be required for warranty, that’s just money wasted! Numerous times I’ve seen frames / bikes from dozens of manufacturers simply no longer in stock. The challenge there is how you communicate that to the customer – you might offer a refund or an upgrade as a good-will gesture so if you’ve broken a CF SL, you might get a CF SLX (for example) but if you’ve broken a CF SLX frame and there’s no more around, you’re kind of stuffed.

    Canyon UK are going off info from Canyon HQ who are probably going off info from their factories which in turn is being delayed by shipping companies, customs, demand elsewhere… I’m not particularly exonerating Canyon from all blame in whatever they’ve said but just explaining they’re probably nearly as much in the dark as you are.

    This is probably the best and most comprehensive answer.

    June 12, 2018 at 5:15 pm #921167
    0
    crazy-legs

    There’s two things in this

    There’s two things in this post really:

    1) is it unreasonable for the frame to fail in the manner that it did
    2) Canyon’s customer service and the inability to supply a replaement frame

    (1) we’ve pretty much dealt with – probably not unreasonable if somewhat upsetting

    To understand (2) you have to go back about 2-3 years to when Canyon (and all other bike manufacturers) will have been planning for the 2018 season (and this is what annoys the hell out of me, the bike industry’s ridiculous obsession with model years…) and working though things like ensuring all the moulds are there, the raw carbon is ordered, the component parts from groupset & wheel manufacturers were in place, colour schemes, expected order numbers across Europe, pricing, marketing…

    Basically they’ll have reached a number of frames / bikes expected to sell and ordered that many. It is not uncommon within the industry to find a spectacular cock-up somewhere along the line – you might have the best bike in the world right at that moment but if it’s the wrong colour scheme, somewhere in a back office there’ll be a brand manager crying into their laptop and a company losing hundreds of thousands of pounds. If a supplier says they can no longer sell you 10,000 pairs of [model X wheels] and you have to do a mid-season component change and all your brochures are suddenly out of date. If sales are better than expected then (just on the law of averages) some are going to be broken and some customers will want a replacement but you’ve got none left.

    And no bike company is going to have hundreds of frames just lying around on the offchance that they might sell or be required for warranty, that’s just money wasted! Numerous times I’ve seen frames / bikes from dozens of manufacturers simply no longer in stock. The challenge there is how you communicate that to the customer – you might offer a refund or an upgrade as a good-will gesture so if you’ve broken a CF SL, you might get a CF SLX (for example) but if you’ve broken a CF SLX frame and there’s no more around, you’re kind of stuffed.

    Canyon UK are going off info from Canyon HQ who are probably going off info from their factories which in turn is being delayed by shipping companies, customs, demand elsewhere… I’m not particularly exonerating Canyon from all blame in whatever they’ve said but just explaining they’re probably nearly as much in the dark as you are.

    June 12, 2018 at 3:08 pm #921165
    0
    Canyon48
    Pennersunited wrote:
    @canyon48 – I have asked them to do the honorable thing with an amicable breakup so lets see how that goes. I just want my money back and to then buy a bike to do events on as opposed to £4k being sat in a warehouse.

    I just want to ride……..

    Yeah, sounds like the right thing to me. I would hope that Canyon would understand and refund you.

    I assume you have your frame back? Lot of resale value in the aero cockpit and forks – the frame will sell too I imagine, to someone who can fix it.

    June 12, 2018 at 2:32 pm #921163
    0
    700c

    surly_by_name wrote:

    surly_by_name wrote:

    700c wrote:
    Can’t people just admit they chose an online-only manufacturer to save money, and the trade off is there is no face to face local customer support/ handover, which has value to most/ some consumers, especially when things go wrong. Rubbishing the LBS model in this case seems to be an attempt to justify, or spin, one’s own buying decisions.

    What’s wrong with saving money?

     

    Nothing in principle but in this case the money saved using an online-only manufacturer has been outweighed by the customer service and communication problems resulting from this business model. Canyons may be great bikes but they are cheap, sorry, ‘good value list price’ for a reason.

    June 12, 2018 at 1:00 pm #921161
    0
    Rapha Nadal

    BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

    BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

    Rapha Nadal wrote:

    700c wrote:
    Can’t people just admit they chose an online-only manufacturer to save money, and the trade off is there is no face to face local customer support/ handover, which has value to most/ some consumers, especially when things go wrong. Rubbishing the LBS model in this case seems to be an attempt to justify, or spin, one’s own buying decisions.

    Folk are only interested in the price and not the value.

    Hat’s off to the OP for trying to pass off a crashed frame as a warranty claim though!!

    Falling sideways at zero mph is not a crash, that’s a fall, there’s a very subtle but significant difference to one that involves a collision which in the definition of what most people take is with forward motion and/or with another vehicle or person. The fall was no different to if you rested your bike against the shed and it fell sideways. If your £4000 bike then completely broke with little more than a sideways fall then the product is not just in my eyes but would be under EU/UK law not fit for purpose, that being a bicycle to be used by persons up to and including 120kg, which is very much above the avergae weight of a male so by definition you are led to beleive the frame is robust in nature by the claim by the manufacturer for that to be okay as a weight limit and from that kinetic energy p[ut through the frame so it doesn’t break in use by such a big person. Additionally they also specifically make a claim that the frame/bike is “robust”, again this description leads one to think that the bike will not be a complete write off with a simple sideways fall with no other object/persons involved. 

    This was the whole point of the 6 year rule, manufacturers cannot simply obviate themselves of  responsibility for their shoddy products and the old 1 year guarantee nonsense particularly on goods one is told are robust and can be used by well above average size persosn that can very possibly impart large amounts of forces through the product, this would of course have been tested by the manufacturer in the first instance or they could not make that claim as it would be false.

    Therefore IMO going from what the OP said happened the product falls well short of what one would consider to match to their description and what you would expect from a top quality product that is still a bicycle that could be used daily on ordinary roads and this something the manufacturer would know and should take account of when making claims and using words like “durable.”

    That’s not to mention the shady BS of  ‘we aint telling you shit about our investigation’.

    I totally see where you’re coming from with the points you raise but…

    “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.”

    It’s a crash caused mainly by the actions of a third party in this instance.  The bike just didn’t fall over.  It was in use, brakes were applied, the rider lost balance.

    It amazes me that so many people seem to think that carbon is indestructible.  It’s super strong in one direction but not always in another.  The top tube is often a prone spot for breakages as the material thins towards the centre as very little stress is applied at this point so uit’s rarely beefed up and then, when an impact occurs, it breaks.  It’s not a “shoddy product” as the bike was, I assume, perfectly fine, rideable, and fit for purpose before the crash.

    I have seen Canyon’s break into 2 pieces after crashes (held together by the cables!) and I’ve seen Pinarello’s do the same.   Part & parcel of frame engineering pushing things to the very limit.

    June 12, 2018 at 12:47 pm #921159
    0
    Pennersunited

    @canyon48 – I have asked them

    @canyon48 – I have asked them to do the honorable thing with an amicable breakup so lets see how that goes. I just want my money back and to then buy a bike to do events on as opposed to £4k being sat in a warehouse.

    I just want to ride……..

    June 12, 2018 at 12:38 pm #921157
    0
    fukawitribe
    surly_by_name wrote:
    700c wrote:
    Can’t people just admit they chose an online-only manufacturer to save money, and the trade off is there is no face to face local customer support/ handover, which has value to most/ some consumers, especially when things go wrong. Rubbishing the LBS model in this case seems to be an attempt to justify, or spin, one’s own buying decisions.

    What’s wrong with saving money?

    ..they also have really nice bikes (IMO), that might be quite important to some people…    
     

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