warranties

just wondering what peoples opinions are on warranties for e-bikes

some manufacturers only offer 1 year on everything whilst others offer 2 years on the battery and considerably longer on frames etc.

is this a reflection of the quality of the bike?

No. It's a reflection of what their competitors are doing. Warranty is a bit of a lottery as far as I can see. Some brands have good reputations for sorting out problems under warranty, others not so good. If you're unable to fix things yourself, you need to buy your bike from somebody nearby, except some of the online retailers that will pay for the bike to be collected. I believe Ebikes Direct and Woosh do that. If anybody else does, can we add them to the list?

The longer the warranty on the battery, the better, but you have to bear in mind the price of the bike. Most batteries can be replaced/upgraded for £250 or less, except for Bosch, Kalkhoff and other expensive bikes.

thanks for the advice

i didn,t know about the credit card thing,

i will also check out the replacement cost of batteries

As far as I am aware Ansmann bikes have the longest warranty, 3 years battery, 4 years motor and 5 years on the frame.

If anyone has a longer one no doubt I will be corrected;)

You can see the range of Ansmann bikes on our website here http://www.cyclezee.com/ansmann-e-bikes--pedelecs.html

thanks for the advice

i didn,t know about the credit card thing,

i will also check out the replacement cost of batteries

Straight from the dealers, some batteries are hideously expensive. My 17ah battery on my Kalkhoff is listed at £799 ( ). It has a two year warranty.

I have noticed an 11ah replacement on the German eBay site for 339 euros which is £250 at todays exchange rate. How the quality compares I don't know but there's a chance there is nothing wrong with them at all.

You can get cheaper Chinese replacement batteries for virtually any bike unless your bike uses CANbus or some other communication protocol to interrogate the battery.

Is CANbus used in many manufacturers, or just the odd one or two? I've never heard of it!

thanks for the advice

i didn,t know about the credit card thing,

i will also check out the replacement cost of batteries

No prob. When I wrote 'the required period', I meant the time for which goods must be reasonably durable, which is up to six years under the Sale of Goods Act 1979. The 'up to' bit basically means 'how long it ought to last given the cost and any other relevant factors'. The length of the warranty isn't a relevant factor. The more powerful 'warranty' is the protection you get from the Sale of Goods Act,which forms the basis of your contract with the retailer (and your cc provider too, who also have to cough up if things go wrong).

You'll get far more support and help and a lot longer "warranty"and support from any retailer if you go in armed with donoughts and never mention the sale of goods act. There is nothing likely to get you less support from a retailer than quoting the law at them. They know what the law is

Oh I absolutely agree. The problem is that consumers don't know what the law is. Most of them think when the warranty runs out that's their lot.

As a consumer you must, but simply must be kind-mannered, polite, generous-spirited, and carry a very big stick, the latter being simply your knowledge of what the retailer has contractually agreed to, none of which you should share unless the retailer tells you you're out of warranty and they can't help you - which is what most - or many retailers will do. Using the fiction that a "warranty" is the extent of liability, is a standard business model in retail. In fact creating that misimpression is the only serious purpose 95% of 'warranties' serve.

Edited February 23, 201511 yr by jonathan75

so would i be correct in saying that a bike with only a years warranty need not be a reason to stay clear of it?

the reputation of the dealer and product playing a major part along with cost of spares if you end up forking out for your own.

obvoiusly the ansmann as quoted above should be easier to live with if problems crop up.

No. It's a reflection of what their competitors are doing. Warranty is a bit of a lottery as far as I can see. Some brands have good reputations for sorting out problems under warranty, others not so good. If you're unable to fix things yourself, you need to buy your bike from somebody nearby, except some of the online retailers that will pay for the bike to be collected. I believe Ebikes Direct and Woosh do that. If anybody else does, can we add them to the list?

 

The longer the warranty on the battery, the better, but you have to bear in mind the price of the bike. Most batteries can be replaced/upgraded for £250 or less, except for Bosch, Kalkhoff and other expensive bikes.

We also offer the service of collecting the bike if the issue cannot be solved remotely.

Thanks,

David

so would i be correct in saying that a bike with only a years warranty need not be a reason to stay clear of it?

the reputation of the dealer and product playing a major part along with cost of spares if you end up forking out for your own.

obvoiusly the ansmann as quoted above should be easier to live with if problems crop up.

Yes spot on re your first sentence. A 1 year warranty is no reason to avoid a retailer.

The retailer's core obligations to you normally last much longer than the warranty. Although that always depends on what's reasonable given the cost and all other factors, so a battery can't be expected to last as long as the rest of the bike, for example. And if you paid very little, for example, then that impacts on the product lifetime you can reasonably expect. But always buy by credit card, so you can claim off the cc provider, in case the company goes into liquidation or refuses to help when they are obliged to.

Edited February 23, 201511 yr by jonathan75

that's correct. As jonathan75 has pointed out, you have right to have the problem sorted out free of charge many years after the guarantee has run out.There is a limitation to this though, the fault must be a manufacturing fault, like in car safety recalls.

Now the first sentence is pretty much correct (but subject to reasonableness which turns on cost of purchase and any/all relevant factors), and for a maximum of six years, which would be for a high- or mid-end bike.

I'm afraid the second sentence isn't correct. There is no restriction on the kind of fault. The item must simply be reasonably durable and fit for purpose. Remember that the manufacturer is out of the picture (except for any warranty promises they've made, and their self-interested desire not to get sued for injuring people with unsafe goods like you say, and any plain bodges in manufacturing they choose to sort, but these are all relatively unimportant in most consumers' actual purchases, and the latter isn't enforceable against the manufacturer usually). The big promise which affects you and which you've paid for, and which is likely to come up as an issue with lots of things you buy, is the one by the retailer who's promised to see you right, with whom you have the contract for durable and fit-for-purpose goods for up to six years max. AND actually the credit card provider, who has to step in and see you right if all else fails.

Edited February 23, 201511 yr by jonathan75

I disagree with you there Jon. This is a misunderstanding of the law. The statutory rights protect the customers from hidden manufacturing problems, that they can't see during normal use, until the thing breaks. It does not protect the customers against wear and tear. Take a halogen light bulb. You expect 2000 hours of use on average. Do you get new bulbs for the ones that blew before 2000 hours? no, not after a few years. That is because the 2000 hours is an average. If the light bulb lasts more than a year, it is deemed not to have manufacturing defects unless the same batch all die at about the same time.

The same logic applies for cars, your engine may last 20 years or may not. You only get so many years guaranteed service.

I disagree with you there Jon. This is a misunderstanding of the law. The statutory rights protect the customers from hidden manufacturing problems, that they can't see during normal use, until the thing breaks. It does not protect the customers against wear and tear. Take a halogen light bulb. You expect 2000 hours of use on average. Do you get new bulbs for the ones that blew before 2000 hours? no, not after a few years. That is because the 2000 hours is an average. If the light bulb lasts more than a year, it is deemed not to have manufacturing defects unless the same batch all die at about the same time.

 

The same logic applies for cars, your engine may last 20 years or may not. You only get so many years guaranteed service.

Thanks for your reply, I don’t really understand what you mean by statutory rights protecting customers against invisible faults until the thing breaks. As for wear and tear, that’s a very interesting grey area and I don’t really understand what you mean there either. Same with the lightbulbs example, I don’t get it. Same with your car example. There’s a lot of common sense in what you’re saying, some of which is in effect unwritten law which we’d all recognised as fair (i.e. fair wear and tear of certain consumable parts and not others, and abuse of the goods all being excluded from a s 14 SOGA 1979 contractual requirement for goods to be reasonably durable). I should come clean - I'm a full-time law student, and have a particular and longstanding interest in consumer law. But I still defer to common sense when I think it's right. I think some of yours is and some isn't. But as I don't get what you're saying I can't really say for sure. Sorry. I could just give you chapter and verse but would prefer to hear what you think.

Edited February 24, 201511 yr by jonathan75

this document sums up pretty well the points I tried to make.

www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn02239.pdf

The law states that a consumer can approach a retailer with a claim about a good they have purchased for up to six years from the date of sale (or five years after the discovery of the problem in Scotland). This does not mean that every good sold has to last six years; it is simply the legal cut off point for bringing a contractual claim. A consumer cannot hold a retailer responsible for fair ‘wear and tear’.

what is fair is for the Court to decide on a case by case basis.

SGA does not give the consumer 6 years guarantee, only the right to redress for hidden faults that could not be seen on inspection. Otherwise all the extended warranty sellers are going to be sued for misselling.

E-bikes require maintenance. A bike that is not maintained regularly or parked in the rain or used for commuting will wear out more quickly than one that is kept indoors, well greased and ridden only 10 miles a week.

My view is that the guarantee period is a kind of self assessment of what the seller expects as the length of trouble free service with minimal maintenance. What would be useful to consumers is some estimates from the suppliers on items that do not require maintenance like 'our battery will do 700 charges' or 'our motor will do 10,000 miles between service' or 'our frame is guaranteed for life' so that you can simply ask for redress if these promises are not kept. The cost to the sellers is minimal, the value to their customers is peace of mind.

Edited February 25, 201511 yr by trex

I notice that some sellers like the Apple Store for instance, now make a point of explaining the six year period in which a claim for faulty goods can be brought, and pointing out that their warranties do not affect that. But in practice a claim for goods not being of marketable quality after several years of use is not so straight forward as going to a service department and saying that you have a problem that you want fixed under an agreed warranty period.

Depending on the goodwill of the seller, and his understanding of the law, and whether the fault could reasonably be seen as fair wear and tear or a manufacturing fault. You might get satisfaction, or you might have to try your luck in a small claims court to get it.

Several years ago I had a problem like this with a Samsung TV. One of the first LCD TVs which were quite expensive at the time. It had several faults and was repaired a two or three occasions in the warranty period, finally packing up with one of the same faults as it always had couple of months after the warranty ran out. The service department said it was out of warranty and that was that. The customer relations said the same. When I mentioned the sale of goods act they either didn’t know of it or didn’t care. I was not going to take this shoddy service lying down so I contacted Trading Standards, and wrote to Samsung’s CEO’s office and to their legal department pointing out the relevant parts of the act and telling them I would sue them if I didn’t get satisfaction. I never did get it repaired but they did finally give me a hard drive TV recorder DVD player as compensation. So in practise there was, and probably still is, no easy pathway under the act to get faulty goods repaired. Trading Standards will advise you but will not act for you, and you are on your own bringing a case.

There have been cases with higher value items like new cars where action against manufactures under the act has taken over the complainant’s life like Jarndyce V Jarndyce.

This thread looks a bit to me like a guide how to catch a trader and what tricks to use to get them to repair faulty items even with expired warranty

With these 6 years it is true that we as a manufacturers have a liability to take care of our products but as Trex pointed out its only in certain circumstances i.e say battery recall or failing brakes on bikes due to manufacturing fault. I think a little bit misinterpreted by some members here that we have to fix all things even when warranty has expired. That is not a case really. Warranty is a period in which manufacturer is obliged to repair anything that goes wrong due to manufacturing fault. If you motor's gears are gone after 3 years due to normal wear or your controller's fets burnt you can't expect manufacturer to replace them free of charge because they simply aren't designed to last that long.

IMHO being a manufacturer but also a business law graduate knowing the law quite well, I would rather encourage anyone that feels gutted by product failed after warranty expired to come to the trader,talk nicely (as Colin KTM said, bringing some doughnuts and smile) rather then quote paragraphs from Sale of Good Act and Trading Standards. Trust me this will do you a lot better then taking a threatening way.

At the end of the day we are here to make a living but also to create a positive relations with customers and certainly not to argue. I have personally helped several times customers that warranty was already gone without charging a penny but that was all down to those customers attitude they had towards us and the problem.

Reading the last two posts was inspiring and I agree on the whole with the points that you both brought up.

One of the things that i've observed in general, in the past few decades, is that most manufactures will try and absolve themselves of any responsibilities to their manufacturing or design processes, outside of the warranty agreement you agreed to (put up with) when you bought your product.

Many will try and make excuses within the period of that agreed warranty as to why it's actually your fault and not theirs if something unexpected goes wrong. And some will just respect the agreement they had with you in the first place and fix stuff when it breaks, as long as you haven't misused it.

As far as Apple products are concerned, I have a lot of them at home and have had a love and hate relationship with the company over the years (mostly love ). However, I will say that their efforts when you are within their warranty period are more than satisfactory and even when you're a month or so over the warranty then there's a chance they'll cover you anyway, if there's a flag up on an issue with that product itself.

I suppose my point, and question is that, is there a relationship with the higher/mid end of the market and the support you get when issues arise, versus the lower end of the market, post sale?

Edited February 25, 201511 yr by SteveRuss

s there a relationship with the higher/mid end of the market and the support you get when issues arise, versus the lower end of the market, post sale?

Yes, because there's more profit in a higher end bike the retailer/maker can afford to be more generous.

This will impact particularly on those close 'warranty or not' calls, making them more likely to go in the customer's favour.