No customer service at Alpkit / Sonder

[Deleted member 91092]

Your attitude was wrong from your very first post not in response to anyone with the comment about alpkit response to your warranty claim as being illegal. The very wording you quoted and highlighted imho undermined your argument.

You misread. At that time, after two weeks asking, there was no response from Alpkit.
"I can only conclude [...]" means that I make an hypothesis, not a statement. I should have ended by "which would be illegal" to make it more clear it was an hypothesis.
The first 5 reactions to my post were not shocked by my wording. Then milkfloat and cougie uk were the first to deviate the discussion with non-sense arguments.

 

[Jody]

The only posts you have made on this forum in the 3 years you've been here are to bad mouth Alpkit.

You have contributed nothing.

Maybe a flounce is ideal in this circumstance?

 

[HobbesOnTour]

@Jerome
You keep saying you're leaving but you're still here. Can I claim under warranty for all the distress you're causing?

@Moderators I think the thread should stay. Any reasonable observer can quickly establish the veracity or otherwise of the OP's complaints and like I said, I think the supplier comes out of it pretty well. Perhaps redacting the name of the employee would be kind, though.

A cracked rim in a wheel (within the warrantee period) that hasn’t been knocked out of true and/or poorly trued is a failure by the wheelbuilder. Either the spokes were improperly tensioned to start with or the rim was under-specified for the intended use.

My first thought was over-tensioned spokes.
Give that you're writing with more authority on the subject than I could muster is it likely that the problem (and I believe it's 10 spokes) would have presented earlier if there was something fundamentally flawed with the wheel?
It seems unfair to me that everything was fine for 17,000 km and then cracks appear so the supplier is at fault. A half price wheelset seems very fair, even generous under the circumstances.
Also, any idea what kind of time frame or mileage is required for 9 cracks to appear after the first one?

Thanks.


I had some sympathy for the OP but the attitude killed it. Naming and describing an employee as crazy on a public forum is shocking behaviour not to mention the accusations of illegal activity.

People like the OP make it more difficult for people like me to get decent service.
But what the feck do I know? I probably don't even have a bike😊

 

[cougie uk]

Nonsense arguments ?

You had the bike for 3 years and thousands of miles before you had the wheel issue.

Nothing lasts forever. Move on mon ami !

 

[Randomnerd]

Poor flounce. 2/10. Must try harder.

 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

My first thought was over-tensioned spokes.
Give that you're writing with more authority on the subject than I could muster is it likely that the problem (and I believe it's 10 spokes) would have presented earlier if there was something fundamentally flawed with the wheel?
It seems unfair to me that everything was fine for 17,000 km and then cracks appear so the supplier is at fault. A half price wheelset seems very fair, even generous under the circumstances.
Also, any idea what kind of time frame or mileage is required for 9 cracks to appear after the first one?

Thanks.

It isn’t surprising that subsequent cracks show up quickly after the first crack, if the cracking is the result of overtensioning/ too light a rim/ poor selection of aluminium alloy. Every spoke hole is being similarly overstressed so they should all crack around the same time. As soon as one crack appears, some stress is redistributed to adjacent spokes, increasing the chance they will crack.

Some alloys are susceptible to stress corrosion cracking or corrosion fatigue cracking. If a wheel manufacturer has a long warranty period, you want to avoid those alloys or use more material or reduce the applied stress to reduce the maximum stress in the rim and thus prevent crack initiation. It could be something as silly as a stress riser in the rim extrusion locally increasing stress around the spoke holes under spoke tension.

 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

If the wheels have a three year warranty and haven’t been damaged, they should either last three years without cracking or should be happily repaired or replaced (without additional owner cost) within those three years. Otherwise it isn’t a three year warranty that is being purchased with those wheels.

 

[vickster]

If the wheels have a three year warranty, they should either last three years or be happily repaired or replaced (without additional owner cost) within those three years.

Surely that depends on the terms of the warranty which the OP would have agreed to upon purchase

 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

What is a warranty worth if it doesn’t do that? We have already clarified that crash/ impact damage isn’t an issue. It is poor wheel-building or specifying. The warranty is for ‘defects in materials or workmanship’ for three years.

The answer is ‘the warranty is worth nothing’, to the customer. It is just meaningless marketing fluff.

 

[Time Waster]

What if the buyer tweaks his spokes affecting their strength and causing cracks in the wheel? If that happened within 3 years the retailer would still have to pay if you're right. If you're car warranty required servicing every 10k miles or year, whichever happens first, and you wait 25k miles or two years then legally your warranty is void surely? If three years fair use of the wheels on your new bike is 10k km and you did 12k then you perhaps that's another reason for the warranty not to be valid.

Either way a company that consistently gets cracked wheels would be known about. With alpkit I've not heard of that issue until this case and I'm a regular reader of various cycling forums and websites. FWIW I think the OP had had a good use of the bike and I think it's quite reasonable for the company to see the issue as use related unless shown to be otherwise by the claimant. I don't think he's done that so they offered a good will gesture which he's not accepted. As I'm said upthread the wording the OP quoted from the warranty doesn't mean they'll replace or refund no matter what within three years just that they stand by materials and workmanship. Cracks in and of themselves don't I think prove there were defects in materials or workmanship.

 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

The OP’s wheel was not knocked out of true or retrued, just cracked, so your strawman arguments don’t apply.

The ‘three year warranty’ was marketing bullshit because there is nothing about a mileage limit or weight limit. If the wheels are only good for two years’ riding, they should have a two year warranty or the company should accept that a few folk will ride reasonable distances within three years and fulfil their warranty.

For your information, my partner rides 12,000-22,000 miles per year. Only one rear wheel (different brand) cracked within the warranty period (twice). Replaced the wheel at no cost the first time and, the second time the rim cracked, they supplied a replacement rim at no cost and I rebuilt the wheel myself to their published tension spec (my choice rather than a replacement wheel). It hasn’t cracked in the years since, which proves the cracking was a wheel build problem in that instance.

 

[Time Waster]

We can never know what happened. If he had tweaked the wheel he hardly admit it. The only truth we have here is a guy comes onto this forum just long enough to slag a company off, present a one sided tale of bad service then when questioned flounce off in a huff! You really trust his heavily spun tale as the truth?

As to what is reasonable distance for their warranty will probably be in the small print somewhere. What you or your own own partner does on their wheels has no relevance. I think upthread there's a post about someone being happy with their bike from alpkit including the wheels built to a price no doubt.

My main point is this guy is a one thread whinger about a company that cannot defend itself online. Years reading cycling forums I've come across such people and they always get questioned, don't like it and flounce off. I for one don't believe him because so many people think highly of alpkit for what they provide often at reasonable prices. I've had nothing but excellent customer service from them. My experience makes me doubt his tale of woe. Believe it of you will.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

Having skimmed through this thread I would say Alpkit have been very accommodating with their offer. I had wheels crack round the spoke holes and it didn't occur to me to claim under warranty as I thought I'd had good use out of them.

 

[HobbesOnTour]

It isn’t surprising that subsequent cracks show up quickly after the first crack, if the cracking is the result of overtensioning/ too light a rim/ poor selection of aluminium alloy. Every spoke hole is being similarly overstressed so they should all crack around the same time. As soon as one crack appears, some stress is redistributed to adjacent spokes, increasing the chance they will crack.

Some alloys are susceptible to stress corrosion cracking or corrosion fatigue cracking. If a wheel manufacturer has a long warranty period, you want to avoid those alloys or use more material or reduce the applied stress to reduce the maximum stress in the rim and thus prevent crack initiation. It could be something as silly as a stress riser in the rim extrusion locally increasing stress around the spoke holes under spoke tension.

Thanks for the detailed answer. I imagined myself that the "spread" of the cracking would happen pretty quickly but I'm coming from a place where wheels are something of a mystery.

I'm of the opinion that the wheel lasted the guts of three years (the OP was stressed because it expired in the time between reporting the problem and the supplier getting back to them), 17000km and a fair whack of touring.
Personally, I'd have been very happy with a half price wheelset if I'd thought about pursuing the claim at all whereas you seem to have expected a new rim and spokes. Clearly you know how to build wheels but that leaves the rest of us fumbling

Thanks again for the detailed reply

 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

If there is a time-limited warranty, I expect it to be honoured during that time, regardless of distance ridden. If there is a distance-limited warranty, I expect that to be obvious.

The rest of you can do what you like but I will call out warranties that aren’t honoured by the companies offering them when put to the test.