cold hard truth

I’m frustrated. Enough that I asked Mike last night if there was a Lemon Law for bikes. Ever since ordering the PX bikes it has seemed like a fairly big hassle. Getting all the parts took a month (to the day) longer than we were told when we gave a credit card number, and that set me off on a bad foot.

Some issues to date:

• a small scratch on the frame, and no resolution with PX
• not getting the bolt for my cranks with the bike, and then not actually getting it until a month from the original expected bike arrival date (although we emailed them about it immediately – they kept saying they’d ship it with Mike’s cranks).
• Mike picked cranks not in stock, being told it would be no problem to get them. Not only was it hard to get them, it was hard to even get info about when they might be available or how much longer we’d have to wait. I kept being told “I’ll look at it today and get back to you” and then having to call again later. I soon gave up calling and Mike started, and was able to get somewhat better results. This didn’t help my company impression as I felt you have to be male to get anything done.
• very very inaccurate time estimates on everything, and never getting updates on delays
• missing pieces when the bikes finally did ship: a crank bolt, tubes, brake cables, only one set of rim tape when we’d gotten 2 bikes (turns out I wish they forgot all of it as the strips that came with the wheels do NOT stay in place and are being replaced anyways after 2 flats as a result).

So this is my post of honesty (I made it on their forum as well). I waited since we are on their Tyros team, but right now Mike and I are not sure if we will stay on the Tyros team. Although we love the people we’ve met through the forum, we really are not sure right now if we’d recommend the company. Talking last night, it seems like all we’d say is that they are great bikes and ride really well, and that the company is very helpful on figuring out the size you need and getting your order made. But that you need to be ready for a much longer delay in getting the bike than you are told, and be ready to do a lot of leg work on your own to get all the pieces together (despite ordering a full bike kit).

The other team members and folks are fun people… that is part of why it has taken me a long time to even post about this. But at the same time, it’s been about a month since our last contact with PX where we expressed that we still weren’t very happy (esp with the delays in time and the scratch). I feel we’ve given them time to address our concerns, but nothing has happened.

I think my main complaint would be the customer service: not getting called back after PX said they’d check on something and let me know. I actually gave up on calling them as I felt I was bugging them (when I just wanted to know what was up with the components we were missing) and Mike ended up taking over calling since he has more patience than I do for what I consider professional incompetence. And that is sad since the great things we had heard was one of the 2 main reasons we picked PX bikes. At this point I feel they no longer care about our concerns, and Mike has quit telling me to be patient and coming up with excuses for them.

So yes, I love the bike and how it rides (when it makes it through a ride — in 4 rides I’ve had 2 interrupted by flats caused by the wheels and one by a brake issue). But I’m less than impressed with our contact with the company, and I’m disappointed in the number of hurdles and the lack of response from PX on them.