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GIANT denies warranty on obvious manufacturing defect for 2014 Defy Advanced 1

22K views 125 replies 36 participants last post by  Paul H 
#1 · (Edited)
GIANT denies warranty claim Defy Advanced 1 frame

I was replacing a shifter cable on my 2014 Giant Defy Advanced 1 (MSRP $3200) and flipped the bike over to see what was going on because the cable was stuck. Shockingly, I found a crack on the crank side coming out of the corner of the cable guide cutout. I purchased the bike December 2015 and it has ~5000 miles of riding on it (3600 in the last year).

Because there is absolutely no damage on the frame anywhere and the bike has never been in any accident I figured this would be a no brainer warranty claim and took the bike to my local bike store. Within no time, Giant's rep claimed I crashed the bike and offered me ~15% off of a new Giant bike.

I brought the frame to a local company that performs composites failure analysis. They said that the cable cut out created a stress riser in the corner resulting in a fatigue failure due most likely to micro porosity. They laughed at the idea that the damage was due to an accident. They also said they are sure Giant has seen this failure mode before on this design because the cutout was poorly designed from a stress perspective.

Bottom line: Giant's "Lifetime Warranty" is just marketing BS. Avoid on your next purchase.


Iron Metal Black-and-white Steel Silver
 
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#7 ·
Wow, I'm shocked they'd deny that.

I'd ask the dealer you bought the bike from to push back on their warranty rep. There aren't any signs of impact there, and you'd have to work pretty hard to crash in a way that just hit that spot that is pretty well protected by the chainring, and nothing else.

Did you buy the bike from an authorized Giant dealer?
 
#11 ·
And there we go again.
It could be a manufacturing defect, but then, perhaps, it isn't.

I think the best one can do is send a picture to Giant. They have massive experience in checking damaged frames. After all, they have massive experience building frames. They even build Trek frames.

By looking at the picture, Giant will know immediately if it's manufacturing defect. Just like Trek, I suppose. Case closed.
 
#12 ·
A rock strike from underneath? Probably not, but not impossible.
 
#13 ·
I guess it all depends on which individual is reviewing the warranty claim. You would want to escalate it with Giant.

I have the Defy Advanced Pro 0 with DI2. I was travelling and when assembling my bike at the hotel, I could not get the battery out of the seat tube to reconnect it as it had slid up into the seat post. While trying to get it out, I launched it into the floor and it exploded. Gravity....

Giant warrantied it at 50% for the cost of the part, and covered the labor. I was honest, and it was clearly my fault.

From Giants perspective, it's good will, and a small price to pay for brand loyalty.

If you escalate and be courteous, you will hopefully get the result you want.

What I cannot stress enough, do not threaten them with a law suit, the moment you do that, they will more than likely end conversations with you, and pass it off to their lawyers. This is an absolute last resort once all other avenues have been tried.
 
#18 ·
Unreal, not another one! Dam#, Paul H, I feel for you. Good thing you didn't keep riding that, or other cracks, from stressing too much at that junction, might have happened at other locations. As carbon becomes more prevalent, finally people will start realizing what "crack propagation" truly means. Countless hours/weeks argument over this inside a large aircraft manufacturer, my head hurts thinking about it.

I hope Giant steps up.....just like for the other poster I hope Trek steps up (only difference with the Trek poster was he never caught the beginning of the crack in the stay, which reached the point of a 'Cat Failure', which then took out other areas in the worst way possible).

Man, you all wonder why people---specifically those who either know and/or who have worked with carbon---still express hesitation when dealing with carbon frames. Yes, advances have been made, but nowhere near what needs to be done. You simply do not see this type of thing, ever, in steel and ti and even aluminum framing, for any industry. We never saw it. But implementing carbon these past 6-7 years? See it all the time now. And it is scary.
 
#22 · (Edited)
You simply do not see this type of thing, ever, in steel and ti and even aluminum framing, for any industry. We never saw it. But implementing carbon these past 6-7 years? See it all the time now. And it is scary.
What a load of bull.
Try using the google. There's thousands of photos of cracked/broken Ti, Steel, & Aluminum bikes.


For any industry huh? :rolleyes:
You never heard of cracks in aluminum airplane structures? And now they're making airplanes from carbon fiber. ZOMG!
 
#23 ·
LOL, yep, keep the RBR ad-dollars floweth strongest. That cannot be messed with:cryin:

You're comparing apples and oranges, and I'd like to think you smart enough to know the difference between different material junction points versus a singular material in-and-of-itself failing.

An even bigger :rolleyes: back atch ya (though me thinks you playeth cat & nouse defender too much and thus know better)
 
#20 ·
"You simply do not see this type of thing, ever, in steel and ti and even aluminum framing, for any industry."

I am sorry, but this is not true. I have seen steel and aluminum bikes with stress cracks that propagated from various locations. I have seen steel bikes with cracks starting at a water bottle mount even, though more often at a weld. I had a friend who went through three steel Viner frames (Columbus SL/SP tubing) in the early 80s, all of which broke at the rear dropout.

Whenever you attempt to make an ultra-light bicycle frame you are risking the possibility of stress failure. It is possible to make steel, aluminum, ti and carbon frames that will not break - but they will be considerably heavier than the risky frames on the market and so will not sell as well.
 
#24 ·
Not 1-3 or 4 year old frames.

Couch it all how you might want it.

But it simply is not true.

This stuff is happening on basically new carbon lain material.

For other material. No. Unless you're talking 10 to 20 to 30 year old frames.


It's like Trump's little world here, only applied to bicycles. At least Donald paid out, though, lol.
 
#21 ·
doesn't even have to be a 'manufacturing defect' it could be an engineering defect too. but you'd only know if you had it expertly analyzed. Trouble is where can you hire a true expert qualified to do such analysis? I only know of Luescher, on the other side of the World, and even then I as a consumer don't know how authentic his credentials are.

the bike makers are in the catbird seat. they supposedly have the experts and the game play on their side. They may also have a prejudice against all riders who file complaints, because sometimes the riders lie about it. We as non experts can never really know if the warranty is a marketing ploy or if it is real. And these things are too low dollar to be litigating over, unless someone gets seriously injured.
 
#27 ·
I am a mechanical engineering and have personally worked numerous structural failure analysis investigations in the satellite industry. Some of them were composite failures. In those efforts I have worked with some of the top composite experts in the country. When I showed them the frame said it was an obvious design weakness couple with a manufacturing defect.
 
#30 ·
I was replacing a shifter cable on my 2014 Giant Defy Advanced 1 (MSRP $3200) and flipped the bike over to see what was going on because the cable was stuck. Shockingly, I found a crack on the crank side coming out of the corner of the cable guide cutout. I purchased the bike December 2015 and it has ~5000 miles of riding on it (3600 in the last year).


View attachment 322537
First thing, maybe take a better picture. I would advise you to remove the 2 cables and plastic BB insert, so you can inspect and show via pictures the damage better. Also gently wash the area to remove dirt without causing any further abrasion.

The dirt or whatever looks like some serious underside abrasion, which is likely not helping you. That's not normal on road bikes, at least not on mine.
 
#35 ·
First thing, maybe take a better picture. I would advise you to remove the 2 cables and plastic BB insert, so you can inspect and show via pictures the damage better. Also gently wash the area to remove dirt without causing any further abrasion.

The dirt or whatever looks like some serious underside abrasion, which is likely not helping you. That's not normal on road bikes, at least not on mine.
What? Looks to me like it's been ridden in the rain and not cleaned, and also over lubed but that's not abrasion.
 
#34 ·
BTW: the joke "Crack 'n' Fail" has a definite truth to it. Cannondale is the only bicycle manufacturer required by the CPSC to place a sticker on their frames warning the consumer to regularly inspect the frame for cracks. This happened in the mid-90s, but I have seen that sticker on recent Cannondale bikes.
 
#41 · (Edited)
aclinjury said:
I'd be looking to take the LBS where I got the frame from to small claims court. It is not too hard to show a reasonable preponderance of evidence to the judge as to why a frame would fail.
That is key. Civil court is not "beyond a reasonable doubt". You just need to convince a judge that there's a 51% chance you're correct.
If you can get a couple independent sources to say that it wasn't user damage, you're likely to win. The manufacturers claim is going to be biased.
Small claims costs around $50-$75 and a day off work. You don't have much to lose.

I'd be looking to take the LBS where I got the frame from to small claims court.
I'm not sure if they're who you'd sue, or Giant. Giant is the one making the warranty. I don't know if the LBS has liability.
I would think suing Giant would be a better option. They're going to incur a lot of expense flying someone in to argue the case. Pressuring them to settle.
 
#52 · (Edited)
That is key. Civil court is not "beyond a reasonable doubt". You just need to convince a judge that there's a 51% chance you're correct.
If you can get a couple independent sources to say that it wasn't user damage, you're likely to win. The manufacturers claim is going to be biased.
Small claims costs around $50-$75 and a day off work. You don't have much to lose.

I'm not sure if they're who you'd sue, or Giant. Giant is the one making the warranty. I don't know if the LBS has liability.
I would think suing Giant would be a better option. They're going to incur a lot of expense flying someone in to argue the case. Pressuring them to settle.
In a big metro, you can just file a small claims online. For expert evidence, I'd get a local carbon repair shop to write up an affidavit what they think caused the damage, probably need to pay them some money for this, and based on that go from there to see if you'd stand a chance in court.

I think you could sue Giant too if Giant is sold in the same county where the Court has jurisdiction. It's gonna cost a day's worth of work (maybe good time to use a floating vacation), some efiling fee, and some expert evaluation fee. I know if it where me, and I'm convinced it's not my fault, and if I can get a local carbon repair shop to evaluate and determine it's not my fault in an affidavit, then I'd take it to small claims and let the judge decide

on a related note, i've had to use a local carbon repair shop to write me an affidavit saying that my damaged (not visibly broken) carbon frame, that was involved in an accident with a car, couldn't be safely repaired, and that damage may already happened even if not visible to the eyes, and thus this would put the frame at risk of failing earlier than otherwise. This affidavit alone got the insurance co. of the driver to pay for a new bike (just over 10k), when initially the insurance co. suggested that they would pay for me to repair it (and no way I' was going to want to accept my 10k bike being repaired!). I also reckon for a car insurance co., 10k is chump change and they are not going to think too hard especially if you can get some expert evidence to support your claim. It's really a matter of "how hard do you want to fight it"
 
#46 ·
"The issue relying on the manufacturer to evaluate the failure presents a big conflict of interest. It is of VERY little interest for them to warrant a frame."

Actually, it is in the manufacturer's interest to warrant the frame so as to avoid a public relations nightmare. In general, most manufacturers bend over backwards to make the customer happy, as the cost of a new frame is minimal compared to the cost of bad publicity.

In the five years I ran the warranty department at Klein (mid-90s) we were taken to small claims court once. In those days, we required any warranty claim to be shipped to us for our engineers to inspect. This was an obviously crashed mountain bike (downtube and head tube both crumpled before the head tube tore off) but the customer sued us in state court (NH, IIRC) under a law that requires a product to be "suitable for the use for which it is sold". We sent the local sales rep to court, armed with the engineer's inspection report. The judge ruled in our favor as the plaintiff admitted that he had "ridden the bike hard for four or five years" before it broke. The judges decision indicated that he felt that the evidence showed that the bike was suitable for the use for which it had been sold.
 
#55 ·
I think Trek is a better manufacturer and they also provide better service to their customers. I am sure their not perfect, but I have owned a bunch of trek bikes over the years including a light postal frame bike and I never had an issue, period.
 
#92 ·
Update

After having the frame for 10 days, Giant is now saying that indeed the frame was not crashed or abused and they will honor the warranty.

Funny thing though, when I first brought it in I explained the bike was a gift and I did not have any paperwork. But it was registered immediately after receipt on their website. It seems, that now this means no warranty after all. Which is fine if that is their policy, but why not say it up front before wasting all of my time.

I wish they had just said that up front without the "it was crashed" excuse. They are also being super slow to return the frame. When all is said and done, they will have wasted ~3 weeks of my time and effort driving to and from their local dealer (which is not so local).

I am going to get the frame repaired and purchase a Canyon in the near future. I just don't think I want to ride anything made by Giant anymore.
 
#93 ·
After having the frame for 10 days, Giant is now saying that indeed the frame was not crashed or abused and they will honor the warranty.

Funny thing though, when I first brought it in I explained the bike was a gift and I did not have any paperwork. But it was registered immediately after receipt on their website. It seems, that now this means no warranty after all. Which is fine if that is their policy, but why not say it up front before wasting all of my time.

I wish they had just said that up front without the "it was crashed" excuse. They are also being super slow to return the frame. When all is said and done, they will have wasted ~3 weeks of my time and effort driving to and from their local dealer (which is not so local).

I am going to get the frame repaired and purchase a Canyon in the near future. I just don't think I want to ride anything made by Giant anymore.
wait.....




















what?
 
#94 ·
OK, so it "would've" been a valid warranty claim but they won't honor it since you're not the original purchaser?
If that's the case, you're right, they could've let you known up front.
 
#96 ·
OP
I was replacing a shifter cable on my 2014 Giant Defy Advanced 1 I purchased the bike December 2015 and it has ~5000 miles of riding on it (3600 in the last year).
Funny thing though, when I first brought it in I explained the bike was a gift and I did not have any paperwork. But it was registered immediately after receipt on their website.

So did you purchase the frame or did someone else?

That's normal but still, why the hell didn't they say that before being dicks about the frame?

I couldn't find the receipts for my 4 year old bike gear either but a credit card payment is still proof of purchase. Can you get the original purchaser (you?) to find a bank statement? I'd keep looking for some proof of purchase. Good luck
 
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