Overheard a customer say their derailleur hanger was "bent from the factory" and I had to bite my tongue

Guy brought in a 2023 Trek Domane yesterday, complaining the shifting was off since he bought it. I put it on the stand and the hanger is clearly bent like 5 degrees. He says it came that way from the factory. I get that QC slips sometimes but I've worked on maybe 50 of these frames and never seen one bent fresh out the box. I checked the frame alignment too and it's straight. Told him I could straighten it for $15 but he insisted it's a warranty issue. Has anyone else run into customers blaming the factory for stuff that's obviously from a crash or just bad handling?

2 comments

2 Comments

brookep6216d ago

Hang on, is a 2023 Domane really a "new" bike at this point though? I mean, sure it's a recent year, but if he bought it new in the box a couple years later, that frameset's been sitting in a warehouse or on a shop floor getting bumped around. It's way more likely a shipping or display room accident than a factory bend, especially since you checked the frame itself. I've seen more "factory defects" that were actually just a pallet getting dropped at the shipping dock. He's probably just hoping for a free replacement instead of paying you the $15.

sam_wood6016d ago

Bent from the factory" sounds like a convenient excuse. 15 bucks to straighten it is nothing, guy's making a mountain out of a molehill.