Wanted to put this out there as a word of caution - Commencal is sheisty when it comes to honouring their warranty policy. Don't beleive it until you see it!
Here's the story: I'm trying to navigate my second warranty claim this year with Commencal. The first one wasn't an issue. In fact, I'd say that they did a very good job. This second time, not so much...
The bike is a 2022 Supreme DH 29/27. In July, I noticed cracks developing around the bottom bracket shell. I went through the online warranty submission process and had a new frame in-hand 8 days later. Pretty darn good. Continued riding until mid November. When doing my pre-season bike maintenance last month, I checked the BB shell area where the previous cracks developed. Lo-and-behold the identical cracks had developed again in just a few months of riding. "OK, no big deal, let's just do warranty again" I say to myself.
This time, there's a problem though. Commencal has recently released the new v5 model and they do not have any available v4 frames in my size... I thought that it was pretty strange that they have no spares for a bike that they are still selling and still would theoretically come attached with a 2 year warranty? (Watch out folks considering buying a new v4... It might not come with warranty!)
Anyways, they offer me an "upgrade crash replacement" of $1,453 to move up to the new v5. Given that I'm still under full warranty, I don't really like the option to give them more money just to have a safe, functioning bike. We go back an forth some more, and I end up giving them 3 options to make me happy:
1) a v5 frameset free of charge
2) a v4 frameset free of charge, or
3) a refund for full retail price on a v4 frame
They get back to me and say that Option #1 is not possible, but that an appropriate frameset could be sourced from Commencal USA. They also tell me that they could give me a refund for full retail price on the frame. Given that I'd broken two of these frames in one season, I figured I'd cut my losses and take the refund option. Why replace with the same thing only to have it break again? Anyways we come to an agreement for Commencal to refund me $2,800. I give them my banking info and they tell me to expect a refund with 14 business days.
Meanwhile, knowing that refund is coming I go about looking for a new frame. I find a Trek Session in my size at my LBS and most of the old build kits transfers over. PERFECT. I buy the frame.
14 business days go by with no refund. So I follow-up. Apparently my refund went to the wrong department, so it hadn't been processed yet. "OK no big deal, I 'll just wait a couple more days. A couple days goes by and get a strange email from Commencal... Apparently my refund needs special approval from top management in Andorra.... "OK, getting a bit nervous"... Then the next day the email comes - Flat out saying that while they recognize that they offered a refund, that they no longer can honour that agreement. My only options are a replacement v4 frame or to pay for a v5 upgrade.
Now on paper might not sound so bad, but doesn't take into account that I was promised a refund and was planning on using that money towards the Session. Now I'm left holding the bag for $2800 on the frame... If a refund wasn't in the cards, I definitely would not have bought the Trek. Moral of the story, be super super leary of warranty dealings with Commencal. They'll ignore some rules, make up others, and back out of agreements... Good bikes, the staff were OK to deal with through this process, but overall just a shitty company to deal with. In hindsight, I jumped the gun buying the Trek without my refund dollars in hand, but it's a total bummer that Commencal re-negged on our agreement and left me standing out in the cold...
Anyways, I guess this just a really long way to say:
"Hey! Does anyone want to buy a brand new Supreme XL 29/27 frameset?"
They don't have replacements because all their frames have cracked:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X0s95RbZR0
My guess on the refunds is that they were being pretty generous during the last year or two while the industry was rolling in the cash, but now that nobody is buying bikes anymore they have been told to save up as much as possible...
I say this as someone whose main bike is a 2018 commencal which I love, they are now massively overpriced and unreliable, completely destroying their image from a few years back, I worry they will have to do some massive corrections to stay in business.
Hmm not ideal but still fair and I would say they did their job as they offered you an equal replacement or an upgrade. The communication could be more more aligned internally and more straightforward however.
Moral or the story: Don't spend money you don't have.
Ugh. Promising something and then not delivering is shitty. There is no going around that.
he broke two of their frames in the same manner. It is not remotely uncommon for companies warranty teams to either issue full refunds or a better designed product in this case. they did so and then before actually paying him someone else in the company nixed what they told him they were going to do. I assume the large increase in price this past year is to reflect that actual cost required to meet their stated warranties with their current construction quality and the refusal to refund is because they’ve had enough warranty issues the past couple seasons it’s effecting their bottom line enough they are willing to sacrifice their reputation.
I can think of four instances where companies have gone above a stated warranty to make sure I was happy as a paying customer because their product didn’t live up to expectation. In each of those cases I was either given a refund or an upgraded product.
its a real shame cause Commencal seemed to be one of the only dtc brands really making customers consistently happy but it seems the pandemic has really effected their qc and they are struggling with how much they have grown.
I can unfortunately confirm this.
I had the Meta TR and the frame cracked at the main pivot (- which is common with these frames). Commencal disputed the warranty claim, stating that the crack was the result of improper use - which obviously was complete bulls*it. I don't ride that hard and the bike had never seen a bike park, dirt jumps or similar, just singletrail.
After they finally approved the warranty claim, it took them 6 weeks to ship me a replacement frame. The worst thing is that the replacement frame cracked aswell, in the exact same spot as the first frame, and they still had the nerve to dispute the warranty claim again!
I'll never buy a Commencal again and would recommend everyone to stay well clear of them.
Sounds to me like this is a good time to be sending a formal notice to Commencal's legal department requesting you get that refund within the next 14 days or you will be pursuing matters further.
Hopefully I won't have to go through warranty with my mine, but it will be my first and last experience with Commencal if things don't change. Their QC (even pre-pandemic) wasn't great, but their customer support was fine. I wouldn't be happy to be in your situation and I'd do like @alexlafontaine13 said as this isn't acceptable. It's sad to see a company like Commencal act like this (and I've heard and read more stories like that), especially after being so successful with sales, racing and raising their prices a lot in recent years. Good luck with this!
New frames are cheaper for companies than paying lawyers and I suspect once they put into writing and you accepted the offer of a refund, there is a certain legal precedence. In a copy of their warranty policy, the only limitation they put on honoring a warranty claim is that it can't exceed the cost of the complete bike. They say nothing about keeping it to just replacing with a frame.
Maybe ask nicely again and remind them that an offer was already accepted. Then sneak in the "IF this continues you'll have to get your lawyer involved".
What a bummer. I've only had one warranty issue on my Meta, and Commencal handled it perfectly. To be fair, it was an issue with the Guide brakes and got handled by SRAM, but my bike was technically out of warranty by the time I had the problem. They did all the legwork and get me new brakes.
Supreme 29/27 owner here - so far I have been fortunate with my frame with no notable issues yet. I did have a bum DHX2 right away and unlike the above post, my experience was 'you gotta send it back to fox' which was frustrating on a brand new bike in the middle of summer. Warranty service lead time back in '21 was in loooong. That left a bad taste in my mouth.
I hope the OP gets the refund he deserves and Commencal does the right thing across the board for everyone else with cracked Supreme's. I still want to trust them as a brand but the amount of these stories I've heard in the last 8mo's or so has me wondering if I'll get the V5 next year or go another way.
interesting on the meta TR and "improper use" claim. this is a video straight out of the commencal meta tr playlist - big drops to flat, trials maneuvers and rowdy riding. is that outside of their warranty?
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