[UN-RESOLVED, Again!] Specialized "Rider - I Don't Care" Support is non-existent, what is YOUR experience? (poll) (NEW SYSTEM IN PLACE 4-21-22)

Does Specialized Rider Care answer YOUR calls?

  • Total voters
    19
mattie_b said:
My first attempt to contact Rider Care was not positive. I am interested in purchasing a 2nd battery for my Vado 5.0 IGH. My LBS, who I had issues with during the Specialized Delivery of the bike, says they can't order spare batteries. They recommended I contact Specialized directly. The battery is not listed on the site, so I sent Rider Care an email.

The email was sent seven days ago and I have yet to receive a reply.

I am 100% happy with the bike. But my first experience with dealing with Rider Care was a let down. My LBS, which is the only Specialized Delivery shop in my area, is not all that great either.....my issues have been minor, but makes me concerned on how future support will be for major issues.

I do plan on contacting a few other LBS that carry Specialized (along with other brands) to see if I can get better support.
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I had similar experiences up to yesterday....and from today's new experience, it was a different ballgame.
Try giving them a call again today and see if they are more responsive. It would be helpful to all to validate the "new and improved" changes that are supposedly in place.
 
gpburdell said:
Perhaps, but I've spoken to two LBS here regarding lead time to order a Vado through them.

First store says they cannot order any Specialized bikes, and are not part of the click-to-collect program, because they didn't wish to agree to the terms of SBC's new model. Only way I would be able to buy a Vado through them is wait for SBC to happen to send them one...

Other LBS is part of the click-to-collect program, but also says they won't take orders due to being unable to provide an estimated delivery.

Couple others I can talk to but it's looking like the only way is wait for what I want to show up in stock on the website. I'd rather give an LBS the full commission, and save the $50 destination fee the website charges, but thats seems unlikely.
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Theyre squeezing the LBS for whatever reason, and I think it will be to their detriment when they are met with endless amounts of returns and halfworking bikes.
 
mattie_b said:
My first attempt to contact Rider Care was not positive. I am interested in purchasing a 2nd battery for my Vado 5.0 IGH. My LBS, who I had issues with during the Specialized Delivery of the bike, says they can't order spare batteries. They recommended I contact Specialized directly. The battery is not listed on the site, so I sent Rider Care an email.

The email was sent seven days ago and I have yet to receive a reply.

I am 100% happy with the bike. But my first experience with dealing with Rider Care was a let down. My LBS, which is the only Specialized Delivery shop in my area, is not all that great either.....my issues have been minor, but makes me concerned on how future support will be for major issues.

I do plan on contacting a few other LBS that carry Specialized (along with other brands) to see if I can get better support.
Click to expand...
This is the first year of a new model design and battery capacity. My guess is they won’t sell extra until more bikes are out due to the global supply chain shortages. They’d rather sell a bike than a battery. Be patient.
 
Gee_Whiz said:
Theyre squeezing the LBS for whatever reason, and I think it will be to their detriment when they are met with endless amounts of returns and halfworking bikes.
Click to expand...

Hopefully they will find a balance, providing both customer convenience and LBS prosperity.

Frankly if it weren't for Bosch motors being such a closed system, I'd be looking much more closely at the Trek and Gazelle and Cannondale options offered at a couple of local shops I've had good experiences with.
 
Onimaru said:
This is the first year of a new model design and battery capacity. My guess is they won’t sell extra until more bikes are out due to the global supply chain shortages. They’d rather sell a bike than a battery. Be patient.
Click to expand...
That seems to be right.
Regarding the third battery (and a battery cover) for the older Vado, I needed to wait for a relatively short time. I have been waiting for a couple of months for extra SL Range Extenders.

Besides, I do not think you can order any battery online because of the strict transportation rules for Li-Ion batteries. I have got all my spare batteries (and I own plenty of them) by an LBS order.
 
Stefan Mikes said:
That seems to be right.
Regarding the third battery (and a battery cover) for the older Vado, I needed to wait for a relatively short time. I have been waiting for a couple of months for extra SL Range Extenders.
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I had to wait months for a rack stay from Trek, ordered thru my LBS. No complaint, they told me in December it’d be March or April. They were right, picked them up this week.


Stefan Mikes said:
Besides, I do not think you can order any battery online because of the strict transportation rules for Li-Ion batteries. I have got all my spare batteries (and I own plenty of them) by an LBS order.
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SBC manages to arrange for online order shipping of complete bikes, with their batteries, to an LBS for pickup.

There’s no logistical reason they can’t do the same for batteries.

Edit - in the US that is, where UPS and FEDEX and myriad
LTL carriers have dedicated ground shipping capabilities for such things. Elsewhere in the world may be different, though I’d be surprised if it were. It’s a problem already solved for shipping ebikes.
 
Stefan Mikes said:
That seems to be right.
Regarding the third battery (and a battery cover) for the older Vado, I needed to wait for a relatively short time. I have been waiting for a couple of months for extra SL Range Extenders.

Besides, I do not think you can order any battery online because of the strict transportation rules for Li-Ion batteries. I have got all my spare batteries (and I own plenty of them) by an LBS order.
Click to expand...
I think GP is right. I priced out spares when I was looking at last gen bikes and in the US, we could order them off the Specialized site. May be an EU restriction?
 
GuruUno said:
I had similar experiences up to yesterday....and from today's new experience, it was a different ballgame.
Try giving them a call again today and see if they are more responsive. It would be helpful to all to validate the "new and improved" changes that are supposedly in place.
Click to expand...
Supposedly. :)
 
Creos in Size Small in any version are rare in Ontario (Canada) so I jumped at the chance to buy an E5 from a dealer 5 hours distant, in late March 2022. I registered my bike with Specialized and received an email that I had to take it to a dealer for a firmware update. The closest local LBS wasn't sure if they should charge me or not for this service. I contacted Spec. Canada and they were very prompt in replying to my email, but stated that they have no control over the dealer's charging for this and offered to pay if they did. I can sympathize with my local dealer wanting to charge for the tech's time, as some other shop got the markup on the bike sale. However, I pointed out that this is similar to an auto recall. Ford or GMC doesn't charge the customer for the time or parts involved. Instead, they reimburse the dealer.
 
I agree with your edit Guru. Specialized support is just non-existent. I haven't been able to get the alarm feature to work on my new Vado 5.0 IGH. LBS that I had it delivered to doesn't know anything about the feature. I have tried everything to get it working but am wondering if the alarm just wasn't included on my bike. I have repeatedly reached out to Rider Care over the course of 3 weeks (emails and calls) and have gotten 0 response. At this point I'm just giving up on using the alarm.

I absolutely LOVE my bike and have been using it daily to tow my son in a trailer to and from daycare as well as run errands around town. Stefan was kind enough to guide me to a full-power Vado instead of the SL, and the automatic shifting is amazing for my use case. But the support experience is super frustrating and unacceptable for a product with such a high price.
 
I had a problem with my Specialized bike out of the box. The bike shop I bought the bike from mucked me about for 3 weeks. I phoned Specialized and they took care of everything, had my bike booked into a reputable bike shop, parts shipped out and fixed within 3 days of speaking with them.
Fwiw it was the TCD-w was faulty
 
Sagas like this make me happy I work on my own bikes, build them myself etc. So much drama I don't have to worry about.
 
I've not felt the enthusiasm for the "Rider Care" that others may have had.
I find that there are items that need to be addressed via feedback from the people who purchase the Specialized brand, but who is to know if anything really happens, given my past experiences.
Like I said before, I fully believe in Specialized, but I think their support sucks.
Rider Care
 
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