Michael P.
SRAM: They just aren't that into you
I've finally had to accept that I am in a bad relationship with SRAM. I've been a loyal SRAM user for over a decade going so far as to making bike choices based on whether they were kitted w/ SRAM. We currently have 2 cyclocross bike, 3 gravel bikes, 1 road bike and 4 MTBs in our household all kitted with SRAM. When I've gotten bikes that where kitted with the competition I've stripped them down, sold the parts on eBay and had them rebuilt with SRAM. In retrospect it's unclear why I ever showed this kind of loyalty when they've never really shown they appreciated or even wanted that loyalty-- I've had three legitimate drive train / shifter related warranty claims in 10 years that SRAM rejected even though several different SRAM authorized dealers independently agreed they were legitimate warranty claims. The final straw came when this week when I got a double wammy: The brand new 30 Gold RL fork I purchased for a 2010 Noble MTB Restoration project proved to be defective out of the box. Rather than authorize my Local Bike Shop (and authorized SRAM / RockShox dealer) to fix it or send a new one SRAM agreed to warranty it only if we sent it back for servicing at the factory without any turn around time quote. That means best case my MTB is "in the shop" for 2 weeks while I wait for the fork to be returned. On top of that they sent a Recon instead of a 30 Gold RL remote lock-out and have basically ignored the exchange request. While it's true that they are living up to the letter of their warranty policy it's also true that their warranty policies are unfriendly to users. I guess I expected (wrongly) that SRAM valued brand loyalty and would be able to see the bigger picture and understand that experiences like this drive loyal customers like me to the competition.