An aftermarket product damaged my bike, who pays?

I installed a new mechanical product onto my bike today and in the course of a 1 hour ride my bike and drive were seriously scratched and deeply gouged by this item. I assume that despite it having damage also, I can return the original product that caused the problem, but what about my bike and my mid-drive? Is there any liability for secondary damage caused by a product that was unsuitable for use, such as visible cosmetic damage to my drive and bike as well as deeper gouges that may affect the integrity of my frame?

I will contact the vendor on Monday and see if there is any offer of assistance in repairing the damage caused by this item, but was wondering if others had found themselves in a similar situation and if they had any advice on how to proceed?

You installed it. You are responsible. There is your answer.

As your first post is vague, more details is needed to give a better answer.

Yes, more info is needed. Bottom line is, a vendor that sells a crap product is unlikely to pay for the damages that product caused. This is why it is important to know as much as you can about bikes and e-bikes. That way when you have a sketchy product you can tell it's bad BEFORE you put it on your bike. Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. :wink:

Teh Stork said:

You installed it. You are responsible. There is your answer.

As your first post is vague, more details is needed to give a better answer.

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Once I have contacted the vendor and given them time to respond I may post more information. I was just trying to find out my rights and obligations as an online buyer as well as the customs and practices of the industry.

Honestly I was quite surprised at just how badly my stuff was messed up by using this item as opposed to the OEM part, while not OCD about cosmetics, I still do take some pride in the way my things look......

Generally speaking, once you modify a bike, or install a kit, whatever happens to either of them is your deal.

If you don't like those terms, you buy a turn-key e-bike and hope the manufacturer stands behind their stuff.

If you install an aftermarket device, you are responsible for assuring that the device is working properly and won't cause damage to your bike. You're also responsible for assuring that there are no defects in the workmanship and that all parts are functioning properly. If there is a problem with the device, the vendor is responsible for replacing the device only. By operating the bike with the device installed, you are accepting that the device is functioning as intended. Any damage that results from the device's use is therefor your responsibility.

However, you might not be responsible if there was a design flaw which could not be detected during installation. Not just something you just missed seeing, but something that you wouldn't be able to detect at all, such as a crack in a part that was covered by paint.

If you do have a case, you need to file a law suit in the city of the companies' headquarters. If they happen to be located in China, that means taking a trip to china and entering a complaint with the Chinese courts. You can sue a foreign party in your own country, but the verdict isn't enforceable.

Thank you Mr. Skunk, that was very useful it's what I expected, I guess.

I don't understand why you won't post details now. If it's a bad product, then it serves the e-bike community here to let people know. You could be saving someone else from making the same mistake.

He has already clearly stated he is waiting to hear back from the vendor. Smashing an average product or vendor before getting a resolution or response would be pretty poor practise/a bit silly.

Probably an aftermarket BBSHD chainring or similar.

I don't think it's as simple as being made out in this thread. Generally if your property is damaged as a result of a part malfunctioning, I would still be looking for civil damages against the part supplier. The catch is that the damage is unlikely to be of sufficient value to justify going through the courts.... it's expensive and can have unpredictable outcomes...

A reasonable outcome with the vendor is your cheapest, quickest resolution. If they accept the part is faulty and a refund, I would then broach the topic of damage and compensation. If you don't ask, you can't expect anything. If the vendor denies and you don't want to take it further, name and shame at that point makes more sense.

Back when I was into ICE racecars, I once bought an aftermarket oil filter adapter plate to relocate the filter for needed clearance for the turbo's down-pipe. On the 3rd drive, the casting of the adapter ruptured while at high RPM's, the race engine lost oil pressure and was destroyed in couple seconds.

The manufacture said they would give me a 50% purchase credit towards buying another adapter (a $40 part vs the $5500 engine it destroyed).

That's actually a better offer than I've had from aftermarket clutch mfg's who's product exploded and transmission aftermarket shift-fork-assembly parts that broke destroying everything in the tranny who only replied with a "too bad so sad".

Aftermarket is the same liability as if you made it yourself from scratch, but paid to start your project with some potentially useful bits to begin the project.

WoodlandHills,

Consider it my Christmas gift to you that my post ends now.

Damn!

There's a couple of lines to read between!!

If you have an OEM replacement pressure plate in your Silverado come apart, after it was installed by a dealer mechanic, who pays for the new transmission when the bell housing is damaged so bad it flexes?

I did, of course.

Good luck with it all.

For once I agree with Chalo and the others but just from the vague post and since you don't explain more nobody could say either way , just not enough info .

Hey Woodland, your profile sez you ran a motorcycle speed shop back in the day. Sounds like you stood behind your service. Probably cost you money. I dunno if many people do that these days. Good luck with getting compensated, but if the product was that flimsy, it should have been obvious when installing it.

My question is how ya didn't hear the damage...I can hear the difference in my my chain when it's lubed or not...grinding and gouging would be loud!
I know lack of details means I have no idea what actually happened...but it would be like driving a car without using the clutch...you could do it, but it would be obviously BAD.
Incompatibility should have been noticed in the work stand.

Need more info.

Dude, seriously things like this happen when you build your own ebike. All the time. I've had so many chains come off when I was doing builds. I bent chainring adapters and destroyed 3 plastic covers and gouged the shit out of my BBS02 cases. I stripped the heads off screws with the chain, scratched the sh!t out of my bike's chainstay, even had to pull the wheel and cassette when the chain got stuck behind the cassette and gouged the shit out of the spokes. I never thought of going after someone else for damages. Never, the thought never crossed my mind.

What was the BB width?

What was your rear dropout width?

If I remember correctly you had a 100mm BB with a 135mm rear dropout and a Nexus 3 hub. Did you move the hub as far as you could toward the outside of the bike like in this article?

http://electric-fatbike.com/2015/11/20/you-cann-have-it-all-power-speed-nexus-3-igh-paired-with-a-bbs02/

My build had a 68mm BB and I moved the Nexus 3 about 10 mm toward the outside of the bike. If you do it on a 100mm BB with a Nexus 3 that is not moved toward the outside of the bike your chainline is going to be seriously wacked out. Take a picture of your chainline and post it to ES.

What was the chain tension? With an IGH on a single speed without a tensioner the chain has to be tight. Really damn tight. Tighter than you think it should be.

Here is an article about all the sh!t I destroyed in the last 18 months trying to figure out my own builds. I never once thought about going after Legrand, Doug or Paul or any of the vendors that sold me stuff. I'm $20,000 into this sport with about $5000 of destroyed stuff.

Here is the short list of stuff I've destroyed.

http://electric-fatbike.com/2015/05/06/can-the-bbs02-really-take-the-abuse-of-singletrack-trailriding/

Seriously, get over it. Buy a bike that is scratched to start with from bikeisland.com then you won't have to worry so much about who to go after when it gets scratched. That's what I do.

Karl

StudEbiker said:

Damn!
There's a couple of lines to read between!!

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Nah, no lines to read. I know nothing about and have nothing to do with his build in any way shape or form. He put something on his electric bike and it scratched it up. Now he's whining on the forum to drum up support from others his thinking that someone other than himself should be held accountable. In the spirit of Christmas I was going to let it slide, but these days where the forces of profiting on the misfortune of others by Big Insurance are creating an era where personal responsibility is rapidly coming to an end, force me in the other direction. In this case somebody call the f'ing wambulance. [youtube]QqolWUgxz7E[/youtube]

Thanks for the responses, the seller has refunded my money, I understand that there is NO secondary liability and that's that. I had not really wanted to discuss this any further as I have come to a satisfactory resolution with the vendor, but since Mr. gridlok wants to go into all the gory details..........

As far as chain tension issues, the item was given to me with no instructions. Is there some way that I could have known the chain tension is to be set "tighter than you think it should be" as that seems to be metaphysically impossible. Since I did not know what I did not know (and there were NO instructions), I simply set the chain tension to what Shimano suggests for their hub. This has worked for 167 miles with only 3 derails using the stock chainwheel with a misalignment of about 3/8" to 7/16". The replacement part was installed using shims to position it about 1/16" away from the chainstay giving a misalignment of less than 1/4". In 6 miles it derailed at least 7 times: each time sucking the chain up into the chain-stay and jamming the rest of the chain between the sprocket and the drive.

3 derails in 167mi vs 6 derails in 6 miles and the new part improved the chainline, yet it derailed constantly. And when it derailed, the extra long teeth on the sprocket grabbed the chain and ground it into the chainstay something that never happened with the OEM part. One factor that contributed to the derails was the fact that each derail bent the narrow tooth nearest to the sucked chain which did not help things at all. Are these teeth usually so fragile these days? I stopped riding MTBs back in 2004 or so and I do not recall ever bending a tooth on a chainwheel Back in the Day... If this part is so fragile that it will bend after a single derail is it really suited for purpose? BTW I put the OEM part back on and the chain does not come off of it.

Now the stock Bafang chainwheel may be a horrible "steel paperweight" and it may be 5 or 6 teeth short of the correct diameter, but it refuses to derail for me despite its terrible misalignment. The aftermarket part is simply not workable in comparison. I preordered this item in good faith and installed and operated it using standard industry practices in the complete absence of any instructions otherwise, just as any consumer would. Had I known that I was expected to be a Beta Tester of a prototype, I would have postponed my order, but that never came up when I was personally handed the part by the vendor.

I have made arrangements to have the technical editor of a nationwide electric bike magazine test the BBSHD by riding my bike in early January. I had hoped that they would take a few pictures of the installation for the magazine, but my bike got a bit beat up during this whole exercise and is no longer photo worthy (thus my annoyance). Fortunately I have another identical bike arriving Wednesday and I will install a new BBSHD with no scratches for the test...... If they like it I will propose they pick a bike from their fleet and I will come back with another BBSHD and battery pack and install it while they watch (and hopefully photograph). And I guess I will be using the stock chainwheels.

Finally, I refuse to apologise for not wanting my stuff to look like shit........ It is nice that you feel otherwise as regards your things, but I feel no obligation to follow. :lol:

Good details/ argument, me thinks leading with them likely would have influenced the thread previous?
Did I miss the specific product info tho?

nutspecial said:

Good details/ argument, me thinks leading with them likely would have influenced the thread previous?
Did I miss the specific product info tho?

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I wanted to give the vendor time to resolve things and they were..... It is regrettable that some posters here felt the need to go into more detail than was necessary in a public forum, but the cat is out of the bag if you read closely as to the item and vendor. Once the discussion was opened in detail, I felt I had to respond in the same manner, but I still see no reason to name names since the issue has been resolved satisfactorily as far as I am concerned. My initial post was simply a way to find out the practices of an industry that was new to me. And yes, in my race bike business I always made damn sure to go the extra mile for customers: it cut into profit, but I always slept easy.

Good to know, thanks for the details.

Was there a chain tensioner/derailleur?

i am so confused....

Green Machine said:

i am so confused....

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[youtube]6zj5eyE1qUA[/youtube]