I speak as a longtime professional bike mechanic when I say that all department store bikes are broken, all the time, and people simply tolerate them that way because they don't know better. This is direct observation, not conjecture.
Imagine a world where most car drivers chug around in Pakistani made cars, trailing a cloud of blue smoke, rods knocking, radiator steaming, one or more tires flat-- yet don't acknowledge that there's anything wrong with their cars, and resist attempts by service professionals to repair them. That's how American cyclists are. They assume because they bought their broken bikes brand new that they are how they're supposed to be.
Just yesterday at the bike shop I served a young man who had just bought a new Walmart fixie bike. The fork was turned around backwards, the handlebars and stem were loose, and the brake pivots were so floppy that the brake pads swung up into the tire when applied. Brand new, indeed.
For the cost of parts and labor to set his bike in order, plus what he paid for it, he could have had one of the inexpensive fixie bikes that my shop sells, and we'd have sold him one that fit him, too.
