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Evil Bikes warranty claim experiences - read my story and beware

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Evil Bikes warranty claim experiences - read my story and beware
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flag sethbuckner
O+
Posted: May 24, 2018 at 4:30 Quote
Hello everyone -

im posting this to facebook, Pinkbike, MTBR, and will be creating a public facebook page to hopefully allow others like myself who have had experiences dealing with Evil Bikes customer service warranty claims, share those experiences publicly, in order to give insight to our experiences and prevent the same from happening to other people.

MY STORY - (yes its long but read it to understand everything)

Bio - 31 yrs old, 205-210lbs, enduro/AM/DH racer/rider. been riding mountain bikes since about 2008

So i built my first Evil Wreckoning in early 2017, rode it part time as i had 2 other trail bikes at the time which i rode more often than the Wreckoning.

fast forward to October 2017.

it was a friday practice before a 2 day enduro event in burnet, Texas. i pre rode all the stages that day, didn't have any crashes, and on my way back to the parking lot, i just so happened to look down and notice a big super clean crack on the underside of my down tube, right in the middle between the head set and bottom bracket.

as it was painfully obvious this wasn't related to a crash or indicated a crash in any way whatsoever, i wasn't worried at all that Evil Bikes would cover the front triangle under warranty. I call them the same day, set up an RMA, packed up the entire frame and shipped it to them at Evil HQ.

I was working with Mike, the customer service/warranty rep for Evil Bikes. We talked on the phone, he asked me a bunch of questions about my weight, riding style, blah blah blah, he sounded thoroughly interested in getting to the bottom of what happened to cause the frame failure, and then i didn't hear from him at all for about 2 weeks. He would not reply to my emails and we had zero contact.

i finally got a call from mike, we started talking about the verdict of my frame and the solution.

this is not fabrication of words - this is truly what was said -

Mike says - "i have determined that this was caused by a crash, because i was able to replicate similar damage to a frame using a baseball bat, which cracked the carbon and didn't make any marks to the exterior finish of the bike. the crash replacement cost will be +/- $650."

***are you f*cking kidding me? you mean to tell me that the scientific procedure happening at Evil Bikes HQ to determine warranty claim validity is HITTING BIKES WITH BASEBALL BATS?!?!?!?! I'm not expecting a bunch of scientists with white coats and beakers with green bubbling fluids and charts and graphs and shit in the basement of evil, but sure as hell expect more than hitting bikes with wooden logs like a bunch of geico cavemen***

i flat out disagreed and said that didn't make any sense, and that i also expected premium customer service when I'm buying a $3k bike frame. if someone sells you a $3k bike frame, they'd better be sure it was accidental damage before just brushing it off their shoulder and sticking you with a $650 bill!

i was pissed off and said i didn't know what i wanted to do, said i would call him back later and decide what to do.

i actually called back about 20 minutes later and said "you know what, just go ahead and send me my frame back, I'm not paying the crash replacement". and i could hear what sounded like subtle panic in his voice.

trying to make a really long story a little bit shorter - we went back and forth, he didn't want to send me the frame back, he kept making up different reasons - "i have to ask the owners of the company if they feel comfortable sending you back a damaged frame because evil could be held liable if you got hurt, blah blah blah. basically trying to persuade me into paying the crash replacement fee instead. i had to get really stern and at one point threatened legal action because they were acting like they weren't going to give me back my property. Damaged frame or not, that frame was legally mine and their "concern for my safety" didn't mean shit and they just needed to send me my damn frame back.

(what i truly think happened - is that they just assumed i was going to agree to pay the crash replacement fee, and damaged the frame more doing whatever space age technology baseball bat testing they did to make their determination, and physically didn't have the ability to send me my frame back even if they wanted to because it was damaged)

finally, i get an email from mike (screen shot of email is included in pics) - "since it is christmas time, we have decided to give you a warranty replacement front triangle."

***so, only because its christmas time? not because you stand behind your product? but rather a national holiday that i may or may not celebrate since you know nothing about me***

whatever - i was happy to just finally get a replacement under warranty..


FAST FORWARD 5 MONTHS TO MAY 5th 2018

my wreckoning with its brand new replacement front triangle had been professionally painted white, and the entire rear triangle and down tube has custom kydex frame protection, and helicopter tape. - literally a hard armor cover over those areas of carbon.

yet another enduro event - 1 day event, 6 stages. we decide to do a full practice lap of all 6 stages before putting on our timing chips and actually racing the stages that day.

one of the stages on a really slow tech section, i got awkward, and tipped over while stuck in my clip and pretty lightly fell on some rocks.

right before we started racing, i look down i notice a big crack on my top tube this time - there was some type of impact mark and a small puncture in the helicopter tape. my front triangle was broken again. due to some type of impact. I talked to evil the following Monday, spoke with Dylan, who seemed cool. i accepted full responsibility, was very honest and forthcoming about the damage, and didn't expect evil to cover it. We talked about the option of crash replacement and my carbon repair options I mentioned I had locally.

i took the entire bike to a local carbon repair professional here in Austin .

He fixed the front triangle, great, and decided to clean the bike up. after removing the kydex guard on the non-drive-side chain stay, he found another crack on the underside of the chain stay at the very front of the triangle immediately after the bottom bracket.

***lets talk about this super quick - that underside area of the chain stay is almost impossible to hit on anything when the wheel is attached to the bike. Even if you 50/50 cased a giant jump, you would hit your bash guard, chainring, and cranks, and mainly the rear wheel long before anything came in contact with the bottom of the rear triangle. It would have to be some trick shot crash to perfectly hit the bottom of the chain stay, not cause any damage to the rear wheel or spokes, crack the carbon, and not leave any signs of impact. all at the same time. and dont forget that the entire chain stay / cracked area was completely covered with a hard plastic kydex frame guard and helicopter tape!***

I took pictures, sent an email to Dylan, and called him the next day. He looked at the email pictures while we were talking, never really indicated it looked crash related, we created another RMA, and I paid to ship the rear triangle to them for review. He sent me and email with the RMA info along with a message that said “In order to grant replacement rear triangles, we do need the original returned to us for review beforehand.” Which I interpreted as a light implication that they planned on covering it under warranty after seeing the pictures, but just had to follow protocol or whatever.

So it got delivered Thursday 5/17, I never heard anything so I called them yesterday 5/22. Mike called me back (yes, the same mike I dealt with before, Mr. Baseball Bat Carbon Frame Whacker Guy), and surprise surprise he says its a being considered a crash replacement not covered under warranty! He gave same really loose speculation to ways it couldve been possible, but offered no real logical explanation or any scientific evidence to back up his claim. Just another bullshit speculation, no benefit of the doubt, and me the customer is stuck with the bill.


I didnt even get mad, or rude. I had more of a “im not going through this bullshit with you guys again attitude”. I said to go ahead and just send me the rear triangle back. And as a perfect little cherry on top of this entire dog-shit-cupcake experience with evil bikes - Mike says - “ok I’ll send you an invoice for you to pay for return shipping”… LOL

***At this point ive already wasted more time and money by sending the rear triangle back to evil, paying for shipping twice, and its still broken and I need to spend more money to get it repaired.***

We ended the call, and he sent me a $20 invoice for shipping.


–and that has been my experience folks. And in the small group of local riders that I know that also ride evil bikes, some of them have also had bad experiences which they have not been publicly vocal about like me.

i understand evil bikes is a business and just like everybody else, their goal is to make money, but to deal with a company that seems to do and say just about anything to squirm their way out of providing warranty replacements is just a super shitty feeling and shady business practices. Especially when you’re spending $3k on bike frames. Ive had STELLAR experiences with Intense Cycles Customer service, and have heard nothing but good things about companies like Santa Cruz. I hope people read this and it helps them decide if warranty coverage is important to them and if they want to do business with a company with questionable business practices. I hate to have to be the guy trying to start a shit storm, but I feel like customers need to be spoken for and companies that give their customers the shaft need to be exposed. Everything said in this post is 100% true, I just want Evil to be accountable for their words and actions. They shouldnt tell/do anything to a customer (me) that would be embarrassed for the rest of the world to see.

If anyone else would like to share their experience of a warranty claim with evil - please share!


update - I posted this on facebook yesterday which created a shit ton of buzz, and Dylan from evil actually saw the post and replied. in the short of it - his reply stated that my warranty had been automatically voided once the bike was painted. and I can accept that, but at the same time, he knew the bike was painted before he instructed me to send it in for warranty review/consideration. so basically they just knowingly let me waste time and money shipping it to them to begin with. just facepalm experience all around, it just got worse with every interaction

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flag PSY
Posted: Jun 1, 2018 at 8:10 Quote
Jeez...this is just cringe to say the least. I was looking at getting an evil previously due to some good reviews but this type of stuff makes me want to stay far away from dealing with this BS
flag garygrimm
Posted: Jun 5, 2018 at 12:41 Quote
Hey Sethbuckner,
I read your story, and thats a bummer. I was feeling pretty bad for you until I noticed your profile picture. If I worked at Evil, and saw that picture, I wouldn't warranty it either. Your not exactly a lightweight, and your going big. If I were you, I'd stay clear of carbon and ride aluminum. Big guys like you break stuff. For your hucking, you should track down a Karpiel Armageddon and a Monster T fork (you'll never hurt either of them).
~Gary
flag sethbuckner
O+
Posted: Jun 9, 2018 at 18:21 Quote
garygrimm wrote:
Hey Sethbuckner,
I read your story, and thats a bummer. I was feeling pretty bad for you until I noticed your profile picture. If I worked at Evil, and saw that picture, I wouldn't warranty it either. Your not exactly a lightweight, and your going big. If I were you, I'd stay clear of carbon and ride aluminum. Big guys like you break stuff. For your hucking, you should track down a Karpiel Armageddon and a Monster T fork (you'll never hurt either of them).
~Gary

well that picture was taken in like 2009ish or so. haha
flag Shiny-side-up
Posted: Jun 9, 2018 at 19:23 Quote
Not a great surprise, they did the same to owners of Revolt, Uprising and Undead...
flag taskmgr
Posted: Jun 9, 2018 at 23:10 Quote
I had a terribly experience in 2011 with the first gen revolt. I'll never buy another bike from them again.
flag titaniumtit
Posted: Jul 15, 2018 at 8:11 Quote
Wonder how their hardtails faired ?
flag BaGearA
Posted: Jul 15, 2018 at 8:31 Quote
garygrimm wrote:
Hey Sethbuckner,
I read your story, and thats a bummer. I was feeling pretty bad for you until I noticed your profile picture. If I worked at Evil, and saw that picture, I wouldn't warranty it either. Your not exactly a lightweight, and your going big. If I were you, I'd stay clear of carbon and ride aluminum. Big guys like you break stuff. For your hucking, you should track down a Karpiel Armageddon and a Monster T fork (you'll never hurt either of them).
~Gary

I'm sorry what Facepalm
flag Shiny-side-up
Posted: Jul 15, 2018 at 8:47 Quote
titaniumtit wrote:
Wonder how their hardtails faired ?

I have a Faction DJ and it's solid. Not much to go wrong with a steel frame though.
flag titaniumtit
Posted: Jul 15, 2018 at 9:07 Quote
Yeah that’s my line of thinking too.
Had 2x docs and really rated them.
V hardcore hts
flag titaniumtit
Posted: Jul 15, 2018 at 9:07 Quote
BaGearA wrote:
garygrimm wrote:
Hey Sethbuckner,
I read your story, and thats a bummer. I was feeling pretty bad for you until I noticed your profile picture. If I worked at Evil, and saw that picture, I wouldn't warranty it either. Your not exactly a lightweight, and your going big. If I were you, I'd stay clear of carbon and ride aluminum. Big guys like you break stuff. For your hucking, you should track down a Karpiel Armageddon and a Monster T fork (you'll never hurt either of them).
~Gary

I'm sorry what Facepalm

Try not feed the trolls there. ;-)
flag beeboo
O+
Posted: Dec 5, 2018 at 10:04 Quote
This is a real shame Frown I’ve heard mixed reviews about Evil over the years. I thought they changed, thought they put the revolt and undead drama behind them. I was hoping a Wreckoning would be my next bike. I was planning to buy it brand new and know that I could use the warranty incase anything arises. For 3K+ I’d rather give my money to Santa Cruz, Pivot, or Devinci
flag MtnSlayer81
O+
Posted: Apr 26, 2019 at 10:56 Quote
I had the same issue with my Insurgent. Huge crack in the middle of the top tube, their reason for not warranting it. "A bike shouldn't break there"
sethbuckner wrote:
Hello everyone -

im posting this to facebook, Pinkbike, MTBR, and will be creating a public facebook page to hopefully allow others like myself who have had experiences dealing with Evil Bikes customer service warranty claims, share those experiences publicly, in order to give insight to our experiences and prevent the same from happening to other people.

MY STORY - (yes its long but read it to understand everything)

Bio - 31 yrs old, 205-210lbs, enduro/AM/DH racer/rider. been riding mountain bikes since about 2008

So i built my first Evil Wreckoning in early 2017, rode it part time as i had 2 other trail bikes at the time which i rode more often than the Wreckoning.

fast forward to October 2017.

it was a friday practice before a 2 day enduro event in burnet, Texas. i pre rode all the stages that day, didn't have any crashes, and on my way back to the parking lot, i just so happened to look down and notice a big super clean crack on the underside of my down tube, right in the middle between the head set and bottom bracket.

as it was painfully obvious this wasn't related to a crash or indicated a crash in any way whatsoever, i wasn't worried at all that Evil Bikes would cover the front triangle under warranty. I call them the same day, set up an RMA, packed up the entire frame and shipped it to them at Evil HQ.

I was working with Mike, the customer service/warranty rep for Evil Bikes. We talked on the phone, he asked me a bunch of questions about my weight, riding style, blah blah blah, he sounded thoroughly interested in getting to the bottom of what happened to cause the frame failure, and then i didn't hear from him at all for about 2 weeks. He would not reply to my emails and we had zero contact.

i finally got a call from mike, we started talking about the verdict of my frame and the solution.

this is not fabrication of words - this is truly what was said -

Mike says - "i have determined that this was caused by a crash, because i was able to replicate similar damage to a frame using a baseball bat, which cracked the carbon and didn't make any marks to the exterior finish of the bike. the crash replacement cost will be +/- $650."

***are you f*cking kidding me? you mean to tell me that the scientific procedure happening at Evil Bikes HQ to determine warranty claim validity is HITTING BIKES WITH BASEBALL BATS?!?!?!?! I'm not expecting a bunch of scientists with white coats and beakers with green bubbling fluids and charts and graphs and shit in the basement of evil, but sure as hell expect more than hitting bikes with wooden logs like a bunch of geico cavemen***

i flat out disagreed and said that didn't make any sense, and that i also expected premium customer service when I'm buying a $3k bike frame. if someone sells you a $3k bike frame, they'd better be sure it was accidental damage before just brushing it off their shoulder and sticking you with a $650 bill!

i was pissed off and said i didn't know what i wanted to do, said i would call him back later and decide what to do.

i actually called back about 20 minutes later and said "you know what, just go ahead and send me my frame back, I'm not paying the crash replacement". and i could hear what sounded like subtle panic in his voice.

trying to make a really long story a little bit shorter - we went back and forth, he didn't want to send me the frame back, he kept making up different reasons - "i have to ask the owners of the company if they feel comfortable sending you back a damaged frame because evil could be held liable if you got hurt, blah blah blah. basically trying to persuade me into paying the crash replacement fee instead. i had to get really stern and at one point threatened legal action because they were acting like they weren't going to give me back my property. Damaged frame or not, that frame was legally mine and their "concern for my safety" didn't mean shit and they just needed to send me my damn frame back.

(what i truly think happened - is that they just assumed i was going to agree to pay the crash replacement fee, and damaged the frame more doing whatever space age technology baseball bat testing they did to make their determination, and physically didn't have the ability to send me my frame back even if they wanted to because it was damaged)

finally, i get an email from mike (screen shot of email is included in pics) - "since it is christmas time, we have decided to give you a warranty replacement front triangle."

***so, only because its christmas time? not because you stand behind your product? but rather a national holiday that i may or may not celebrate since you know nothing about me***

whatever - i was happy to just finally get a replacement under warranty..


FAST FORWARD 5 MONTHS TO MAY 5th 2018

my wreckoning with its brand new replacement front triangle had been professionally painted white, and the entire rear triangle and down tube has custom kydex frame protection, and helicopter tape. - literally a hard armor cover over those areas of carbon.

yet another enduro event - 1 day event, 6 stages. we decide to do a full practice lap of all 6 stages before putting on our timing chips and actually racing the stages that day.

one of the stages on a really slow tech section, i got awkward, and tipped over while stuck in my clip and pretty lightly fell on some rocks.

right before we started racing, i look down i notice a big crack on my top tube this time - there was some type of impact mark and a small puncture in the helicopter tape. my front triangle was broken again. due to some type of impact. I talked to evil the following Monday, spoke with Dylan, who seemed cool. i accepted full responsibility, was very honest and forthcoming about the damage, and didn't expect evil to cover it. We talked about the option of crash replacement and my carbon repair options I mentioned I had locally.

i took the entire bike to a local carbon repair professional here in Austin .

He fixed the front triangle, great, and decided to clean the bike up. after removing the kydex guard on the non-drive-side chain stay, he found another crack on the underside of the chain stay at the very front of the triangle immediately after the bottom bracket.

***lets talk about this super quick - that underside area of the chain stay is almost impossible to hit on anything when the wheel is attached to the bike. Even if you 50/50 cased a giant jump, you would hit your bash guard, chainring, and cranks, and mainly the rear wheel long before anything came in contact with the bottom of the rear triangle. It would have to be some trick shot crash to perfectly hit the bottom of the chain stay, not cause any damage to the rear wheel or spokes, crack the carbon, and not leave any signs of impact. all at the same time. and dont forget that the entire chain stay / cracked area was completely covered with a hard plastic kydex frame guard and helicopter tape!***

I took pictures, sent an email to Dylan, and called him the next day. He looked at the email pictures while we were talking, never really indicated it looked crash related, we created another RMA, and I paid to ship the rear triangle to them for review. He sent me and email with the RMA info along with a message that said “In order to grant replacement rear triangles, we do need the original returned to us for review beforehand.” Which I interpreted as a light implication that they planned on covering it under warranty after seeing the pictures, but just had to follow protocol or whatever.

So it got delivered Thursday 5/17, I never heard anything so I called them yesterday 5/22. Mike called me back (yes, the same mike I dealt with before, Mr. Baseball Bat Carbon Frame Whacker Guy), and surprise surprise he says its a being considered a crash replacement not covered under warranty! He gave same really loose speculation to ways it couldve been possible, but offered no real logical explanation or any scientific evidence to back up his claim. Just another bullshit speculation, no benefit of the doubt, and me the customer is stuck with the bill.


I didnt even get mad, or rude. I had more of a “im not going through this bullshit with you guys again attitude”. I said to go ahead and just send me the rear triangle back. And as a perfect little cherry on top of this entire dog-shit-cupcake experience with evil bikes - Mike says - “ok I’ll send you an invoice for you to pay for return shipping”… LOL

***At this point ive already wasted more time and money by sending the rear triangle back to evil, paying for shipping twice, and its still broken and I need to spend more money to get it repaired.***

We ended the call, and he sent me a $20 invoice for shipping.


–and that has been my experience folks. And in the small group of local riders that I know that also ride evil bikes, some of them have also had bad experiences which they have not been publicly vocal about like me.

i understand evil bikes is a business and just like everybody else, their goal is to make money, but to deal with a company that seems to do and say just about anything to squirm their way out of providing warranty replacements is just a super shitty feeling and shady business practices. Especially when you’re spending $3k on bike frames. Ive had STELLAR experiences with Intense Cycles Customer service, and have heard nothing but good things about companies like Santa Cruz. I hope people read this and it helps them decide if warranty coverage is important to them and if they want to do business with a company with questionable business practices. I hate to have to be the guy trying to start a shit storm, but I feel like customers need to be spoken for and companies that give their customers the shaft need to be exposed. Everything said in this post is 100% true, I just want Evil to be accountable for their words and actions. They shouldnt tell/do anything to a customer (me) that would be embarrassed for the rest of the world to see.

If anyone else would like to share their experience of a warranty claim with evil - please share!


update - I posted this on facebook yesterday which created a shit ton of buzz, and Dylan from evil actually saw the post and replied. in the short of it - his reply stated that my warranty had been automatically voided once the bike was painted. and I can accept that, but at the same time, he knew the bike was painted before he instructed me to send it in for warranty review/consideration. so basically they just knowingly let me waste time and money shipping it to them to begin with. just facepalm experience all around, it just got worse with every interaction

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flag Abounds225
Posted: Aug 8, 2019 at 19:57 Quote
sethbuckner wrote:
Hello everyone -

im posting this to facebook, Pinkbike, MTBR, and will be creating a public facebook page to hopefully allow others like myself who have had experiences dealing with Evil Bikes customer service warranty claims, share those experiences publicly, in order to give insight to our experiences and prevent the same from happening to other people.

MY STORY - (yes its long but read it to understand everything)

Bio - 31 yrs old, 205-210lbs, enduro/AM/DH racer/rider. been riding mountain bikes since about 2008

So i built my first Evil Wreckoning in early 2017, rode it part time as i had 2 other trail bikes at the time which i rode more often than the Wreckoning.

fast forward to October 2017.

it was a friday practice before a 2 day enduro event in burnet, Texas. i pre rode all the stages that day, didn't have any crashes, and on my way back to the parking lot, i just so happened to look down and notice a big super clean crack on the underside of my down tube, right in the middle between the head set and bottom bracket.

as it was painfully obvious this wasn't related to a crash or indicated a crash in any way whatsoever, i wasn't worried at all that Evil Bikes would cover the front triangle under warranty. I call them the same day, set up an RMA, packed up the entire frame and shipped it to them at Evil HQ.

I was working with Mike, the customer service/warranty rep for Evil Bikes. We talked on the phone, he asked me a bunch of questions about my weight, riding style, blah blah blah, he sounded thoroughly interested in getting to the bottom of what happened to cause the frame failure, and then i didn't hear from him at all for about 2 weeks. He would not reply to my emails and we had zero contact.

i finally got a call from mike, we started talking about the verdict of my frame and the solution.

this is not fabrication of words - this is truly what was said -

Mike says - "i have determined that this was caused by a crash, because i was able to replicate similar damage to a frame using a baseball bat, which cracked the carbon and didn't make any marks to the exterior finish of the bike. the crash replacement cost will be +/- $650."

***are you f*cking kidding me? you mean to tell me that the scientific procedure happening at Evil Bikes HQ to determine warranty claim validity is HITTING BIKES WITH BASEBALL BATS?!?!?!?! I'm not expecting a bunch of scientists with white coats and beakers with green bubbling fluids and charts and graphs and shit in the basement of evil, but sure as hell expect more than hitting bikes with wooden logs like a bunch of geico cavemen***

i flat out disagreed and said that didn't make any sense, and that i also expected premium customer service when I'm buying a $3k bike frame. if someone sells you a $3k bike frame, they'd better be sure it was accidental damage before just brushing it off their shoulder and sticking you with a $650 bill!

i was pissed off and said i didn't know what i wanted to do, said i would call him back later and decide what to do.

i actually called back about 20 minutes later and said "you know what, just go ahead and send me my frame back, I'm not paying the crash replacement". and i could hear what sounded like subtle panic in his voice.

trying to make a really long story a little bit shorter - we went back and forth, he didn't want to send me the frame back, he kept making up different reasons - "i have to ask the owners of the company if they feel comfortable sending you back a damaged frame because evil could be held liable if you got hurt, blah blah blah. basically trying to persuade me into paying the crash replacement fee instead. i had to get really stern and at one point threatened legal action because they were acting like they weren't going to give me back my property. Damaged frame or not, that frame was legally mine and their "concern for my safety" didn't mean shit and they just needed to send me my damn frame back.

(what i truly think happened - is that they just assumed i was going to agree to pay the crash replacement fee, and damaged the frame more doing whatever space age technology baseball bat testing they did to make their determination, and physically didn't have the ability to send me my frame back even if they wanted to because it was damaged)

finally, i get an email from mike (screen shot of email is included in pics) - "since it is christmas time, we have decided to give you a warranty replacement front triangle."

***so, only because its christmas time? not because you stand behind your product? but rather a national holiday that i may or may not celebrate since you know nothing about me***

whatever - i was happy to just finally get a replacement under warranty..


FAST FORWARD 5 MONTHS TO MAY 5th 2018

my wreckoning with its brand new replacement front triangle had been professionally painted white, and the entire rear triangle and down tube has custom kydex frame protection, and helicopter tape. - literally a hard armor cover over those areas of carbon.

yet another enduro event - 1 day event, 6 stages. we decide to do a full practice lap of all 6 stages before putting on our timing chips and actually racing the stages that day.

one of the stages on a really slow tech section, i got awkward, and tipped over while stuck in my clip and pretty lightly fell on some rocks.

right before we started racing, i look down i notice a big crack on my top tube this time - there was some type of impact mark and a small puncture in the helicopter tape. my front triangle was broken again. due to some type of impact. I talked to evil the following Monday, spoke with Dylan, who seemed cool. i accepted full responsibility, was very honest and forthcoming about the damage, and didn't expect evil to cover it. We talked about the option of crash replacement and my carbon repair options I mentioned I had locally.

i took the entire bike to a local carbon repair professional here in Austin .

He fixed the front triangle, great, and decided to clean the bike up. after removing the kydex guard on the non-drive-side chain stay, he found another crack on the underside of the chain stay at the very front of the triangle immediately after the bottom bracket.

***lets talk about this super quick - that underside area of the chain stay is almost impossible to hit on anything when the wheel is attached to the bike. Even if you 50/50 cased a giant jump, you would hit your bash guard, chainring, and cranks, and mainly the rear wheel long before anything came in contact with the bottom of the rear triangle. It would have to be some trick shot crash to perfectly hit the bottom of the chain stay, not cause any damage to the rear wheel or spokes, crack the carbon, and not leave any signs of impact. all at the same time. and dont forget that the entire chain stay / cracked area was completely covered with a hard plastic kydex frame guard and helicopter tape!***

I took pictures, sent an email to Dylan, and called him the next day. He looked at the email pictures while we were talking, never really indicated it looked crash related, we created another RMA, and I paid to ship the rear triangle to them for review. He sent me and email with the RMA info along with a message that said “In order to grant replacement rear triangles, we do need the original returned to us for review beforehand.” Which I interpreted as a light implication that they planned on covering it under warranty after seeing the pictures, but just had to follow protocol or whatever.

So it got delivered Thursday 5/17, I never heard anything so I called them yesterday 5/22. Mike called me back (yes, the same mike I dealt with before, Mr. Baseball Bat Carbon Frame Whacker Guy), and surprise surprise he says its a being considered a crash replacement not covered under warranty! He gave same really loose speculation to ways it couldve been possible, but offered no real logical explanation or any scientific evidence to back up his claim. Just another bullshit speculation, no benefit of the doubt, and me the customer is stuck with the bill.


I didnt even get mad, or rude. I had more of a “im not going through this bullshit with you guys again attitude”. I said to go ahead and just send me the rear triangle back. And as a perfect little cherry on top of this entire dog-shit-cupcake experience with evil bikes - Mike says - “ok I’ll send you an invoice for you to pay for return shipping”… LOL

***At this point ive already wasted more time and money by sending the rear triangle back to evil, paying for shipping twice, and its still broken and I need to spend more money to get it repaired.***

We ended the call, and he sent me a $20 invoice for shipping.


–and that has been my experience folks. And in the small group of local riders that I know that also ride evil bikes, some of them have also had bad experiences which they have not been publicly vocal about like me.

i understand evil bikes is a business and just like everybody else, their goal is to make money, but to deal with a company that seems to do and say just about anything to squirm their way out of providing warranty replacements is just a super shitty feeling and shady business practices. Especially when you’re spending $3k on bike frames. Ive had STELLAR experiences with Intense Cycles Customer service, and have heard nothing but good things about companies like Santa Cruz. I hope people read this and it helps them decide if warranty coverage is important to them and if they want to do business with a company with questionable business practices. I hate to have to be the guy trying to start a shit storm, but I feel like customers need to be spoken for and companies that give their customers the shaft need to be exposed. Everything said in this post is 100% true, I just want Evil to be accountable for their words and actions. They shouldnt tell/do anything to a customer (me) that would be embarrassed for the rest of the world to see.

If anyone else would like to share their experience of a warranty claim with evil - please share!


update - I posted this on facebook yesterday which created a shit ton of buzz, and Dylan from evil actually saw the post and replied. in the short of it - his reply stated that my warranty had been automatically voided once the bike was painted. and I can accept that, but at the same time, he knew the bike was painted before he instructed me to send it in for warranty review/consideration. so basically they just knowingly let me waste time and money shipping it to them to begin with. just facepalm experience all around, it just got worse with every interaction

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flag Abounds225
Posted: Aug 8, 2019 at 20:05 Quote
Hey Seth,

Why is hitting a frame dedicated for testing so ridiculous to you??

How do you propose that they more appropriate inflict severe force to a carbon frame to test what it can endure without breaking?

You sound very entitled and it looks like you beat the shit out of your bikes. I’m guessing we are only hearing your perspective of this story.

And yes painting a carbon frame voids Amy warranty with any bike manufacturer for good reason.
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