A thread that all round deviant Drew started on another topic ( selling bikes ) and how people will tell big lies to make the sale reminded me how we are also afflicted in the suspension industry. Private sellers and those peddling stuff on Trade me but misrepresenting are all too common and its disturbing and despicable. Here are a few examples
1) The guy who was passing off a Sachs shock on Trade me as Ohlins. When we asked a few questions and pointed out that it wasnt Ohlins it was promptly withdrawn from sale. How many people have been conned in this way?
2 ) ''Im sending my forks to you for service and setup, the guy who sold me the bike said they have Ohlins ( or Race Tech ) pistons and springs in them.'' We pull them apart to find they are stock or have had a terrible bodge in them. Its surprising and disturbing how often this happens..........
3 ) The guy who bought a large capacity road bike to us recently with an Ohlins shock that wasnt working. He had purchased it like that from a dealer. When the bike showed up we were horrified. The shock was for a totally different model, wrong length, wrong stroke, wrong valving, there were clearance issues. It also had a 1368 lb spring fitted which should have been a 969 lb spring. The bike was DANGEROUS and should not have been sold in that condition. The guy who traded it knew the shock was WRONG, the guy who accepted the trade should have known it was WRONG, the guy selling the bike should have known it was WRONG. it was VERY WRONG that it cost the customer a not insubstatnial sum to put it right so that the bike was in a safe and rideable condition
4) People removing Race Tech emulators out of their forks before they onsell the bike. Emulators are matched to work with the stock damper rods that have had their original damping holes oversized so there is no flow restriction in the rods themselves. The emulators take over that duty and do a much better job of it. If you remove the emulators ( so you can make a few more DISHONEST pennies ) you end up with a set of forks with virtually NO DAMPING. That is a very despicable thing to do, selling a bike that you have KNOWINGLY made unsafe
A few prosecutions wouldnt go amiss here and there to send a message THIS IS NOT ALRIGHT. We hear stories all the time about dealers doing the odd dodgy thing and there are protections in place to seek recourse for such misdemeanours. But the number of private resellers doing such dodgy things is very much in evidence, and that INCLUDES trading in bikes with defects that might not be readily apparent and not being sincere enough to tell the dealer
Thankfully, most New Zealanders have a keen sense of fairplay.
With respect to suspension and in particular Ohlins we offer a complimentary service verifying if such goods advertised on Trademe, E-Bay etc are exactly what they are represented as. Every Ohlins shock made in Sweden has a specification coding stamped into its cylinder head and its vital to get that off the reseller. On receipt of that info and an e-mailed link etc we can verify exactly what it is. This helps to avert often costly mistakes. We are on the side of the purchaser, we wouldnt after all sell an unsuitable suspension unit ourselves. Caveat emptor.
Contrary to very popular misconception shocks are not ''one size fits all'' They are model specific.
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It would be good to see someone's false advertising rebound back and bite them in the ass.
Originally Posted by bogan
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