Buying a Cube eMTB from another country

[yarg]

Hi All,

I've alluded to this in the Canyon forum in this thread but as this question is Cube-specific, thought I'd ask here as well.
I'll shortly be travelling to Italy on vacation; I've seen a Stereo Hybrid 140 TM there for 1100 euros cheaper than I can get it at home in France. On top of which my size is in stock in Italy, and in France they will only have stock at the end of the year (my LBS phoned Cube France and that's their timeline).

In the other thread I was warned about the warranty/guarantee being difficult to use in a country different from where it was bought, as the "contract" is only between me and the shop I buy the bike from, rather than Cube Europe; my LBS here in France confirmed that to me too. So that is definitely a consideration; however, I am in that part of Italy every 4 months, so I'm currently debating if the sizeable discount might be worth the risk, since in case something happens I'm going back in the direction of the shop anyway, and worst case I'd have to wait 3 months til my next visit. Not ideal, but worth 1100 euros perhaps? Another consideration is that my Italian is hopeless, so there might well be language barriers too (haven't visited this shop until now, so don't know what their English is like).

My question here is how many of you have had to make use of the guarantee? I know it happens, but am just trying to get an overall sense of the chances I need to do so (probably not possible but still trying to hazard a guess anyway!) What is Cube's quality control like? One thing to note is that I won't be hammering the bike at all; I will be using it for cross-country Alpine tours and single-tracks done at a slow/steady pace. Jumps etc are not at all on the cards (my middle-aged body is feeling long past that unfortunately!)

Thanks for any thoughts/feedback!

 

[slavio]

I bought my Stereo Hybrid 160 TM in Germany (bike-discount.de) with delivery to Poland where I live last year. Main reason being the MSRP in Germany is lower than in Poland (sic!). I think the only two major parts which fall under warranty are frame and motor. I had a chat with local LBS which said if the motor is the problem under warranty they will take it out (for a small fee ~20-30 EUR) and send it to Bosch under warranty (which any bike shop would do anyways). In case of the frame would have to send it to b-d.de which boils down to a simple logistics exercise.

Hope this helps

 

[yarg]

Thanks for your reply. I saw b-d.de but hesitated with online shopping from other countries. There are a good number of online shops in Germany that have the model I'm interested in in stock as well, but I'm always more cautious with a shop I don't know....especially with the amounts of money we're talking about here. So overall your experience with b-d.de was good?

 

[slavio]

I can definetely recommend b-d. I order from them a lot of things (beside the bike I bought) and had the chance to interact with their customer support. Always super happy with the outcome.

 

[yarg]

Great thanks for your feedback. Have also been in touch with a friend living in Germany and he says he's ordered from them 100s of times without issue. So that's becoming more and more of an option....

 

[DieBoy]

I recently bought my Cube and accessories from B-D and the experience was good. Including having to return 2 items due to ordering the wrong sizes. According to their about-us page, they have a close relationship with cube.

Regarding warranty - the 2 year minimum is an EU-wide right, so won't make a difference if you buy in Italy.

 

[yarg]

Thanks for the feedback. I have colleagues who have bought from some of the German online shops as well and had delivered to France, and they had good experiences to report (including when needing to invoke warranty etc). In the end the price difference btw France and Germany for a new 2023 model is 1000 euros, so I'm leaning in the direction of taking a calculated risk and seeing how it goes...

 

[yarg]

I recently bought my Cube and accessories from B-D and the experience was good. Including having to return 2 items due to ordering the wrong sizes. According to their about-us page, they have a close relationship with cube.

Regarding warranty - the 2 year minimum is an EU-wide right, so won't make a difference if you buy in Italy.

PS regarding the warranty, just to confirm that I checked with the local Cube dealer and they repeated what has been said here: the warranty is only between the buyer and the shop/dealer they bought from, so no matter where in the EU I'm located, if there is an issue and the warranty is needed, I'd need to get the bike back to the shop I bought it from for the warranty for function. LBS would not be in the loop for that....