Hi All, as many other have shared on these threads, I'm having a nightmare with my Decoy, I have no faith in the long term reliability of the system and I no longer wish to own the bike. I'm really struggling with my YT experience and was wondering if anyone else here has been through similar and can offer advice.
I bought a YT Decoy in early Feb, and it has been working for about 10 of my 100 days of ownership. There where some delivery issues (aka could see a lot of the bike through the box) that resulted in mech and hangar damage that initially prevented riding, however this wasn't the end of the world, it was fixed in about 3 weeks. The Yari was also only showing 140mm of stanchion and YT maintained that this is due to a new negative air spring design to reduce breakaway force (LOL - obviously it is nonsense that a 160mm travel fork only showing 140mm of stanchion is a design choice). Regardless, I was super excited to get riding so I took their explanation on the chin and got to the woods. And it was crazy fun.
However, since then there has been a recurring fault with the shimano steps system freezing upon startup. After researching it appears that a lot of people are experiencing the same issue. I've tried all suggested at-home fixes and this has amounted to nothing.
Their solution has been to send the bike back to Germany (after finding a new box as mine was destroyed), and that they should be entitled to 3 attempts to resolve the issue before I would be allowed a refund (that the value of which would be contingent on wear and tear too!). They also have massive backlogs due to the current COVID situation so each round trip would be a long time.
Fortunately I live very close to a Shimano Steps authorised repair centre (this is a fairly challenging certification for an LBS to achieve), so I thought instead of sending it to Germany for a month I could see if they could sort it. They fixed the bike by effectively resetting each part of the Steps firmware, but mentioned that the battery and the on/off switch were in-house components and not recognised by the step ecosystem, and that communication errors between the parts were the issue, and that it would likely happen again.
Lo and behold it has quickly broken again and this time resetting the software wont bring it back to life.
The key issue with this bike rests on the YT parts (battery and switch) that have been hastily patched in to the Steps ecosystem, the Steps diagnostic software does not recognise these parts, and YT cannot provide me with an answer for when they will be added to the steps ecosystem, only telling me that the battery is 'certified'. If this had been made this clear during purchase I would have had significant apprehensions before purchasing the bike.
YT is refusing a refund saying they need to opportunity to repair it 3 times (which is guidance in German consumer law but not UK consumer protection), and that the repairs carried out so far do not count towards this total as they cannot attest to the quality of workmanship. To top it all off the LBS (shoutout Mamachari Walthamstow who have been excellent) actually had head the 'Head of Steps engineering UK' in attendance for a staff training seminar and they used my repair as a worked example.
I cant help but feel like I'm left 4 grand out of pocket and I will be left in a cycle of riding a time bomb of a bike that will just continue letting me down.
YT has admitted that they have a 'roadmap' for introducing the parts to the steps ecosystem but they cannot give me a timeframe for when this will happen, which is of zero use to me, and frankly terrible behaviour as a company, they are beta testing a product in the marketplace and its been well over a year since release and they havent acted on it.
Does this seem deeply unreasonable to a 3rd party? I'm not sure if I'm just so invested in the situation I have rage blinders on! I admit that YT themselves haven't had the opportunity to assess the bike yet, but plenty of very qualified technicians have seen it, regardless of YT's assumption they lack the requisite skill.
To top it all off, the last email from Moritz advises me that I will not be getting a refund, and that if any damage occurs during transit it is my responsibility. AND the shipping company is the exact same one that trashed the bike on first attempt. AND that was with a bespoke bike box, not the makeshift thing I'm thrashing together now!!
Lesson 1000% learnt on not going the cheaper direct sales route in the future!
I bought a YT Decoy in early Feb, and it has been working for about 10 of my 100 days of ownership. There where some delivery issues (aka could see a lot of the bike through the box) that resulted in mech and hangar damage that initially prevented riding, however this wasn't the end of the world, it was fixed in about 3 weeks. The Yari was also only showing 140mm of stanchion and YT maintained that this is due to a new negative air spring design to reduce breakaway force (LOL - obviously it is nonsense that a 160mm travel fork only showing 140mm of stanchion is a design choice). Regardless, I was super excited to get riding so I took their explanation on the chin and got to the woods. And it was crazy fun.
However, since then there has been a recurring fault with the shimano steps system freezing upon startup. After researching it appears that a lot of people are experiencing the same issue. I've tried all suggested at-home fixes and this has amounted to nothing.
Their solution has been to send the bike back to Germany (after finding a new box as mine was destroyed), and that they should be entitled to 3 attempts to resolve the issue before I would be allowed a refund (that the value of which would be contingent on wear and tear too!). They also have massive backlogs due to the current COVID situation so each round trip would be a long time.
Fortunately I live very close to a Shimano Steps authorised repair centre (this is a fairly challenging certification for an LBS to achieve), so I thought instead of sending it to Germany for a month I could see if they could sort it. They fixed the bike by effectively resetting each part of the Steps firmware, but mentioned that the battery and the on/off switch were in-house components and not recognised by the step ecosystem, and that communication errors between the parts were the issue, and that it would likely happen again.
Lo and behold it has quickly broken again and this time resetting the software wont bring it back to life.
The key issue with this bike rests on the YT parts (battery and switch) that have been hastily patched in to the Steps ecosystem, the Steps diagnostic software does not recognise these parts, and YT cannot provide me with an answer for when they will be added to the steps ecosystem, only telling me that the battery is 'certified'. If this had been made this clear during purchase I would have had significant apprehensions before purchasing the bike.
YT is refusing a refund saying they need to opportunity to repair it 3 times (which is guidance in German consumer law but not UK consumer protection), and that the repairs carried out so far do not count towards this total as they cannot attest to the quality of workmanship. To top it all off the LBS (shoutout Mamachari Walthamstow who have been excellent) actually had head the 'Head of Steps engineering UK' in attendance for a staff training seminar and they used my repair as a worked example.
I cant help but feel like I'm left 4 grand out of pocket and I will be left in a cycle of riding a time bomb of a bike that will just continue letting me down.
YT has admitted that they have a 'roadmap' for introducing the parts to the steps ecosystem but they cannot give me a timeframe for when this will happen, which is of zero use to me, and frankly terrible behaviour as a company, they are beta testing a product in the marketplace and its been well over a year since release and they havent acted on it.
Does this seem deeply unreasonable to a 3rd party? I'm not sure if I'm just so invested in the situation I have rage blinders on! I admit that YT themselves haven't had the opportunity to assess the bike yet, but plenty of very qualified technicians have seen it, regardless of YT's assumption they lack the requisite skill.
To top it all off, the last email from Moritz advises me that I will not be getting a refund, and that if any damage occurs during transit it is my responsibility. AND the shipping company is the exact same one that trashed the bike on first attempt. AND that was with a bespoke bike box, not the makeshift thing I'm thrashing together now!!
Lesson 1000% learnt on not going the cheaper direct sales route in the future!
) but the Bosch power tube seemingly has the same form factor and 15% more capacity. My money is on that battery being due to Chinese corp that manufacturing them coming up with the lowest price.
