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The Definition of "Warranty"
war·ran·ty
/ˈwôrən(t)ē/
See definitions in: All Commerce Law
noun
1. a written guarantee, issued to the purchaser of an article by its manufacturer, promising to repair or replace it if necessary within a specified period of time.
"the car comes with a three-year warranty"
Well that is the definition of "warranty" per Google. Specifically let's talk about what certain companies think the word means and how they honor it.
The company we will be discussing today is Roadsmith Trikes, aka The Trike Shop now run by Doug Lindholm, the son of the man who started the company. They are located in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. As some of you may know I spent significant amount of money having my 2018 Burgundy Cherry Sunglo Fade CVO Limited converted into a trike utilizing their R body kit. I specified every single option they had with the exception of lit up mud flaps. I paid $3,000 extra to have the trike paint matched to the Harley paint. I specifically called RS and spoke to Doug to verify they could actually match the CVO Fade paint (not an easy thing). He assured me they could do it. I placed my Roadsmith order through a third party trike builder. My bike then got converted the beginning of June.
At first I was pretty happy with the trike, until I was cleaning it and noticed some orange peel around one of the tail lights. I then took the the trike over to my detailer to see if he could buff it out. My detailer (Ryan) looked over the trike body and running boards finding multiple areas of orange peel, some of it quite bad. Ryan also found a ripple in the paint and some spots where the 3M film (another expensive option) had not been applied properly. After some consideration Ryan told me that he was not willing to buff the imperfection out of the paint, he was worried that he might burn through the clear coat. It was too bad he said, because he thought the color match was actually quite good. Ryan then called a couple of body shops he works with, but none of them were willing to take on the job.
At this point I called Doug I explained the problems to him, paint, the parking brake did not work, some misaligned body panels and a couple other small items. Doug had me send him pics of the paint and then he asked me if there was any way I could bring the trike to White Bear Lake so that he could take care of the issues. Well it just so happened that I had an "Around Lake Superior" trip scheduled for early July so I made arrangements to bring the trike in then. Doug assured me that his people could make everything right in 1 day. So trip came and on the appointed day at 0900 I dropped the trike off to him and headed out with the Mrs to kill the day at the Mall of the Americas. Mid afternoon I got a call from Doug. All the little items had been taken care of, but after inspection and much deliberation he had decided there was just nothing he could do to salvage the paint. My face dropped and I started wondering if I was going to have obtain a lawyer when I realized that Doug had just asked me if I could bring the bike back in a couple of months so that he could could get another body, paint it, apply the 3M film and then swap the bodies.
It just so happened that I had another big trip, this time to Branson, Missouri planned for Sept. We then set up a date for Sept 21 to get the work done. Anyway true to his word Doug had a new body with no apparent paint issues and well applied 3M film waiting for my trike. At 2 pm the next day the trike was ready to go with a new body (and possibly new running boards I think) plus he adjusted a couple of small items for me. When I told him just how refreshing it was to have a manufacturer stand behind their product the way he stood behind his he told me that he been working at the shop since he was a boy, it was his "baby" and that one day he hoped to pass it on to his kids. Their was no way he said that he could allow the kind of problems I had with his trike to go uncorrected.
That, my friends is the actual, real world definition of a warranty and an example of how an honorable company and it's owner stands behind it.
