TanTan FM08 cracked during shipping

[bladechapman]

Hi all, I've recently just received a TanTan FM08 frame. However, it appears that the plastic brace used to immobilize the frame snapped during shipping, causing the metal linkage to collide with the top tube and create a pretty big crack... It seems like the frame was unsecured in the box and rattled around during shipment.

I know I have the 2 year warranty through TanTan, and I've also used PayPal purchase protection, so I suppose I can get a refund in the worst case. Does anyone have any experience with this scenario? Are TanTan usually pretty good about upholding their warranty?

Thanks!

[MTB2223]

To bad you received your new frame like this way.
I think it's only paint crack. But to be sure you have to sand down the paint and look to the carbon itself. Maybe you can look inside with a endoscope at the place of impact and see if the frame is damaged.

But please contact TanTan first for advise. And inform them you created a topic on this forum. They don't want bad publicity. And please post the result here.

[slojoe]

Aw man, that's awful. Hope it is just cosmetic.

Any updates? I'm considering a tantan fm08 frame and am curious how they handled this?

Thanks

Btw, they actually sent me photos of your frame when I asked about painting options. They must have liked the way your paint job came out, lol.

[bladechapman]

Still working it out with TanTan. They seem to be willing to uphold their warranty and repair the frame. We are primarily negotiating shipping at the moment.

Aside from the shipping damage, the frame seems quite nice. For the cost, I'm pleased with how the paint turned out. That's funny that they sent you a pic of my frame.

I would say it's okay to go with TanTan as long as you emphasize that they take extra care when packing your purchase. Make sure to ask them to secure the frame in the box and to provide extra padding around the top tube and down tube areas where the frame has the potential to collide with itself in the event that the shock brace breaks.

If you're still hesitant, I've read good things about LightCarbon bicycles, which seem to sell the exact same frame as the LCFS713:
https://www.lightcarbon.com/lightcarbon-2019-new-all-mountain-suspension-enduro-frame_p125.html

I was considering going with them, but they quoted me at a higher price than TanTan, so I chose the less expensive option.

[ReverendRockRazor]

 I can confirm that light carbon frames are extremely well paked.
 Mine was 100 percent covered and it takes a while to get it all off.

[bladechapman]

TL;DR I would not recommend going with TanTan in the future, and do not count on PayPal purchase protection to save you. Lessons learned...


Well, after much back and forth, we were unable to come to an agreement on shipping.

I was prepared to eat the shipping cost until I found out an unpleasant truth, it's much more expensive to ship things from the US west coast to China than the other way around! The US Post Office refused to take the package due to the size, and UPS, Fedex, etc. were going to charge upwards of $800USD! The cheapest I could find was BikeFlights at ~$300 USD, but at that rate I might as well just get it repaired locally and not risk further shipping damage.

Unfortunately PayPal Purchase Protection wasn't much help either. In the end, PayPal agreed to refund the total cost of the frame if I returned it, but with the aforementioned cost of shipping, that's a non-option for me.

Looks like I will be going the way of local / home repair, which I'm fine with. The damaged area doesn't seem too large or located in a critical structural area, so I imagine a repaired frame will be okay, I just would have preferred not to take the risk or eat into my slim budget...

On the bright side, at least I can proceed with the rest of my build! I'm pretty excited, as this will be my first full-sus bike 

I'm genuinely curious, does anyone have experience with shipping bike frames back to China at a reasonable price?

[RDY]

TL;DR I would not recommend going with TanTan in the future, and do not count on PayPal purchase protection to save you. Lessons learned...


Well, after much back and forth, we were unable to come to an agreement on shipping.

I was prepared to eat the shipping cost until I found out an unpleasant truth, it's much more expensive to ship things from the US west coast to China than the other way around! The US Post Office refused to take the package due to the size, and UPS, Fedex, etc. were going to charge upwards of $800USD! The cheapest I could find was BikeFlights at ~$300 USD, but at that rate I might as well just get it repaired locally and not risk further shipping damage.

Unfortunately PayPal Purchase Protection wasn't much help either. In the end, PayPal agreed to refund the total cost of the frame if I returned it, but with the aforementioned cost of shipping, that's a non-option for me.

Looks like I will be going the way of local / home repair, which I'm fine with. The damaged area doesn't seem too large or located in a critical structural area, so I imagine a repaired frame will be okay, I just would have preferred not to take the risk or eat into my slim budget...

On the bright side, at least I can proceed with the rest of my build! I'm pretty excited, as this will be my first full-sus bike 

I'm genuinely curious, does anyone have experience with shipping bike frames back to China at a reasonable price?

TanTan would 100% be able to arrange shipment for much, much less than $300 via one of the freight forwarding agents they use - though you might need to travel some distance to drop it off.  It looks like they don't want to though...

[scourge]

Can we see pictures of the entire frame? I love that color combo.

[bladechapman]

Sure! Here are the pics from the factory before they shipped it out:

The specific colors were Pantone 290C and Pantone 165C

[bladechapman]

Figured I’d close out the story on this one. I ended up doing a DIY carbon repair using the kit from Predator Cycling. It involved sanding down the broken layers of carbon and epoxying in fresh layers. I was initially suspicious of how well this would work, but the cracks turned out to be quite shallow and it seems to be holding up.

The bike is now built up and I’m having a blast with it! It’s my first full sus and I’m loving the extra confidence I get from it on the trails