The Warranties

Titanium:

All Zinn titanium frames have a lifetime warranty against manufacturer’s defects and defects in materials. This does not cover normal wear and tear on the frame, crash damage, theft, loss, rider negligence, improper frame care, and any other situation that is deemed “not a manufacturer’s defect”. This warranty is transferable to a second owner with a $650 transfer fee. Please contact us when selling the frame to arrange the warranty transfer. Failure to follow the care guidelines detailed below voids the warranty.

Magnesium:

All magnesium Zinn frames are warranted to the original owner against manufacturers defects for 3 years from the purchase date. This does not cover normal wear and tear on the frame, rust, crash damage, theft, loss, rider negligence, improper frame care, improper component installation, and any other situation that is deemed “not a manufacturer’s defect”. A 3-year extended warranty can be bought at the time of purchase for $650. Failure to follow the care guidelines detailed below voids the warranty. Corrosion damage is not covered by warranty. Corrosion is caused by improper care, and is not a manufacturer’s defect. See our simple care guidelines below.

Frame Care Guidelines

Steel Frames

Water can come come into the frame through the slot at the back of the seat tube. It gets in past the seatpost when it is thrown up at that area by the rear tire.

You need to remove the seatpost and leave it upside down overnight to drain whenever you ride or transport your bike in the rain. And then spray Frame Saver down in there after it’s dry. Frame Saver is available at most hardware stores, and there are other brands of a similar product available.

Some manufacturers drill a drain hole in the bottom of the BB shell. This can help protect the bottom bracket bearings, but water can still collect above the shell because the hole into the shell from the seat tube is at the high point, and water can sit down along the weld lines around the front and back of the tube.  A drain hole at the bottom of the bottom bracket shell alone is insufficient to protect the seat tube from rusting.

Touch up scratches in paint. Touch up paint can be easily attained at an auto body/paint shop. They usually have pretty close matches.

Magnesium Frames

Water can come come into the frame through the slot at the back of the seat tube. It gets in past the seatpost when it is thrown up at that area by the rear tire.

You need to remove the seatpost and leave it upside down overnight to drain whenever you ride or transport your bike in the rain. And then spray Frame Saver down in there after it’s dry. Frame Saver is available at most hardware stores, and there are other brands of a similar product available. It’s also a good idea to spray frame saver inside the frame every month or so.

Touch up scratches in paint. Touch up paint can be easily obtained at an auto body/paint shop. They usually have pretty close matches.

Titanium Frames

Titanium frames can never corrode, but it’s always a good idea to drain water out of the seat tube after riding in the rain.

Use Anti-seize compound when threading any component directly onto the frame.

Scratches: Titanium frames can scratch. Use a scotchbrite pad to buff out scratches. We can refinish your titanium frame for a modest charge at any time during the life of the frame.

Aluminum Frames

Drain water from seat tube after riding in the rain.

For Zinn Megabikes and Gigabikes, and other bikes with a concentrak bushing pivot: Squirt a high quality bicycle grease into the zerk fitting underneath the bottom bracket. A grease gun can be obtained at an auto parts shop, or even Walmart. Don’t use the auto grease. Use a spoon to scoop a high quality bicycle grease into the grease gun.  We recommend Buzzy’s Slick Honey grease because it is smooth, light, and clean. Pump grease into the zerk fitting after ever 3-6 rides. Grease more often when riding in wet or muddy conditions.

Crank Care

Torque your Zinn crank’s bolt to 425-450 inch- pounds. Check the torque after the first few rides, and tighten if necessary. Then check every 1000 miles. Improper torque can cause creaking and damage to the crank. This type of damage is obvious, and is not covered by warranty.

ARTICLE FROM VELONEWS:This is an interesting article by Lennard that was in the Velonews buyer’s guide.My Bike Broke; Do I Get a New One? Making Sense of Bicycle Warranties
By Lennard ZinnThere are many happy cyclists riding around on bikes that they received as warranty replacements. There are also plenty of riders whose warranty claims were refused. What makes the difference?
The first thing to understand about a bike warranty is that it’s a contract between you, the original purchaser, and the bicycle company. It is not between you and the retailer who sold you the bike.
The second thing to understand is that you must have bought the bike new from an authorized dealer of that bike brand. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a bike that was purchased new on the Internet from a seller who was acting as an inventory liquidator for an out-of-business shop or distributor is covered by warranty—it probably won’t be.
The third thing to understand is the warranty generally only covers the product. It does not cover assembly, shipping, and whatever else the dealer charges for the warranty service.
Cover your bases
To ensure that you are covered, make sure you have proof that you are the original buyer. Keep the original sales receipt, and make sure that it lists the bicycle’s serial number on it. It’s also a good idea to fill out the warranty card that came with the bike. The card of course has a marketing purpose allowing the company to keep track of its customers with the intent of selling more of its products to them and their friends. But it also produces a permanent record at the bike company of your purchase of that bike, including the sales date, the retailer, and the bike’s serial number, as well as your personal contact information. It will help if you can’t put your hand on that receipt when you need it.
Making a claim
Generally, you can’t warranty a defective bike directly to the bike company; you must make your warranty claim through any authorized dealer of the brand, though not necessarily the store where you bought it. The bike shop is caught in the middle, but the warranty is actually only between the company and original buyer.
The first thing to do is to clean the bike up as if you’re trying to sell it. In reality, you are selling it to the company, and you want it to look like you’ve taken good care of it.
Be truthful about what happened. It makes it a lot easier for everybody to figure out what to do. Warranty personnel are not dummies; they’ve been around the block a few times and can tell if you’ve had a front-end collision on the bike, so don’t waste everybody’s time and your karma by lying about it.
Don’t expect to get a new bike immediately, even if you’re certain you have a legitimate warranty claim. Bikes must be sent back before a warranty can be approved, in general, although occasionally a bike company will agree to send a replacement out before receiving the damaged one.
Although the warranty may say or at least give the impression that the bike has a, say, 10-year warranty, rest assured that it is only the frame and sometimes the fork (if it is branded the same as the frame) that is covered for that entire period. Most bike companies only warranty the parts on the bike for one year, and they don’t necessarily stock those parts. If the bike company does not have the part in stock, the dealer is responsible for procuring it and applying for reimbursement from the bike company. And as with the frame, the warranty covers only the part, not the shipping and the labor to remove the old part and install and adjust the new one. This generally applies as well to purchases of single components not obtained as part of a bike.
Bike warranties never cover wear items like tires, inner tubes, handlebar tape or grips, pedal cleats, and saddles covers. You can generally expect things like broken saddle rails to be covered within the warranty period, however. And parts that failed because they were installed incorrectly would generally be covered as well, either by the bike company or its dealer that installed them.
Scott Adlfinger, owner and founder of Louisville Cyclery in Louisville, Colorado says, “I’ve never seen a company turn down a legitimate warranty claim, even if it’s (time-wise) way down the road, and even if it means accepting some fishy claims.” Bicycle companies are generally interested in maintaining goodwill in the market, so they tend to bend over backward a bit in accepting somewhat spurious claims. Companies often also are interested in getting old products back to study and use to improve future products. The bad and the good news are both valuable to learn from.
Pitfalls
Don’t place too much significance on the length of the warranty in determining the quality of a given bicycle, especially when comparing brands of differing nationality, because some warranty styles have more to do with culture than with quality. For instance, a five-year warranty is acceptable to European consumers, whereas Americans raised on the warranty policies of Target and Wal-Mart often expect lifetime warranties. Bianchi, for instance, often offers a 10-year warranty on steel and aluminum bikes and a five-year period on carbon ones, whereas Trek, Specialized and Cannondale often offer limited lifetime warranties. That doesn’t necessarily mean that a Trek will last longer than a Bianchi, however. And it could be argued that a shorter warranty period is a more reasonable approach, since everybody knows that no bike lasts forever.
The term “limited lifetime” is a catch; it’s a gray area and refers to the usable life of the product and not the life of the consumer. It acknowledges that the item won’t last forever. It also allows some room for negotiation. If it’s been really mistreated, it allows the company to say that the lifetime of that bike has been surpassed, and there will be no warranty replacement coming.
Many bike warranties list jumping, acrobatics, stunt riding, off-road use and racing as exclusions that void the warranty. Obviously, companies that sell mountain bikes expect many of them to be ridden off-road, and if they sell racing bikes, they expect many of them to be raced. And jumping bikes are generally bought by people who jump them. Those clauses are written into the warranty to protect the company from people who abuse the products. That doesn’t mean that your mountain bike won’t be covered if it broke while riding off-road in a way that could be reasonably be defined as normal use for the bike.
Extended warranties like you can purchase on home appliances or like the MP3 crash-replacement warranty Mavic sells with its wheels are non-existent or in their infancy on bikes.
Count on the dealer
Solving warranties is a big part of a retailer’s job. He or she wants your business and will try to facilitate your claim, even if you did not buy the bike there. The retailer must also often be the bearer of bad tidings but will often try to defer that position to the bike company. Everybody knows that if you buy a bike at VeloSwap or on eBay – where everything is compatible and has a warranty (wink-wink), you’re on your own if the thing breaks. But the dealer will often choose to call the bike company to get them to say that rather than give you the bad news he knows will be coming, in hopes you won’t take it out on him.
Count on the fact that the people you are dealing with are generally reasonable and will accept a reasonable claim.