Caveat emptor..

[john]

..or why only fools rush in.

I'm a man of caution. To date my rash retro purchases are few, nothing of note. Until now.

Trying to finish a bike, been looking for some Red brakes levers for a while. See some on German ebay. Scan the ad using my school boy german, run it through google quickly. Sounds ok. Pics looks reasonable. Dig ridiculously, no painfully deep to secure the winning bid.

They arrive today.

Open the box eagerly. Dream about getting the Yo Eddy finished finally. They look a little shabby and grubby. Take them to the workshop at work to give them a clean. Notice one lever isn't quite straight and is bent around the clamp. DAMN MY EYES. Check the ebay auction (this time with a German colleague translating) and indeed the seller mentions they are a little bent.

So there we have it. All the money spent on a useless set of levers. They work ok but who wants a brake lever snapping mid ride? Anyone know if Pauls do spare parts.

Let this be a lesson to all of us.

 

[orange71]

we've all done it... :roll:

 

[kaiser]

Bidding on a set of grips and won at a bargain price. Only upon recieving them did I realise that the auction was for one grip Absolutley useless.

 

[neilll]

Anyone know if Pauls do spare parts.

He is VERY VERY helpful and answers emails very quickly and yeah its Paul himself and not some desk jockey....worth a shot mate.

 

[Hilts]

Bidding on a set of grips and won at a bargain price. Only upon recieving them did I realise that the auction was for one grip Absolutley useless.

I have been giggling about this for about 5 minutes, I'm sorry to laugh at someones misfortune but I'm picturing the look on your face when you opened up the box all excited.....and then saw what you had won

 

[Lid]

What was it called? "Your out of the box experience"






And Germans commonly refer to 1 1/8th in quill stems as 1in...because the are 1in wide. That was a bad out of the box experience.

 

[john]

Anyone know if Pauls do spare parts.

He is VERY VERY helpful and answers emails very quickly and yeah its Paul himself and not some desk jockey....worth a shot mate.

E-mailed him yesterday, lets hope he replies and maybe takes pity on me


Bad news on the grip front..

 

[Corduroyboy]

And Germans commonly refer to 1 1/8th in quill stems as 1in...because the are 1in wide. That was a bad out of the box experience.

So do some Americans! I had a drawn out email conversation with a seller of a '1 inch' stem. I asked him if it was 25.4mm (1 inch) in diameter or 22.2mm (for 1 inch forks). He answered me about 4 times with: "It is a 1 inch stem." :roll: He finally conceeded: "It is for 1 inch forks. "
That'll be 22.2mm then, which is what I asked him 5 times!!!!!

 

[Lid]

Thats quite a different thing because Germans are being pedanticlly specific, whereas the Americans think that metric is a foreign plot to usurp their powerfull hold on the planet (or cheat them out of a full tank).

 

[knobby]

I've had so many disappointments with ebay purchases, ranging from badly presented and sometimes just plain filthy parts poorly packaged, to total beyond use junk!! So now, I open parcels, not with excitement, but a strong sense of foreboding.