Kickped vs. Xootr customer service: Losing Your Bearings

When I dropped the KickPed off at NYCeWheels on Thursday, everything was straightforward as if they hadn’t tried to welch on their lifetime warranty on Tuesday. The counter guy, previously dubbed “Brown,” was coincidentally named David Browne, which I learned not because he introduced himself, but because it was printed on the work order receipt that I insisted he give me. He asked if “Alex” said it was ok for me to leave it, I said yeah, he said then it might be ready today. I looked at the sign on the wall, which estimated a 9-day turnaround on service. David said it was something fast that they could probably do after closing the doors, so obviously they were full of malarkey the first time. I left my number.

Sure enough, Alex called at 1930, a half hour after they close, and said it was ready. Turns out they had read my post, but it seemed none of us were going to acknowledge that—though his “Thanks, buddy” was to be our most cordial exchange throughout.

Fair enough. I went in the next day to pick it up, and David and “Blond” were at the desk again. (He wasn’t blond at all, but the distinction had served. I could as easily have used Vladimir and Estragon, Rocky and Bullwinkle, or A and B.) “Aah, the blond guy!” said Blond with exaggerated cheer when he put my scooter down on the counter. I didn’t hear him because I was staring at some flange they had put on the bolt securing the rear wheel. I asked what that was, thinking it was a spacer, and he said “I don’t know, it’s not supposed to be there…You know what it is, it’s the guts of the old bearing.” He proceeded to unscrew the bolt, remove the race, and tighten the nut back down. There was a long silence while he did that, then he said, “So am I blondie, or brown?”

“You don’t have blond hair,” I observed.

“Neither does he,” he said with what must have been smugness.

“I thought you were, I didn’t really look directly at you.”

“Thanks!” he said. Was he offended by a perceived failure to acknowledge his humanity?

“So why were you such dicks the other day?”

“I dunno. We were busy.”

“You weren’t busy, I was the only one in the store.”

He gestured to a screen behind him, “We had a lot of internet stuff going on,” then without missing a beat, “you want an extra bearing?”

“Sure.” With that, it was done. It was clear that an extra bearing was the limit of his civil capabilities, and probably his way of suggesting “And stay out!” A lack of confidence in the materials, a dismissal, or both.

Maybe their service team (probably one frayed guy) is in over its head. Maybe the margins in their business are poor, and the staff don’t care about a career in alternative transportation sales. Repairs must be their biggest man-hour loss on paper. Introducing a simple, indestructible product like the KickPed would change that, though the novice buyer won’t choose a KickPed over a the dominant Xootr unless it has a gimmick like a lifetime warranty. And New York City leads the kick scooter market, which is growing: 45% of Xootr’s 2011 sales were here, up from 36% in 2010. But a warranty without service risks the store’s reputation, and most people who live here have neither a workshop nor the time to replace a defective bearing, even if it does take only a half hour.

The KickPed may be sturdier than the Xootr. You’d better hope yours is.

KickPed vs. Xootr: Customer Service review

Fig. 1. Drawing: Silberwolf; Wikimedia Commons CC

The wall seal on my KickPed’s rear wheel roller bearing broke last week. In fig.1 you see an example bearing with wall intact, in my pic below the interior is exposed—not an ideal condition for something packed with greased bearings a couple inches above churning road grit. I’d remove the wheel for a full view of the bearing but as you will see below, I don’t want to provide a pretext to void my warranty.  In my earlier review I noted that the rear wheel bearings began to whine 4 months after purchase whenever I rode through the rain, so they were not watertight from early on. The bearing filled with grit and degraded quickly after the wall broke; a couple of days after the breach the collar holding the bearings skipped off and the whole wheel slid on its axle up against the frame, so that the friction made it almost too hot to touch after a fast 3 minute ride.

There should be a blue plastic wall fused between the collar and outer edge of the roller bearing.

Yesterday I called the NYCeWheels store, which sold it to me just over a year ago when it hit the market. I told the guy on the phone that I’d need to bring in a KickPed for warranty service, and when I bought it. I explained the failure, and he supposed that the bearing had been defective when it left the factory, or the installer had hammered it onto the tire too hard, weakening the wall seal. “Thousands of scooters have been out there with no problem,” he added, and said they could replace the bearing in an hour. I could drop it off and pick it up the next day if I didn’t have an hour to wait, and that they’d loan me a scooter to get back to the train (a 10-minute walk from the store). I had thought I’d have to lug the KickPed while riding my troubled Xootr just to save on 50 minutes (total) of walking.

MAINTENANCE FREE, LIFETIME WARRANTY

At the store, 2 guys were at the desk. One was blond, one brown haired, neither was who I had spoken to. Both looked at the damage. “Blond” said maybe I said on phone that I wanted warranty service to a Xootr, which I hadn’t, and which wouldn’t have made sense anyway since the KickPed is NYCeWheels’ product (with GoPed). In fact the website encourages users to bring it in for free biannual safety checks as part of “free lifetime service.” They call the KickPed  “100% bullet-proof,” “indestructible,” and go so far as to say: “This is a kick scooter that you buy once and never have to worry about breaking or needing repairs.” Yet Blond added they might not have the wheels in stock, which I thought odd because it’s their product. Maybe they don’t carry them because the KickPed is “maintenance free.” Blond left the shop to ask someone if there were wheels in inventory. He returned and said they didn’t have the wheels there.

“Brown” told me I could get wheels online and they were “only about $55.” But, he added, if I had the shop install them, with labor I was “already halfway to the cost of a new scooter, so I might as well buy a new scooter.” At my incredulity, Brown told me that the warranty only covered the frame, and gestured at the KickPed on the counter to encompass the handlebar/stem assembly, deck, and chassis. Blond added cheekily that I “should have read the fine print.” When I complained, Blond had the balls to quip, “Maybe it’s time for a bike!”

I had to get to work and clearly the situation was deteriorating fast. I asked if I could just replace the bearings, and Blond said sure, I could get them at any skate shop. I picked up the KickPed and left, planning to check NYCeWheels’ website when I arrived at the office.

Of course I had read correctly a year ago. As an editor, it’s impossible that I hadn’t “read the fine print” when spending $250 of my hard-earned—editors are often as poor as they are punctilious. I called back and spoke to Alex, who was probably “Brown” because he was sitting at the counter nearest the computer and phone 45 minutes ago. I asked him to send me a link to the language stating that the lifetime warranty only covered the frame, and there was a 30-second pause during which I heard several mouse clicks. Finally he said dully, “We’ll honor the bearing repair for you.”

“You can’t send the language because it’s not there!” I said, “Then I’ll bring it by.” I’ll post whatever comes of that, if they don’t rig the KickPed to spill me in traffic.

And here: the thrilling conclusion to this weeklong saga traversing 2 counties and 3 trains.

By contrast, Xootr customer service has always been exemplary, even across great distances. For example, The ex3 was their short-lived nickel metal-hydride battery scooter with electronics from Nova Cruz. At $900 it was like buying a used car you could fold up. It went 17 mph for up to 2 hours and had an innovative regenerative brake, which converted braking power into energy fed back into the battery/ies. It was hella fun but developed battery problems, and Xootr always honored a 3-month battery warranty via an independent repair guy in Queens. He was himself an enthusiastic F-scooter rider. I took the ex3 there 40 minutes on the train, 3-4 times to have the $200 battery replaced, and each time he’d swap it out only for it to fail within the 3 month warranty. I gave up after a while, and because I moved and didn’t have to ride 4 miles to the train on something smaller than a bike, I never got it fixed. A couple of years ago I eBayed the ex3 to an electrical engineer specializing in batteries. FWIW, Nova Cruz LLC ultimately went bankrupt.

When I got a Xootr MG in 2007, it eventually exhibited some mystifying problems that persist today. The specifics are beyond this post, but my first service was 3 years after I bought it, and warrantied because they decided it was defective. A year later I had to send it to Pennsylvania again  (at $25 each time), but bought the KickPed to cover me.  They sorted what appears to be a defect promptly and sent it back—3 years after purchase, despite a 1-year stated warranty. The decision is at their Xootr’s discretion, but compare their engineers’ discretion to the cavalier fuckery of NYCeWheels, and caveat emptor.

Rome—The Chronicles of Kronstadt

Photo: Витольд Муратов

My rusty translation, from Disc 3 of Rome’s Die Aesthetik der Herrschaftsfreiheit.

As always, I welcome any corrections from native German speakers in the comments.

The Chronicles of Kronstadt

I sink in the ice of Kronstadt I lie under the plaster of Paris I am glued to the walls of Warsaw I stand petrified in Berlin I lie in the streets of Barcelona I fall in a hail of bullets from the White Guard I lie in the snow of Petrograd Lie buried in the forests of Peru I bleed out in the sands of Spain I lie on the Ukrainian steppes I freeze in Siberia Worn down between Hammer and Cross I escape over the sea And I shiver there too They send me back They send me away They ban me They consoled themselves with safety Over me away I’m lying in the port of Odessa Lying garrotted in Leon Mauled by the bloodhounds Of the new order I flow from torn-out throats I am the scream That rises from the steppes That drifts in from the sea Too seldom do I urge myself in circles Centers, wings And even my wish for gentleness Is drawn from the long struggle With the brutality From hiding, from ambush From the belief and the lieI speak in an awkward plethora of voices I’m wildfire I’m rumor, fragment and reason And now your search leads you to me In the exile of defeated revolutions In remote villages of the French provinces In Brusselers’ garrets In attic apartments In Amsterdam and London In Barcelona’s backyards In the barns of GasconyMy tracks are covered Yellowed, tattered almost forgotten Spare are the remains, What from brochures and tracts Leaflets and reportage Essays and biographies Speeches and memoirs I know to report I lie buried in the bomb shelter Coded in encryption and bunkered between newspapers And false walls Hidden behind portraitsIn the cellars of the exile One finds only remnants of conspiracy of life in the underground of the immortal camaraderie and hopefully What you find written here Has through a thousand secret hands been passed Conveyed Through generations, throughout Insights into tradition In witness reports and decrees Been passed on in secret copies Illegal printed material in manifestos Half-lost newspapers in fragile folds Full of languages believed dead In occasional hints Then you will always find something in my black fabric That we once encircled everything Are you looking for the testimonials of your champion? All of this may remain only fragmentary Each remains alone And yet in every gasp of this surrounding totality How would you compose me In writing? How, wanderer, do you want To give me a voice? To give this smoke form? To codify this air? And who will now Interpret authoritatively? Who built finality? Is it a shame about humanity? Is it?

Ich versinke im eis von Kronstadt Ich liege unter dem Pflaster von Paris Ich klebe an den Mauern Warschaus Ich steh’ versteinert in Berlin Ich liege in den Strassen Barcelonas Ich falle im Kugelhagel Der weissen Garden Ich liege im Schnee Petrograds Lieg’ verscharrt in den Wäldern Perus Ich verblute in Spaniens Sand Ich liege in der Ukranischen Steppe Ich friere in Sibirien Aufgerieben zwischen Hammer und Kreuz Ich rette mich übers Meer Und mich fröstelt es auch dort Man schickt mich zürück Man schickt mich fort Man verbannt mich Man tröstet sich mit sicherheit Über mich hinweg Ich liege im Hafen von Odessa Liege garrotiert in Leon Zerfleischt von den Bluthunden Der neuen Ordnung Ich fliesse aus aufgebisser Gurgel Ich bin der Schrei Der aus der Steppe aufsteigt Der vom Meer herüberweht Zu selten dränge ich mich in Zirkeln Zentren, Flügeln Und auch mein freundlichseinwollen Ist gezeichnet vom langen Kampf Mit der Brutalität Vom versteck, vom hinterhalt Von der Vorstellung und der LügeIch spreche in sperriger Vielstimmigkeit Ich bin Steppenbrand Bin Gerücht, Teil und Grund Und nun führt dich deine suche nach mir In das exil besiegter Revolutionen In entlegene Dörfer Der französischen Provinz In brüsseler Mansarden In Dachwohnungen In Amsterdam and London In die Hinterhöfe Barcelonas In die Scheunen der GascogneMeine Spur ist verwischt Vergilbt, zerfleddert Fast vergessen Spärlich bleibt das Was die Bröschuren und Traktate Flugblätter and Reportagen Essays und Biografien Reden und Memoiren Von mir zu berichten wissen Ich liege im Bombenkeller verscharrt In improvisierten Verstecken Und Bunkern Zwischen Zeitungen Und falschen Wänden Hinter Portraits verstecktIn den Kellern der Verbannung Finden sich nur Reste Von Verschwörung Vom Leben im untergrund Von der unsterblichen Kameradschaft Und hoffnung Was du hier gescrieben findest Ist durch tausend heimliche Hände gegangen Weitergereicht Durch Generationen hindurch In überlieferten Einsichten In Dekreten und Zeugenberichten In heimlich weitergereichten Exemplaren Illegaler Druckschriften In Manifesten In halb verschollen Zeitungen In brüchigen Konvoluten Voll totgeglaubter Buchstaben In spärlichen Andeutungen Findet sich dann doch immer noch Etwas von meinen schwarzen Gewebe Das uns einst alle umspann Suchst du nach Zeugnissen Deiner Vorkämpfer? All dies kann nur Fragment bleiben Man bleibt allein Und doch im jedem Atemzug von dieser Totalität umfangen Doch wie willst du mich In Schrift fassen? Wie willst du Wanderer Mir eine Stimme geben? Diesem Rauch eine form? Wie diese Luft kodifizieren? Und wer will nun Deutungshoheit erlangen? Wer Endgültigkeit errichten? Ist es Schade um die Menschen? Ist es?