scottmcd

I bought a 2016 Kona Esatto DDL very nice bike! I love it. I bought fenders to install, here is where it goes south.(I rode this bike over a month before discovering this) When the bike was made there was no rear mounting holes in the frame for fenders, my LBS looked at another he had in stock and it had the mounting holes for the fenders. So he contacted Kona and we got the runaround for quite awhile. I contacted Joe at Kona (the owner) and after mutable emails of him telling me to contact my local bike store, which in each of my emails to him I said we were getting no where with the Kona rep and would like his help in resolving this issue. Needless to say my works fell on deaf ears. Then we find out that Kona had a run of frames with this defect, so I thought great I would get a new frame NOT! The only frames that they have left are the ones that have the defect. Yes there are fenders that you can get that do not require you to use the mounting holes in the frame. That's not the point, they knowingly sold bikes with this defect! And now will not stand behind there product! Like I said earlier I love this bike, but I am very disappointed that Kona will not stand behind their product. I did get an offer of when I got to buy a new bike from them they would cut me a great deal. I have no respect for companies that wont stand behind their products and sell some knowing that their is a defect.

2_i 

I am not sure about strategies of individual companies, but no holes are more likely in bikes manufactured for US than e.g. Europe. In the US fenders are passed as a frivolous add-on and in other markets customers will refuse to buy a bike without fenders. It could be that the Kona's strategy for the US was changing for good or bad around the time your bike was produced.

scottmcd

Its about that my bike was made without the mounting holes when it should have! Like all the other Kona bikes my make and model were. My bike was a bad run of frames as Kona admitted to and will not fix. That's my point. In Washington state you need fenders if you want to ride in a group and when I bought my bike that is a question I asked. And was told yes.