Originally Posted by
carleton
I heard (and witnessed) similar stories about Serenity.
Not about Dixie Flyer in particular, but "China Carbon" in general...
People ask, "Why not get an eBay frame for a fraction of the cost of the household name companies??"
The answer is: Quality Control.
The Chinese companies will ship things that household name companies will not. It's that simple. The question is whether or not the company state-side catches the defective parts before the customers get them.
In that documentary showing how easy it is to setup a bike company with as little as $5,000USD (if memory serves me correctly), one guy that worked for a popular US company had to live in China (or visit several times a year) and inspect the products at the factory regularly to make sure they weren't shipping things they should have been scrapping.
"Why would they ship things that don't meet specs?" Being lazy and cutting corners. The faster they make their quota, the fewer raw materials they have to buy, the less they pay in labor costs, and the faster they are on to making money on the next job.
The lack of quality control and lack of prompt communication sealed the deal for me. I will never purchase something bike related sight unseen again. I guess you get what you pay for. I ended up going to a Brick and Mortar store and although I really didn't want to spend 3x as much, purchased a Cervelo T4 and couldn't be happier.