Sram warranty/ going to different bikeshop

[sven_jto]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post so I've posted in both subforums.
Last year I bought a partial sram red grouppo from a bikeshop in Scotland at retail price

. A few days ago the shift lever broke on the Left Sram Red shifter.
The problem is I live in Belgium now and the bikeshops i've been to so far, are refusing to take my warranty claim for the shifter.
Sram only does stuff like that through dealers and their europe central phone office was very unhelpful. Shouldn't bike shops take my warranty item(should i keep trying to go to sram dealers)?
It'd be quite complex to get the item to Scotland and so on.
Do you guys have any suggestions

I've got training camp soon and races I really don't wanna be stuck in the 53 all the time ?

 

[alfeng]

FWIW ...

Your unfortunate experience with dealing with SRAM is not unlike a problem which I had several years ago with SRAM's customer service in North America ...

This was AFTER not getting any help from any of my local bike shops.​

After several months without a reply from SRAM's North American office, I resorted to contacting SRAM's European office ...

At least, they replied ...​

After which some guy (¿Jason?) in their NA office contacted me saying that he had previously contacted me ... not!

Jason then advised me that I could order the part through a shop in Pennsylvania ...

I e-mailed THAT shop.

THAT shop never replied!!!

Pitiful.
​

So, as the Russian proverb (adopted by others, now) goes:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.​

I subsequently vowed never to buy another SRAM product.

My recommendation to you is that if you have a 10-speed configuration, then SELL the right hand shifter on eBay and replace your SRAM shifters with some 10-speed Campagnolo shifters of any variety from Mirage-to-Record as your budget allows & your aesthetic sensibilities dictate ...

Yes. Campagnolo 10-speed shifters mated to SRAM's 10-speed rear derailleur yields 10-speed Shimano/SRAM indexing ...

Campagnolo's 11-speed shifters mated to Shimano 9-/10-speed rear derailleurs yields 10-speed Shimano indexing.​

There are other derailleur combinations which can be used with Campagnolo shifters.
​

Campagnolo shifters work with almost any cable operated front derailleur, BTW ...

While SRAM's YAW front derailleur supposedly fixed the shifting problems which occurred with their first generation of front derailleurs ...

FYI. I tested Campagnolo shifters with a wide range of front chainrings ... I finally tested thin, unramped-and-unpinned 7-speed (?) Shimano chainrings and the chain shifted cleanly without balking ...

My 9-speed Shimano Ultegra shifters & 9-speed Ultegra Shimano crankset (this was c2001) balked when the drivetrain was under a load ...
​

​

 

[alfeng]

BTW ...

FYI. Shimano's North American Customer Service is EXCELLENT. I presume that the same can be said of their European counterpart ...

My only (?) complaint about Shimano's products is their shifter's inefficient mechanism when the drivetrain is under a serious load (i.e., going uphill on a mountain road OR cresting a hill and hoping to shift onto the larger chainring) ... the "problem" was not remedied with the first generation of 10-speed Shimano shifters ...

Some people say (or, pretend!?!) that they do not have any shifting problems with their Shimano shifters.

Maybe. Maybe not.

If so, then good for them!​

A known remedy for the balking shifting is to un-weight the drivetrain prior to shifting, BTW.
​

BTW. The way the "paid" (e.g., magazine) reviewers gushed about Shimano's electronic shifters when they were first released made me think that most had never used Campagnolo mechanical shifters.