Tuesday, February 3, 2015

The Trouble with Trucks

Let me explain the situation with Evolve. A long time ago, sometime last year, if I remember correctly, I bought a Carbon series from Evolve. Now any electric skateboard you buy today is going to take a long time to actually ship, and the carbon series is no exception.
When I finally got it, I only used it a few times before the electrics on it went dead. Bummer. I wound up returning it. They send me another Carbon series, which also went dead. The Evolve representative asked me to do some work on the board, opening it up, checking wire connections, etc. At the end of it all, they told me to return that board, too.
At that point, it was public knowledge that Evolve was coming out with a new Bamboo Series Two. I asked them for a Series Two, having been soured on the carbon series. Also, the Carbon series was a bit long for my liking. Since the Carbon series cost more, they offered to refund me the difference. Sounds great.
Fast forward to August of 2014, when I got the Series Two. I rode it a few times with the regular skateboard wheels, before putting on the all terrain tires. I skated it like that until recently, when I put the regular wheels back on. I estimate I only rode the board about a dozen times, total, before I went to take a picture of it. And noticed the metal was damaged.
Now I put the picture of the broken truck on my instragram @maulakai. Would you believe Evolve responded on their official account to contact the distributor for a replacement?
I contact the distributor. He isn’t the same guy I had been doing business with in Michigan. Now it’s some guy out in California. I check one of Evolve’s email newsletters and see that they have changed their American base. New location, new management. Awesome.
But the guy I’m emailing asks me to mail the part to them, says he thinks a replacement is $40. It cost me $20 to mail the damn broken part, but I did it.
Meanwhile, Evolve on Instagram says I should have been issued a new set of trucks a long time ago.
So now I’m stuck in an awkward place, wondering what’s going to happen. It’s a bit like a good cop / bad cop routine, where the guy on Instagram says everything you’d want to hear, that it’s all a big misunderstanding that they’ll take care of. While the guy writing their email says how much more money he wants from you.
All of this, and I never did get the difference in cost between the Carbon and the Bamboo Series Two. I’m not sure if the prices have changed, but we’re talking a difference of $450, according to the Evolve webpage today.
So Evolve on instagram says I should email him. Of course, I don’t have his email address, but I’m going to see if I can’t get a hold of that man, who may or may not be Jeff Anning (the CEO of Evolve).
I hate to write such posts that shed a bit of a dark light on the situation. But when I started the blog, I promised to chronicle the journey of an electric skateboarder, so that people new to the sport would have some idea of what to expect. I want to make it clear that despite all of the bumps along the way, I absolutely love my Evolve boards. If I could do it all over again, I would have purchased their boards even sooner.
But I’m trusting you, Evolve, to make this right.

29 comments:

  1. Justin, I had some major issues with my evolve carbon as well and it felt like the ball was being dropped over and over again by the North American service team. I had a truck snap while going 20 mph (luckily I was on the bike trail and not in Denver's traffic), I had to wait 5 weeks for a warranty replacement of my remote (they sent a battery originally that needed to be soldered in-like wtf?) and I now have 3 chargers because Evolve failed to recognize their quick charger needs a step up convertor (over $200 from Grainger). All in all it's a fun product but the US support has left much to be desired. I tried returning my extra things (broken remote, extra chargers, etc) and was told not to worry about it. Whatever I guess.

    At the end of the day it's a great product but the service has been lacking. Hopefully things get better because I too share your passion for electric skateboards and would like to see improvements in the future (titanium trucks seems like a start).

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll have to install mine. The old distributors in Michigan sent me a replacement hangar and said install it this one is stronger! I never installed it thinking it wasn't necessary.... Looking at yours I should before the old one does something similar!

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