Amflow PL Carbon owners, check your seat tube for cracks!

[ericm]

2. Refusal of warranty service in the absence of official dealer contacts (though Amflow has such a contact, since they know the serial numbers)

It's normal in many industries to not support gray market sales.

Supporting gray market sales undercuts the manufacturers' official sales channel. If there is no difference to the end customer whether they buy through the channel or on gray market, most of them will go for the cheaper option. The official distributors will drop the manufacturer and then they will be stuck with some random Alibaba seller or whatever.

 

[TheKaiser]

My experience has been a little different.

First was a cracked Santa Cruz swingarm. I called them up and described the problem. They were very apologetic: "Oh... yeah... sorry. We don't have any of those right now. It will be a couple weeks until we get them back from powder coating. But if you want any other color, we can ship it tomorrow." I didn't care about color, and my bike was back up and running by the end of the week.

The other was a Specialized. Again, it was a cracked swingarm. The bike was a couple years old, and it was purchased second hand. Despite the lack of official paperwork, Specialized sent out a new swingarm in a few days. As it turned out, there were two versions, and this one didn't fit the bike. Unfortunately, they didn't have any correct swingarms left. It was too old. Bummer/ But after a few days, their customer service guy went out to the warehouse and found one of their factory test bikes with the correct swingarm. They disassembled it and sent out the correct part. Even though the part wasn't new, the bike was back up and running, and it took less than two weeks.

Once again, buy only from companies that have a strong presence in your area.

Yeah, I've seen the same type of thing from both Specialized and Santa Cruz, and know people who will only buy from those brands for exactly that reason...because they know they'll be taken care of if there is a problem. Both those companies will go out of their way to figure something out and get you back on the trail, as well as often take pity on someone who bought a bike 2nd hand or otherwise lacks proper documentation.

I've always attributed it to a combo of their employees being fellow "bike people" who want to hook other "bike people" up, and also corporate management understanding that the enthusiast riding community is a pretty tightly knit one, so if an end user had a bad experience with a given product, or a stellar experience with customer service, they're likely to tell a lot of other people about it, magnifying the effect for better or for worse. It makes hooking up someone with a new swingarm or front triangle (that only cost $50 to produce) look like a pretty reasonable business/marketing decision.

DJI, being a non-bike company, presumably staffed with a lot of non-bike people, is likely to have a very different attitude. I love their desire to innovate and push the tecnologies forward, but I hope that Amflow starts to understand the bike market better and conforms to the type of standards that established bike companies have set.

 

[TheKaiser]

All of the above hinges on the "if these bikes were sold through an official channel" part of your assertion.

Are you sure that the warranty would be transferred if the BMW you bought was sold in the same way as the OPs bike? I.e. not sold through an official dealer in owners home country? Otherwise you're comparing apples and oranges.

Transferability of warranty depends to some degree on the brand, and also the local laws in the purchase region. Having said that, even if the car is not covered by the original warranty, per se, a manufacturer is not free of responsibility for major product flaws, particularly if they are safety concerns. For example, I had a Toyota truck which had a recall due to frame rusting issues. Toyota bought the truck back from me at fair market value, despite me being the 2nd owner. More recently, I had a Nissan truck, purchased 2nd hand (with the proceeds from the Toyota recall) that had a recall due to bad airbags. Again, this updated airbag was provided and installed at no cost, despite me being the 2nd owner (and the vehicle being beyond the initial warranty period even if I was the original owner).

 

[TheKaiser]

Buy ANY emtb off alibaba and see if the manufacturer will warranty it. I’ll bet almost 100% will say no. There’s literal 1/2 price mondrakers, Santa Cruz, etc on there. Idk how they get these bikes or what’s up with them, but I bet you zero manufacturers will cover a frame crack if you purchased from there and they do all check serial #s.

The point is very simple. In amflow warranty the first paragraph is that it must be purchased from an authorized dealer. As said by someone else on here maybe these are frames that Amflow turned down due to quality issues.

OP took a long time to admit he ordered from alibaba. He knew it was a mistake. The seller isn’t even responding to him. I do not blame amflow in the slightest for not warrantying this. I also contacted a seller back when I was buying an amflow and he was in the US but most certainly getting alibaba bikes. I questioned his warranty process and it was sketchy. A lot of people order through this guy as well and I’m glad I didn’t. His prices were very enticing.

Pretty common sense here but don’t buy from alibaba and expect warranty repairs on anything.

A lot of the super cheap "premium brand" products on Ali are just straight up counterfeits, rather than real ones that may or may not have failed Q/C and then were diverted "out the back" of the factory. Specialized did a big expose of this a few years ago, cutting apart "Specialized Tarmac" frames that were purchased on Aliexpress and showing the incredibly poor quality materials used under the seemingly nice paintjob. For example, 1 of them had newspaper used as a mold release layer on the inside of the frame. There have been similar evaluations of some of the fake Pinarellos (Chinarellos as folks took to calling them).

That isn't to say that good stuff can't be made in China. Some of the "real" versions of these bikes may be made there too....but in a very different factory with different materials. Buying through an authorized dealer is the only way to be reasonably sure, but even still there have been a few dealers who have gotten in trouble for blending in fake stuff (usually less safety critical stuff like jerseys and water bottle cages) to get better profit margins. The general consensus is that if you're buying direct from China, you are actually pretty safe if buying from a "Reputable" Chinese company, who has built their own brand identity, like Light Bicycle, or Farsports, because they have their own reputation to maintain. If its someone selling counterfeit stuff that says another brand on it, though, they've got no reputation to lose, so they are incentivized to make the product for as little money as possible, and keep going until the party stops.

Regarding the OPs situation, I am disinclined to think that its a counterfeit, because, unlike a bare frame, the complete e-bike needs a whole bunch of other parts that are much harder to counterfeit or even acquire to put on a counterfeit frame. We have people here on the forum complaining about the lack of avilability of standalone Avinox motors and batteries, so even if you made a fake frame you couldn't get the electronics to put on it.

 

[Astro66]

I have no clue what the issue is. I have a PL carbon pro in Medium, that I bought from a recognized Amflow dealer.

I have bought new Samsung phones from OS on Ebay. Some have had issues, like the camera had a spot on it. Samsung Australia would not touch it with a 10 foot pole. I knew this when I bought it. I certainly didn't go crying on Social Media. You must be responsible for your actions.

The OP bike was bought on Alibaba. A clear breach of Amflow warranty conditions. Thus voiding any warranty. If you void your warranty. It's on you. Not the manufacturer. Holding manufacturers responsible for invalid warranty repairs, will only push up the prices of EMTBs for those who buy their EMTBs from the authorized dealers. People attempting to circumvent the warranty process, but still get warranty, are the criminal here. Not the manufacturer.

/thread.

 

[TheKaiser]

I bought my Amflow PL carbon in late 2025. But I only started riding it in spring 2026. So it's basically a new bike with just 12 cycles.

Recently I've noticed a giant crack in a seat tube area. Contacted the local Amflow community and found at least 4 more people with the same problem. All bikes are late 2025 (2026) models. All PL versions (silver). Out of just 100 people, some of whom don’t even have the bike yet.

So you might want to check yours for cracks.

Worst of all, Amflow refuses to help me. I've bought mine in Hong Kong. So it's the Chinese version. The seller just doesn't respond to my messages. I've tried contacting Amflow support: they told me they don't support Chinese bikes. And Chinese support told me to contact the seller. Who doesn't respond to my messages.

At this point I'm so pissed I'm seriously considering buying a ticket to Hong Kong and dropping this frame at DJI headquarters. Making a TikTok out of it.

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As another user said, if you are totally on your own with no chance of getting a new front triangle from Amflow, then fixing the crack is a pretty simple and cheap DIY repair, although it might not be super pretty looking. If you aren't DIY inclined, there are a lot of companies doing carbon frame repairs now, and they'd be able to blend and smooth the fix it in such a way that you probably couldn't even tell it was repaired, assuming you don't mind paying them to repaint it too. You'd need to get some quotes from them, but I've seen people get even more complex repairs for under $500, so not cheap, but a heck of a lot less than a new frame or bike would cost you.

Even if you used PayPal and a premium level credit card, I think both of their buyer protections end after 120-180 days, which sucks given your being just beyond that period. The US based credit cards that offer enhanced/extended warranties on purchases require there to be an original US warranty in effect, which sucks, since you can't prove that. Interestingly, in regard to Credit Card protections, I just read that ""almost all credit card policies (Visa, Amex, Mastercard) have a blanket exclusion for "motorized vehicles." A standard pedal bicycle is usually covered; an e-bike is usually denied." which was news to me, so I'll need to double check that before assuming I'm covered on future purchases.

I don't think you said what country you are in. Do you mind sharing that?
If you're in the EU then in theory based on statutory rights (EU Directive 2019/771) you legally have a 2-year warranty. However, enforcing this against a seller based in China is extremely difficult practically. If you are in the UK, then Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act is supposed to give you 6-years of protection, but apparently there can be pushback on that if the payment is routed through an intermediary, but still worth looking into. Have you tried finding a number for the seller and calling them? Sometimes some good old fashioned harassment can really light a fire under some slackers who are trying to shirk their duties.

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

Supporting gray market sales undercuts the manufacturers' official sales channel.

Gray market is the manufacturer's official sales channel. Again people, these are not stolen or counterfeit bikes. Amflow aggressively pushes gray market sales thru their vast network of grey market distributors. This enables them to expand their market reach, distance themselves from bad distributors or customers, and deliver to crazy isolated countries without having to figure out the language, shipping, tariffs, product laws, etc.

If Amflow doesn't want to offer a full white glove no-fault crash replacement warranty to riders in N. Korea, fine. But when Amflow knowingly delivers flawed frames thru their own distribution channels, they should take responsibility even if their fine print provides legal immunity. It's just good business.

 

[johnnystorm]

Gray market is the manufacturer's official sales channel. Again people, these are not stolen or counterfeit bikes. Amflow aggressively pushes gray market sales thru their vast network of grey market distributors. This enables them to expand their market reach, distance themselves from bad distributors or customers, and deliver to crazy isolated countries without having to figure out the language, shipping, tariffs, product laws, etc.

If Amflow doesn't want to offer a full white glove no-fault crash replacement warranty to riders in N. Korea, fine. But when Amflow knowingly delivers flawed frames thru their own distribution channels, they should take responsibility even if their fine print provides legal immunity. It's just good business.

I'm not being arsey

Gray market is the manufacturer's official sales channel. Again people, these are not stolen or counterfeit bikes. Amflow aggressively pushes gray market sales thru their vast network of grey market distributors. This enables them to expand their market reach, distance themselves from bad distributors or customers, and deliver to crazy isolated countries without having to figure out the language, shipping, tariffs, product laws, etc.

If Amflow doesn't want to offer a full white glove no-fault crash replacement warranty to riders in N. Korea, fine. But when Amflow knowingly delivers flawed frames thru their own distribution channels, they should take responsibility even if their fine print provides legal immunity. It's just good business.

I'm not being arsey here, and its probably because DJI have official channels for sales here in the UK but what does "aggressively pushing gray market sales" look like?