A Wiggle Purchase

A customer came to me this week with a problem with the front changer on a recently purchased ( 2 weeks ago) Charge Scourer that he bought from Wiggle cycles. He didn't want the hassle of boxing it up and sending it back to Wiggle so he decided to look locally to see if he could get the problem solved. Having been to his LBS who quoted a silly figure just to leave the bike there so they could look at it, he found Bobs Bike shed whilst scouring the internet. The bike in question had been fitted with a 34.9mm Shimano front changer whilst having measured it and checked on  Charges website, the seat tube is 31.8mm. Now the changer did have a plastic shim in-between the changer clamp and the seat tube but wasn't enough to provide a nice fit with enough clamping force to secure the changer. Subsequently when changing gear during climbing a  hill the changer moved on the seat tube and became in-operable. The fix, well as a temporary measure I have added tape to the seat tube to widen it and re fitted the changer and adjusted the gears. Its all working now but I would certainly recommend fitting the appropriate sized mech for the 31.8 seat tube (Shimano do a 31.8 clamp as well as a 28.6 to 31.8). Incidentally Wiggle said it had been fitted with the wrong sized shim and they would send the right size to the customer when they came into stock.
Very strange, personally its not something I like but in this day and age I guess its what called cost effectiveness!!

Heres what it all looks like.