After 3yrs 10 months of use, my $1300 Kickr started taking more and more time to “warmup”, meaning it would gave little resistance in erg mode no matter what signal TR sent it. At first it took 5 minutes to snap out of this and work properly, but after six weeks it became 15 min, then 45, now it does not provide any resistance even in the “warmup period.” After lots of time troubleshooting with TR (they were great) and then Wahoo, the Wahoo rep emailed me that I needed a replacement. Wahoo informed me its out of warranty period, which I learned is 12 months. They offering me 30% off a new Kickr or 15% off a Kickr Core 2. Neither strike me as particularly generous compared to the black Friday sales that had both of these at 25% off. I am reluctant to drop $1300 on a device that I now know has a 1-year warranty and can fail completely with normal indoor use and no warning. Have others had similar experiences with Wahoo? I would have thought these $1000+ trainers would be reliable enough to justify a warranty of more than 12 months.
Isn’t the Tacx warranty also a year?
That sucks to hear. I have a Kickr 5 the I bought back in 2020 that has been on the money for the most part.
once in a while it won’t pick up the bluetooth command when transmitting from my iPhone but this is so random and I never had a Ant+ issues.
Are sure it’s not a signal issues?
I jump on the Black Friday sale only for the Wifi connection and at the same time I picked up the Zwift Cog and Click.
I don’t know, if it’s not a signal issue maybe the 30% off a new unit may not be a bad deal and you’ll have better luck with that one.
This year I had the exact same problem with Kickr v5 that I’ve bought in 2021 iirc. So, it was 3-4 yo at the time. I filed a support ticket to wahoo, seeking for repair opportunities. Not gonna lie, they were hesitant to even acknowledge the trainer’s failure - they kept blaming it on signal interference and other BS. But I kept pushing. Recorded all kinds of videos and all that. In the end (took 2-3 weeks of playing ping pong with customer support) they agreed to replace it for me with the same model, pre-owned refurbished. Obviously, I was more than fine with that. But in fact they just sent me a brand new V6.
Two years ago, wahoo warrantied my 4 year old core. Totally above and beyond what i was expecting.
This week Wahoo support said I can send in my over 2 year old second hand Kickr Core for a free refurbished replacement. customer service was fast and friendly and helpful . maybe just luck of the draw with who you get?
You guys are fortunate to get that treatment. I was polite in my exchanges with them, and I pushed, but they would not offer more than 15% or 30%. When the rep offered me the 15% on the CORE 2 he wrote something to the effect of “due to high demand levels this is the maximum discount we can offer.” It makes me wonder who owns and runs the brand these days. I understand supply and demand, but this kind of stuff erodes loyalty of customers like me.
Oh yeah, I failed to mention, they did offer me a refurbished older model of the Kickr. For that, they would charge me $250 and put a $650 hold on my credit card until I returned the failed one. And $40 shipping.
Or could be a function of age. 2 years vs 4 year old Unit.
FWIW I’ve also had excellent, no-questions-asked free replacement of defective Wahoo Tickr pulse meters. Nevertheless I was still surprised with their generosity with the Kickr Core.
… Over two years old, I’ve no idea how old it really is!
250 + shipping seems fairly reasonable to me? The kickr you had is almost 4 years old. Getting a refurb unit at a pretty significant discount seems like a good option.
Maybe the refurb is the way to go, but I went ahead and bought the CORE v2. After having a failure, I don’t like the idea of a refurbished one.
Thanks everyone for sharing similar experiences. I am glad for forums like this that help inform us customers and, hopefully, push companies to improve.
JetBlack’s is only 12 months too. Their support is worse than useless and they have zero spare parts on hand to replace anything that may fail.
Right to repair companies get my $ these days, unfortunately not too many of those in the sports tech space.
The funny thing is that here in the EU we have a statutory 24 month guarantee on all products, and it’s going to be exactly the same unit, apart from the mains plug, as the non-EU units with a shorter guarantee… 
I’ve had 7yrs. of use from my Saris H2. It works as well today as it did in Nov. of 2018. Great road feel with that big 25lbs. flywheel. It’s a very overlooked, but not necessarily underrated trainer. I paid $1200. for it back in the day. They go for half that now. Just something for you to consider.
4 years seems like a decent amount of time for a trainer getting heavy use. How many hours do you have on it? What exactly were you hoping for here?
Keep pushing them on it. I had a similar experience with a Kickr core. I eventually CC’d the then CEO Chip Hawkins and it was sorted out straight away.
I dread the day my V1 kickr bike dies. I know they’ve been good with sending people parts and such but I don’t know that that will last forever.
and it stinks there is no repair option. Before I had the kickr bike I had an elite direto and had to replace the belt which was a common wear part. At least I had that option to repair
Based on this thread, I’m bummed that I just hucked my 4 year old Wahoo in the trash when it died.
What did you buy to replace it?