Jlc- I spoke to customer service twice. The first time I'm was told they would put a request in for a replacement part but it could take up to 10 days for me to FIND OUT if they have one...10 days to see if there was a replacement available. The 2nd time I called they told me to call smooth x. Well, I bought the bike from you but okay....so I called smooth x, who tole me it was qvc's responsibility since I bought it from them. Surprise....after I reminded the gentleman that smooth x actually manufactured the bike with the defect he took my information and said he would send it to their replacement parts division. I'm going to call qvc again tomorrow. Like you, it took me about an hour to unpack all the parts and assemble the bike to the point where I realized there was a defect. How did you find out how many bikes had this problem? It would have npbeen nice to get a note from qvc that they were aware of this problem. The last thing I want to do it take up more of my valuable time to disassemble what I gave put together and attempt to pack it up to ship back to them. It's super frustrating.