Nominee for poor service award

[Guest]

Does anyone else has experience of poor service from their dealership ? Red Baron motorcycle group (Japans largest independant dealership) gets my vote for the poor customer care award.
Last weekend I visited the dealer to arrange a big service on my bike. New tyres (Pilot sport), oil change and new filament, chain adjustment, valve adjustment, water pump check etc etc. It was scheduled for this weekend to give them time to obtain parts. After having the bike for both Saturday and Sunday they have managed the sum total of replacing the cam tensioner and 1 bolt from the muffler !

Maybe I'm just too impatient and with my lack of mechanical knowledge fail to recognise how much work and effort went into replacing that bolt and cam tensioner. I'm hoping to get the rest of the work completed before Christmas. I'm really not 'genki' with these guys and would feel better hearing some horror stories of other people receiving poor service if you have any. That's just the sort of sick guy I am, getting my spirits lifted by knowing someone else has suffered worse

 

[OB_Mr Bear]

Dazee, I had a big service done on my old GS1100E before I set off from Seattle to Alaska in summer, 1990. I thought I was as 'genki' as I could be with the guys at the dealership, in Seattle WA, USA. I bought the bike there in 1983, and always did my business and had services done there, for seven years. They were always very good. But I only really knew the sales guys and parts guys, not the mechanics.

I had new tires put on, and the mechanic hurried and did not lubricate the master link on the drive chain while re-installing it. It began to sieze within 800km. I removed the chain and worked on it at my campsite in northern Canada one night, after I realized something was wrong. But it was too late. It failed 500km. from Anchorage, Alaska. It took me two days of hitch-hiking, while my bike sat off a highway alone a million miles from anywhere, to get a new master-link. I was lucky to still have a bike.

A personal friend in the bike business is more valuable than anything. If you find a mechanic who you seem to get along with quickly, you should see an opportunity. Buy him some beer when you pick up your bike, after having service done on it. Give him a gift on Boys Day perhaps, or some other appropriate holiday. I was fortunate that my brother was a motorcycle mechanic for many years...a very good one too. Talk about lucky! But the personal connection, genki, is the best answer. I have been without it also.

 

[OB_jeffw]

The cam chain tensioner takes 15 minutes if you are *SLOW*. I would say you are being far too patient with these guys. Time to kick some *** .

 

[OB_Dirty Pete]

Mr. Bear has your ticket, Dazee. Find a mechanic you trust and make sure he's the only one who ever touches your bike. Then, if he's in a dealership, make sure he gets overpaid with quiet, under-the-table cash tips. If your dealer won't guarantee to give your bike to your chosen wrench every time, don't go there.

I have found a great tuner/mechanic/machinist close to home who takes pride in his work, does everything very well and, with an appointment, always applies himself full time to my bike until it's done. I will not give my Busa to anyone else unless it's very heavy duty warranty work that I refuse to pay for myself. In the case of bulletins 8 and 9, and for the factory cam chain tensioner adjuster, I'm giving it to my tuner even though he is not a Suz dealer. I'd rather take the risk of having my warranty dishonored than give my bike to a mechanic who I don't know and who doesn't give a crap who I am.

Even well-intentioned dealerships will hang you up, lie to you, phone you mid-job to tell you that you need your carb diaphragms replaced for $600, make serious mechanical errors and overcharge you.

In my opinion, there's no one quite so effective as an independent tuner with his nuts on the line for every job he does.