“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
- Soren Kierkegaard (19th century Danish philosopher)
I am truely sorry for those who have had legitimate bad encounters with shops. When the tech tells you what is wrong with your bike, ask him to see it. Any time I put on new brakes, clutches, etc. I save the old ones to show the customer.
One time, I had a customer bring me a Vulcan 500 that was only running on one cylinder. I told him I would pull the carbs and find the problem. Once I got inside, one of the jet needles was GONE!! I called the customer to ask if he had worked on it himself or had taken it to another shop. I had to listen to five minutes of him cussing me out and accusing me that I had stolen his needle. WTF!
Please to not think all techs in the industry are bad. I am in the process of changing doctors because mine is a sack of poo. I have gone in there three times for problems and he does nothing. Doctors and techs are on a basic level, doing the same thing. It is all about listening to the customer, diagnoising the problem, and finding a solution. It's a lot easier changing dealerships than doctors. You want to talk about crooks!
Back to the subject. Our shop does not leave bikes outside, no shop should. They are outside during the day because we have no room in the department to keep them. One time I had a customer threaten to kick my rear, and shoot the service manager because his bike was left outside during the day in the rain. WE HAVE NO ROOM!! And whose to say his bike is better than the one beside it outside.
Use your judgement when going to shops. You CAN judge a book by its cover in this situation!
Also, check out the shops website. Ours lets you know that all our techs are Yamaha Five Star Certified along with Bronze and Silver Star Training.
And Vector 18, it takes just as much time to inspect the valves as it does to adjust them. More so if it is shim under bucket.
At our shop we charge 3 hours to do a full service on the V-Star line. Yea, so I can do it in considerably less time than that. But you know what...I have 12 freakin' years experience doing this. It's called MAKING MONEY!! Why would I do this just to break even. Maybe one day UNICEF will take over and all will be fair in the world!!
This is getting out of hand...till next time.
Last edited by CORSCO on Sun May 14, 2006 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mr CORSCO,, Ur one of the few good guys out there, I understand some customers are hard to deal with and I understand techs have to produce and make money for the dealership. One suggestion: The Dealer or the Techs need to be honest with the customer about warranty problems and tell the customer the truth and the customer will understand and will respect you for being honest. I know most shops have a normal labor rate of $60, thats fair, and I know when you do any warranty work the manufactuer will only pay between $25 to $35 per hour and the dealership can only charge the manufactuer his cost on the parts. Yes I understand the dealer is losing money when he has to take the tech off the $60 an hour job to do warranty work on my bike, the dealer is losing money doing warranty work on my bike. Just be honest and tell the customer that and he will understand, tell the customer you may have to keep the bike 3 days longer than normal so his tech can work on it when he's not busy with non-warranty work. The dealers I deal with recover their loss by always finding something else to repair that didn't need repaired in the first place thats not covered under warranty or telling me my bike needs a $140 tune up with 300 miles on it, or $115 for tighting up a battery terminal. Dealers don't want any warranty work, if a customer calls to set up an appointment to get his bike repaired and when the customer expects the bike is still under warranty the dealer will give him an appointment thats 60 days away, but get another person to call up and tell the dealer its not warranty for the same problem and the dealer will tell him to bring in the bike right away. I want to continue taking my bike to the dealership techs when the warranty is up, I wanta be your best friend, I want you guys to take good care of my bike, but when some dealers rip me off for a simple warranty problem I lose my respect for you.
2011 Toyota Tacoma 4x4, 09 Yamaha Tmax, 08 Suzuki King Quad 750
There are many good techs/mechs out there. Unfortunately, there is now one less. The guy I have been taking my bike to for the last 9 years for any MOT's (UK safety inspection) or servicing that i havent done myself, died just before christmas. R.I.P Keith Gregory - the best mechanic I ever knew...
So, now I have to find someone else - this is gonna be tricky!!
And, just to stay on topic, nearly all of the tyre places over here also hate "Ultraseal" and its cheaper versions - the stuff you can put in tubeless tyres to seal punctures as they happen. When it come to change them, a similar scenario occurs - the stuff gets EVERYWHERE!! (I don't use it, although i have been considering it:))
Don't give up.
Not now, not soon, not after being continually knocked down.
I've got a good bike shop at the end of our road. If we drop a bike or trike there they always create a work order.
If they find something they didn't anticpate on the works order they phone.
When they replace a part, they give the old part back to me.
When I've wanted something small (fuel line and new fuel filter for the CX a couple of days ago) they let me fish around in the salvage parts bin and often wont charge for smaller items.
There are good mechanics and bad mechanics out there, when you find a good one it's worth developing a relationship with them.
