Motorbike shop punished for sluggish repair

[Robert Taylor]

For sure there's an entire industro-system that needs to be fed and it's amusing to see these people cut off their noses to spite their faces by tying themselves up in red tape to protect their position. Tis shit and silly for all concerned.

True... that's why I suggested the idea behind the donor bike as buying a little bit of time and keeping all happy.

It's no fun waiting for bits n pieces... fortunately mine have only ever been cosmetic or replacement parts, touch wood (ooooo).

Equally, its no fun for the dealer at the coalface or the distributor.

Red tape is not something that I practice as a distributor, except where neccessary for protecting some from their own stupidity or ignorance. Especially where safety is at stake.

[Gianz]

+ italian mail is sooooo slow

so we went from a shitty costumer service from a kiwi dealer/importer to blame the italian post...
You know what? Nz wine sucks!

[nzspokes]

Also was the bike essential transport or was it discretionary transport?

I dont see that as relevant. Wouldnt matter if it was a TV, toaster or flash blow up doll. He paid $8500 for something that was not fit for use and they took to long to fix it.

I do understand what you mean about the retailer being stuck in the middle. Yes that would suck. But maybe a suitable loan bike would have kept the guy happy.

[Robert Taylor]

I dont see that as relevant. Wouldnt matter if it was a TV, toaster or flash blow up doll. He paid $8500 for something that was not fit for use and they took to long to fix it.

I do understand what you mean about the retailer being stuck in the middle. Yes that would suck. But maybe a suitable loan bike would have kept the guy happy.

Lets say you had 10 bikes in your workshop, 5 were primary and essential transport and 5 were discretionary weekend fun bikes only. You only had the capacity in time to immediately repair 5 of those bikes before the week ended. Which ones take first priority?

Loan bikes are an interesting subject that often burn retailers. You have them for your good customers, of course. But at dealer level its also very easy to get cynical about them. When I co-owned a motorcycle shop that sold and serviced a lot of farm ATVs we had a fleet of ''loaners'' and the cost of keeping them running was not insignificant.

It would be dropped out to the farmer and we sometimes had the comment "'there wasnt much petrol in it''. If it went out full it came back empty. Bikes would also come back with burnt out clutches because ''you cannot put brains where they are not supposed to be''. Theyd go out clean and come back requiring an hours cleaning. And of course they were already moaning about the size of the bill to reicarnate their own bike.

Yes its a bundle of joy selling and servicing motorcycles.

And a word about warranty. I well remember a few years back an issue we had with a near new YZ250F. It had an intermittent stalling problem and I personally spent nearly two days on it Friday / Saturday after one of my mechanics struggled with it for 3 hours. Eventually I got to the source of the problem and successfully and reliably fixed it. The distributor was no help so I was on my own. Flat rate time reimbursement 1.5 hours at about 60% of our standard charge out rate.
But to make it worse the customer was in my ear constantly and so was a vociferous mate of his who overlooked that I worked over half of my weekend even though I supposedly also had a life and a family. The customer missed a MotoX meeting whilst I bloodymindedly kept working with this intermittent problem. You would have thought that he needed the bike as the only means of getting to a close relative to save their life

Yes it is abundle of joy selling and servicing motorcycles

[AllanB]

A donor bike is only workable if the offending part is a one off. If it is a part that fails on more than one bike then only the first failure in is sorted - the others have to wait ......and wait ...... and .........

[nzspokes]

Lets say you had 10 bikes in your workshop, 5 were primary and essential transport and 5 were discretionary weekend fun bikes only. You only had the capacity in time to immediately repair 5 of those bikes before the week ended. Which ones take first priority?

Loan bikes are an interesting subject that often burn retailers. You have them for your good customers, of course. But at dealer level its also very easy to get cynical about them. When I co-owned a motorcycle shop that sold and serviced a lot of farm ATVs we had a fleet of ''loaners'' and the cost of keeping them running was not insignificant.

It would be dropped out to the farmer and we sometimes had the comment "'there wasnt much petrol in it''. If it went out full it came back empty. Bikes would also come back with burnt out clutches because ''you cannot put brains where they are not supposed to be''. Theyd go out clean and come back requiring an hours cleaning. And of course they were already moaning about the size of the bill to reicarnate their own bike.

Yes its a bundle of joy selling and servicing motorcycles.

And a word about warranty. I well remember a few years back an issue we had with a near new YZ250F. It had an intermittent stalling problem and I personally spent nearly two days on it Friday / Saturday after one of my mechanics struggled with it for 3 hours. Eventually I got to the source of the problem and successfully and reliably fixed it. The distributor was no help so I was on my own. Flat rate time reimbursement 1.5 hours at about 60% of our standard charge out rate.
But to make it worse the customer was in my ear constantly and so was a vociferous mate of his who overlooked that I worked over half of my weekend even though I supposedly also had a life and a family. The customer missed a MotoX meeting whilst I bloodymindedly kept working with this intermittent problem. You would have thought that he needed the bike as the only means of getting to a close relative to save their life

Yes it is abundle of joy selling and servicing motorcycles

Well this situation was not they didnt have time to fix it, they didnt have the parts.

For loan bikes, yes I can see the problem but when a customer is without his bike for months sometimes you need to bit the bullet. Warranty in any trade will be full of challenges. Imagine what the warranty guy for the company that brings in blow up dolls goes through. Always somebody worse off than you.

[Robert Taylor]

Well this situation was not they didnt have time to fix it, they didnt have the parts.

For loan bikes, yes I can see the problem but when a customer is without his bike for months sometimes you need to bit the bullet. Warranty in any trade will be full of challenges. Imagine what the warranty guy for the company that brings in blow up dolls goes through. Always somebody worse off than you.

They didnt have the parts because the distributor didnt have the parts and so on. That the dealer got busted for it is WRONG. If I was the customer Id have that on my conscience. But I have seen this before, the customer feels aggrieved ( and often very justifiably ) but doesnt care exactly where the ''compensation'' comes from, as long as it comes. Thats immoral

We had a situation a few years back where a rear tyre we sold wore out extremely quickly. It was a name brand of tyre totally correct for the bike, we were given the wheel only and hadnt sighted the bike. The customer came in a few weeks later bitching and screaming and I said ''please bring in the bike so we can see what is going on". He had a cheap set of aftermarket shocks on it that were somewhat shorter than original and were also flogged out. He rode constantly two up and lets just say that he was ''well fed''. He carried his dragon on the back constantly as well. so I asked for them both to sit on it and it statically was using 60% of the travel, it was easy to adjudge that it was constantly hitting the bump stops all the time. When that happens the tyre is constantly overstressed.
I articulated all of that to them but they didnt want to know, in their ignorance. They threatened to tell all and sundry and in a small rural town that hurts. They got what they wanted, a replacement tyre foc. But their card is marked and when I meet them ''on the other side'' I will remember............

[Katman]

Imagine what the warranty guy for the company that brings in blow up dolls goes through.

Sent a few back, have you?

[Erelyes]

Sent a few back, have you?

'She's too loose'
'Er, none of or other customers have a problem, sir...'

[scracha]

I respectfully suggest then that you test run your cures to these ills. Im not justifying for a

Respectfully, I'd stress that I do run similar cures to similar ills in my own industry. I have no interest in getting involved in the motorcycle industry for some of the reasons previously stated.

moment the long lead times and as an importer myself I often share such similiar frustrations. But I also steadfastly maintain that the dealer is the biggest victim, they incur the loss and the biggest frustration.

It's just business Robert. If a particular business partnership or even industry gets too difficult, you make changes or get out of it completely.

Also was the bike essential transport or was it discretionary transport?

In this case it matters not. You're confusing non-warranty work (that can be charged at a higher rate if it's urgent) with warranty repairs. If a customer demands my urgent attention, I'll attempt to ascertain how urgent their needs really are (as opposed to "me me me" that I frequently encounter) and if I'm busy advise them that "bumping" them up the queue (or working non sociable hours) will cause delays to my other customers and therefore I'll be charging them more (at that point it's amazing how many "urgent" repairs become "not that important").

Warranty repairs on that other hand are a different matter. Essentially they're a product with a previously agreed service level already bought and paid for. I can't tell a customer their laptop warranty will take longer to process because they only play solitaire on it instead of doing "real" business now can I? If the parts/repair centre in NZ is shit then I get on the blower to the manufactures NZ representative. If they're shit, I normally then phone/email/fax/harass Australia, USA, Korea, etc etc (I really don't give a fuck who I upset if it gets to this stage). If I still get no joy I supply the customer (who incidentally has almost certainly been supplied a loaner at my expense) an alternative product or refund. If the experience I have with that particular disti/manufacturer continues to be shit then I no longer sell their product (can you hear me HP, Brother and Samsung???) or I bypass the official disti(s) and parallel import myself. End of. It's my reputation and what my customers expect. I have to factor this in when I price stuff up and that's why I'm not competing with chain stores in this Western race to the bottom. I can't just fob a customer off and blame the manufacturer. It is MY problem and MY fault for doing business selling that particular (shitty) brand.

In summary, if a dealer chooses to sell shit, they get what they deserve.

[nzspokes]

Thats immoral

No its not. Simple really. Consumer bought a product from a retailer that was not fit for the job and it failed. Consumer is forced to wait 3 months to have it repaired. Consumer gets upset and takes it to the authorities. Retailer who happily took the consumers money is forced to refund.

What is immoral is the consumer was left with have to go through this.

[nzspokes]

Respectfully, I'd stress that I do run similar cures to similar ills in my own industry. I have no interest in getting involved in the motorcycle industry for some of the reasons previously stated.


It's just business Robert. If a particular business partnership or even industry gets too difficult, you make changes or get out of it completely.


In this case it matters not. You're confusing non-warranty work (that can be charged at a higher rate if it's urgent) with warranty repairs. If a customer demands my urgent attention, I'll attempt to ascertain how urgent their needs really are (as opposed to "me me me" that I frequently encounter) and if I'm busy advise them that "bumping" them up the queue (or working non sociable hours) will cause delays to my other customers and therefore I'll be charging them more (at that point it's amazing how many "urgent" repairs become "not that important").

Warranty repairs on that other hand are a different matter. Essentially they're a product with a previously agreed service level already bought and paid for. I can't tell a customer their laptop warranty will take longer to process because they only play solitaire on it instead of doing "real" business now can I? If the parts/repair centre in NZ is shit then I get on the blower to the manufactures NZ representative. If they're shit, I normally then phone/email/fax/harass Australia, USA, Korea, etc etc (I really don't give a fuck who I upset if it gets to this stage). If I still get no joy I supply the customer (who incidentally has almost certainly been supplied a loaner at my expense) an alternative product or refund. If the experience I have with that particular manufacturer continues to be shit then I no longer sell their product (can you hear me HP, Brother and Samsung???). End of. It's my reputation and what my customers expect. I have to factor this in when I price stuff up and that's why I'm not competing with chain stores in this Western race to the bottom. I can't just fob a customer off and blame the manufacturer. It is MY problem and MY fault for doing business selling that particular (shitty) brand.

In summary, if a dealer chooses to sell shit, they get what they deserve.

Well said.

[Woodman]

From time to time I have to procure parts from overseas for customers vehicles and generally their is an option on freight charges and times to your door. The quicker to your door the more you have to pay.

My theory with this Apriila case is that they (distributor or workshop) took the cheap (long) option to save themselves some coin because it was a warranty job and they couldn't pass the freight charges onto the customer, and it has bit them on the ass big time.

[TimeOut]

Respectfully, I'd stress that I do run similar cures to similar ills in my own industry. I have no interest in getting involved in the motorcycle industry for some of the reasons previously stated.


It's just business Robert. If a particular business partnership or even industry gets too difficult, you make changes or get out of it completely.


In this case it matters not. You're confusing non-warranty work (that can be charged at a higher rate if it's urgent) with warranty repairs. If a customer demands my urgent attention, I'll attempt to ascertain how urgent their needs really are (as opposed to "me me me" that I frequently encounter) and if I'm busy advise them that "bumping" them up the queue (or working non sociable hours) will cause delays to my other customers and therefore I'll be charging them more (at that point it's amazing how many "urgent" repairs become "not that important").

Warranty repairs on that other hand are a different matter. Essentially they're a product with a previously agreed service level already bought and paid for. I can't tell a customer their laptop warranty will take longer to process because they only play solitaire on it instead of doing "real" business now can I? If the parts/repair centre in NZ is shit then I get on the blower to the manufactures NZ representative. If they're shit, I normally then phone/email/fax/harass Australia, USA, Korea, etc etc (I really don't give a fuck who I upset if it gets to this stage). If I still get no joy I supply the customer (who incidentally has almost certainly been supplied a loaner at my expense) an alternative product or refund. If the experience I have with that particular disti/manufacturer continues to be shit then I no longer sell their product (can you hear me HP, Brother and Samsung???) or I bypass the official disti(s) and parallel import myself. End of. It's my reputation and what my customers expect. I have to factor this in when I price stuff up and that's why I'm not competing with chain stores in this Western race to the bottom. I can't just fob a customer off and blame the manufacturer. It is MY problem and MY fault for doing business selling that particular (shitty) brand.

In summary, if a dealer chooses to sell shit, they get what they deserve.

Bling sent

[Robert Taylor]

Respectfully, I'd stress that I do run similar cures to similar ills in my own industry. I have no interest in getting involved in the motorcycle industry for some of the reasons previously stated.


It's just business Robert. If a particular business partnership or even industry gets too difficult, you make changes or get out of it completely.


In this case it matters not. You're confusing non-warranty work (that can be charged at a higher rate if it's urgent) with warranty repairs. If a customer demands my urgent attention, I'll attempt to ascertain how urgent their needs really are (as opposed to "me me me" that I frequently encounter) and if I'm busy advise them that "bumping" them up the queue (or working non sociable hours) will cause delays to my other customers and therefore I'll be charging them more (at that point it's amazing how many "urgent" repairs become "not that important").

Warranty repairs on that other hand are a different matter. Essentially they're a product with a previously agreed service level already bought and paid for. I can't tell a customer their laptop warranty will take longer to process because they only play solitaire on it instead of doing "real" business now can I? If the parts/repair centre in NZ is shit then I get on the blower to the manufactures NZ representative. If they're shit, I normally then phone/email/fax/harass Australia, USA, Korea, etc etc (I really don't give a fuck who I upset if it gets to this stage). If I still get no joy I supply the customer (who incidentally has almost certainly been supplied a loaner at my expense) an alternative product or refund. If the experience I have with that particular disti/manufacturer continues to be shit then I no longer sell their product (can you hear me HP, Brother and Samsung???) or I bypass the official disti(s) and parallel import myself. End of. It's my reputation and what my customers expect. I have to factor this in when I price stuff up and that's why I'm not competing with chain stores in this Western race to the bottom. I can't just fob a customer off and blame the manufacturer. It is MY problem and MY fault for doing business selling that particular (shitty) brand.

In summary, if a dealer chooses to sell shit, they get what they deserve.

No confusion and much of what you have said is fair. Its largely how I operate but I also think fairly that I have illustrated that its not all as black and white as we ALL would hope it to be. I just bet theres another plausible side to the story beyond what the newspaper reported