| Author | Message | ||
     Midnightrider |
Bought a Uly in Sept. Had 1K service at the dealer Getting close to 3K now and I want to switch to synthetic. I also want the TPS setting checked. They said drop it off, no guarantee of when it will be done. I push for an appointment and I still have to leave it. Left it yesterday afternoon for appointment today. I called at 6 pm and its not done. Is there a problem I asked. No - we just didn't get it in. So what's the purpose of an appointment? Anyplace else I have ever been the service manager MANAGES the work load and if you have an appointment your work at least gets started on time. Have I been living in a time warp? Before I pulled the bike out of there, I checked with 2 other dealers. One gave me an appointment - in 3 weeks. For the last dealer I told them it had the 1K service, it was now 3K, and all I wanted was an oil change, and I wanted to schedule it to be done while I wait. It would take 3 hours I was told. For an oil change? No - we will check all fluids, etc. etc. - "all the things you had done at the 1K servicing". I told them that the next service interval by the manual is 5K - unless they know something I don't - asked for her to please explain. There was a long silence - so long I hung up in disgust. Have I been lucky all my life or am I in "dead zone" for customer service? Right now I plan to get to the dealer in the morning and take the bike home. I'll bet I can find a local reputable shop to change the oil and I think I will invest in the hard and software to do my own TPS work | ||
| Iamike |
Don, That's my biggest gripe with bike shops is the appointment business. If a car dealership treated its customers that way I doubt that they'd stay in business long. I think it is because most bikers (cyclists?) don't use theirs as regular transportation. I'd suggest learning to do those things youself, especially the oil changes. | ||
| Midnightrider |
I agree. Just these days changing the oil is not what it used to be - gotta worry about proper recycling, disposal, all that. My plan is tomorrow to go up and get the bike and leave. I'll get the parts somewhere else. Thanks dg | ||
| Xb12burner |
I took my bike to the dealership that I bought it at to have some wheel bearings replaced and after about an hour of getting the run around from the tech he tells me that they don't have the tools to remove the bearings with. There were bikes just like mine sitting on the showroom floor, but they don't have the tools to repair them? He said that their shop hadn't ever had to replace a tire on a Firebolt yet. Man I love H-D dealerships!!!(Not) But they did put on a great demo Day last Sunday so I do have to give them some props!! | ||
| Skyguy |
My bike went in for a damage estimate after Vin Diesel hit it. I had to book an apointment and then wait another ten days for them to do the estimate. I had already made a list of damaged parts. They added nothing and I would swear took my parts list added prices. Oh and I got my bike back with 19 miles more on the odometer than I dropped it off with. NEVER going there again!!!! Daves you need to move to a bigger market. Say maybe los Angeles. | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Welcome to the wonderful world of Harley Davidson, where you get to be the largest motorcycle company in the county by treating your customers like doggy doo. Takes it bit of getting used to. I never quite got the hang of it myself. What most Buelligans do, is buy the shop manual and the parts manual from Daves, of appleton HD, and then do the work themselves. Buells are quite reliable and easy to work on. Being able to do the TPS is icing on the cake. PS. I get my Mobil one oil and oil filters at WalMart. | ||
| Bud |
the biggest point here in Holland, The hd Benelux company is nothing more than a sales office, If the dealer your having a argument with, hates your guts, your delivered to the wild dogs and Indy’s to fix your bike.. There’s not a thing HDB can do to make the dealer work for you to fix your warranty issues , because all’s what’s counting is the number off bike’s the dealer sells. nothing more nothing less ( o yeah and how much I love harly shirts there doing, with leather cap’s ) but on the other hand, from what I heard, dealers are very free in giving warranty or good will to there own discretion mine personal experience with buell dealers here in Holland, there good one’s and bad one’s very bad one’s ( the kind you would not even drop in for oil, if your running low) I’m not basing, but I work for a company ( volvo ), who is trying it from a way better point off view, There costumer support is very good, and they will go to extreme measures to solve problems, Because all what count’s in there point off view is a happy costumer. And as a first time buell costumer, first time experience on the other side off the business counter, I was a bid disappointed. But some very nice buell addict on your side off the ocean helped me out a little , thanks again court, it seems that buell costumer service US ( from what I read ) is according to my “high” standards. And the do have a bigger stick to poke us buell dealers, something I miss that here in Holland. kinda miss a dutch daves here Gr, b Always Bark at the larges tree you can find, if reasoning fails (Message edited by bud on March 30, 2006) | ||
| Court |
>>>Welcome to the wonderful world of Harley Davidson, where you get to be the largest motorcycle company in the county by treating your customers like doggy doo. That, standing on it's own, is a patently inaccurate statement and may be misleading. Harley-Davidson did not employ some secret "abuse them and they'll be loyal forever" strategy to become one of America's most successful corporations, turn 1983 $1 investments to $1,000 and stay in the top 5 companies to work for in the USA. There are some dealers who, exploiting perhaps their "independent" status that give poor service. The same can not be said of Harley-Davidson. Folks like DaveS are changing the paradigm and raising the bar. In the instant case of you and I, we have folks like Liberty HD/Buell right here who have made a huge investment, come to the Buell riders asking "what do you guys and gals want?" and gone so far, your case is a good example, as to offer to come all the way to Sag Harbor to retrieve your bike to make repairs. Some dealers deserve some harsh words. But, I'd suggest caution in generalizing to either Harley-Davidson or the entire dealer network. Just the view from my perspective, Court | ||
| Newfie_buell |
At least you guys have a crappy retailer to deal with?!? Shop Manual and help from others on this site is my shop. I do use the local Harley Retailer for ordering parts and things I can't do. Being on an Island in the middle of nowhere I usually get my parts within 2 days provided I can give them part numbers. As for their service, if they tell you the bike is ready for 4pm then its ready for 4pm, if not you get a call advising why the delay. My gripe is that Buell should let the Non-Buell Harley Retailers Warranty the bikes. I think you would see better service all over. In a market like we have here its really not the retailers money to invest into the Buell Experience if they are only going to sell a dozen bikes per year. Come on HD let the Non-Buell Carrying Retailers conduct Warranty Work on Buells. | ||
| Bomber |
it's important for everyone to remember a couple of points: HDI manufactures (and buys) products and sells em to distributors (dealerships) dealerships, in turn, sell them to end-user customers (you n me) it's entirely accurate to claim that "such and such a dealer isn't deserving of my business" (or words to that affect it's not accurate, I don't believe, to say "HD is awful at customer support/service it IS accurate to say that HD should be raising the bar on their dealers, to borrow Court's turn of a phrase btw, a cursory look at other boards, and a small amount of personal interactions with dealers of other motorcycle brands tells me HD dealers are not very different from other brand dealers -- too few are great, the vast majority iffy, and way too many are truely wretched, IMO -- it's not even approaching a bell-shaped curve, which tells me that there is an outside force influancing this situation -- I suspect the force is us, the customers this, sadly, will not change (for HD/Buell riders or any the custoemrs of any other brands) until and unless the dealers see service as a differentiator in the marketplace, that can be ties to increased revenues and profits if I could find a dealer that treats servicing the bike the way most auto dealers do (extended hours, loaners, admitting mistakes and fixing them on their own dime), I would be sorely tempted to give that deaeler my custom, reegardless of the brand of motorcycle | ||
| Gearhead998 |
This just further motivates me to open my own shop. I figure just by word of mouth alone for good customer service, it should take off. I just need to figure out how to work with manufacturers for warranty issues. | ||
| Midnightrider |
It was honestly not my intent to open a HDB-bashing thread. But my previous experience (before my relocation Aug 05) was much different. Whether I needed scheduled maintenance or needed to bring the bike in when something broke there was never a problem - the bike was in and out and if the work was minor it was often done while I waited. And unless I declined it (when I was in a hurry) the bike was always washed. All this was in upstate NY, where the riding season is relatively short and all the riders are competing for shop time in the few warm months. The dealer is Performance Harley-Davidson/Buell in Syracuse I purposely didn't mention the names of my new local dealers. Its just a lousy place to be in when you have to pick the lesser of two (or three) evils. Unfortunately, it seems like there are a lot of us in the same predicament. There - I'm done whining | ||
| Bomber |
Mid -- ain't whining at all -- it's a serious issue, one that the holding company and manufacturer need to hear -- several manufacturers have, in the fairly recent past, yanked the franchise and purchased dealerships that were not performing to some standard -- this sent shockwaves through their respective industries, as you might imagine, and resulted in a general increase in goodness (however the manufacturer measures it) across the dealership landscape -- there was only one thing that caused these manufacturers to take this drastic step, and it was input from the end-user customers, you n me companies are owned by people, and people do not change unless there is a reason to do so -- | ||
| Roc |
I've been a Buell owner for around 7 years and I've been working in the service department of a good Buell dealership for about as many weeks. I have had my share of bad dealership, and other shops, service experiences. I think many "bad" dealers have already opted out of the brand. In my experience the good shops charge more but you get what you pay for, untrained employees are not really in demand so they don't cost much. This is true for all brands in my local. If you name a brand I can think of at least one shop, in my local, that will do a good job and stand by there work. This business is also very seasonal in many locations; think about what this does in terms of workload and employees. Warranty work seems to be about the least profitable service a Buell/H-D dealer can provide. It involves a fairly complex and time-consuming paperwork process, parts shipping, parts storage, etc. on top of the actual work. If you are off on any number of details the shop will not be reimbursed for the work or parts. Often you can do everything right and still be reimbursed for only a fraction of what went into the process of the repair. But, to protect against false claims and streamline the process for H-D/Buell I can't think of them doing it any other way. | ||
| Shea |
Hate to say it, but some of it is the aattitude that Buell owners get from Harley dealers. They don't carry any of the parts you need (well, none of my local Harley dealers) and push the bikes out the door without a thorough check. Hell, my tires only had 24 psi when I got my bike. This is the dealer's responsibility, not the manufacturer's. I am sure they wouldn't dare let a Road King go out the door like that.  | ||
| Roc |
Shea - Have you seen American Chopper? There are 1000 mikes out there. | ||
| Vanvideo |
I had my oil lines blow up on my '03 XB9R. Adamec HD in Jacksonville, FL. serviced the bike, no problem. I was a bit apprehensive taking the XB to a HD dealership, thinking a Buell would be treated as second-class, but when I trailered my bike up, one of the mechanics came by and said "Man, I've always loved those bikes!" I felt a lot better after that. "My bike went in for a damage estimate after Vin Diesel hit it." - Skyguy, wtf? You gotta explain this! | ||
| Typeone |
I was really nervous about service (the big stuff, maintenance is all me) when I decided to bite the bullet and pick up a Buell.. . So far I call myself lucky.. . but I gotta throw a good word out for Sheldons Buell/HD in MA and Meredith Buell/HD in NH. both have been excellent to me. thanks guys! except one tech who refuses to set my idle at anything but ~800RPM and apparently doesn't know to check the gap before installing plugs  | ||
| Midnightrider |
Thought you might enjoy an update. Picked up the bike yesterday with no problem. I had asked for a TPS check/reset as the headers are bluing. Sure enough I was charged $67 for a TPS reset/and "reflash" the ...something...AKV, maybe? Ran great for the next 25 miles then........then I had to stop at several traffic lights where it idled at anywhere from 1500-2800 rpms. It was not a throttle return issue. And with "brisk" but not full throttle acceleration I would get a brief, 1-2 second very tinny sound that I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I had to make several stops (errands) and did get some gas. Later in the day the idle returned to normal and I did not hear the tinny sound again. I plan to get the hardware and software to do my own TPS work from now on ( I know I'll need it as I plan to get some sort of aftermarket exhaust/performance kit later in the fall). Too lazy to do a search - where do I get the hardware/software? Thanks (Message edited by midnightrider on April 01, 2006) | ||
| Skyguy |
Vanvideo, Look up a thread called Why the hells angels did not beat me up. To make a long story short the guy that hit my bike wished he was Vin Diesel. Tried to look like talk and act like him. | ||
| Dfishman |
If a man is smart enough to ride a motorcycle he is smart enough to service it.You should not need the dealer for that. period! | ||
| Midnightrider |
I use my brain but I'm not about to practice neurosurgery. "A man's got to know his own limitations" (Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry Callahan) Exclamation point. | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Court - I misspoke in the case of Liberty, and also of Stone Mountain, not to mention Daves at Appleton. Stone Mountain service fit my bike in on a Monday morning on the way back to New York, and did a great job of setting the TPS and timing, as well as replacing an oil seal. In addition, the helped my find a place to fix my car, which never would have made it back from March Madness. Greg, the owner, and Cameron the General Manager are top guys, and very Buell supportive. I apologize. Unfortunately, we still have some way to go in raising the standard, and with your help and enthusiasm, we seem to be on the way. Thank you. |
