10-25-2013, 04:51 AM
(10-24-2013, 04:50 AM)AzBob_imp Wrote: I bought both my CBR and CB from Western Honda. I always know exactly what I want and never need sales "help" other than to negotiate the price. The first experience wasn't riveting, but wasn't horrible either, although when I asked the sales person about the oil-eating 2008 CBR's, he claimed that he hadn't had a single one come back for service (which, unless all their customers crashed them, must have taken them somewhere else, because a large majority of 2008 CBR's eat oil for breakfast, mine included). The second was lackluster. I was dealing with what appeared to be a new sales person, and every decision had to be run by the sales manager. I am a big believer in pushing responsibility down the chain and empowering employees to make decisions, so this was annoying to me. All in all, I got what I wanted, for a bit more than I wanted to pay, but I paid MSRP for my bike the first couple of weeks it was available.
The parts department has outrageous in-person prices (I think I paid $2.50 for nuts for the battery terminal screws when I needed them in a pseudo-emergency); their prices online seem alright, but I live here, so why would I not buy in-person? I had them change the tires on my CBR a while ago, I brought in the wheels, and they scratched them. Now I go to Kelly's Kawasaki for that, no scratches and cheaper. Other than that, I do my own maintenance, so I don't have any real experience with their service department.
Hearing the bad levels of service everyone seems to have almost everywhere makes me want to open a dealership so badly. I love motorcycles of all kinds, I love seeing people enjoying their bikes, and I love to help people when something goes wrong with their bike or just for general maintenance. I've toyed with the idea of taking a part-time job as a service writer just to get experience to see how things work.
That was part of my issue with them. I initially tried to to communicate with the parts department via the website form, then the main dealership email address. Finally I had to go in person because I couldn't get a response online after repeated attempts over 3 days. Oh yeah, I called first but hung up after 10 min. on hold. They wanted to charge me the "in person" price, but eventually did the online price when I explained why I had to come in person. As I recall, they tack on about 50% above the Internet price if you show up at the counter.
When I went back a week later to pick up my order, they gave me the wrong parts. Fortunately, I checked each part number before leaving, so they were able correct it.
While I like to support local businesses, these guys are just too difficult to deal with. I know I can order OEM parts from several places on the Internet and spend a lot less time and trouble. In the end, it took over a week to get parts that I could have had in 2 or 3 days from one of the better online parts websites.