Post by 90GTVert on Feb 25, 2020 9:46:17 GMT -5
I also have two Honda dealers within a reasonable distance. I've found that neither are very interested in really working on them. I tried the second one just before Christmas. I took two scoots........the other one being a Kymco......into there and asked for a pretty thorough 'evaluation' and maintenance. I said things like, "Imagine you were fixing up an old scooter for your teenage daughter. That's how thorough I want you to be". And, "I understand I'm not going to get out of this for the price of an oil change". The guy even acknowledged that last one. Nodding his head up and down.
Yet they still did a slap-dash job. I'm done with those guys. I'll only go back when I absolutely must. Or I'll give up on the bike.
At least around me, that seems to be kinda normal. It seems a lot of dealers have no desire to work on scooters. Places that motorcycle owners are happy with, scooter owners walk away dissatisfied. I used to work on scooters locally and that and high prices are what I heard from everyone that came to me with a name brand scooter. Even the guys with Chinese scoots that bought them locally had poor experiences. One guy was told that scooters weren't their priority, so it would probably take 30 days to look at it because they focused on ATVs and mowers and such (even though they sold him the scooter). When people tried to take scooters to motorcycle shops, they were turned away. I had a motorcycle shop happily giving out my cards because they wanted nothing to do with scooters and they liked to at least have an answer when people with scooters needed help. There was only 1 dealer less than 50 miles from me that actually wanted to work on scooters that they sold AFAIK, and they were an E-Ton dealer.
That said, my whole customer base was like 20 people over the course of a few years. Could be that because you hardly ever see a scooter around here (aside from beach towns 70 miles away), they just aren't something that mechanics feel it's worth the time to learn anything about. I can understand that in a way, because I couldn't really make much money even just working out of a home garage for lack of business. That said, when you sell the scooters, it seems like you should act just as happy to work on it as you would with any other vehicle that you sell... even if you secretly loathe it.
I have had a Yamaha trained motorcycle mechanic working at a dealership contact me to ask me how to perform a service on a Yamaha Zuma before. IIRC he said something along the lines of working on motorcycles every day, but he just never sees scooters. At least he was trying to make sure he was correct, though Yamaha should have excellent service manuals available to their techs.
Sorry to be kind of off-topic.