My Letter To Honda !

[bigredhead]

Some of you may have read my thread in the other forum..... But i figured some of you might like to read what i've sent to honda ATV dealership here in Moncton NewBrunswick today !! :eek:
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To Whom this may concern.

Well... i must say i am quite un-satisfied at this moment... and feel the
need to express my concern.

Being a long time Honda fanatic, i've looked forward to walking into your
dealership for years now, however it all changed today.

For the past few months, i have been keeping your service department busy
while restoring vintage ATC's, namely an 82 ATC 200. an 84 200ES big red.
and my current project an 85 250 SX..... and i'm sure many more to come.

Some parts are available, some are not, and i realize that your service
department may not be up to par with the older versions of your ATV's, but i
do expect them to have access to the resources and given the amount of money
i've spent lately to willingly help when needed.

After spending 350 $ a week ago on rear end bearings, seals, brake pads ...
i have been putting everyting together and came upon a question.

On April 11th, 2005, i placed a call in order to find out if the right side
rear wheel needed a plain dust seal or one with a metal retainer, having
received a bag full of parts with nothing but part numbers and no indication
of their specific placement. I talked to Janet who politely explained that
she was in the office and not in parts... i was connected to Steve.. who
also politely explained that according to the diagram that he had, he could
not tell.. then transfered me to Kevin whom in my opinion should be fired on
the spot for such a poor representation of your company.

Kevin made it clear to me that since i had not taken the bike to him for
service. and since i am not paying him to do the work, it was not his
responsibility to spend any amount of time researching or answering my
question..... and proceeded to give me an analogy regarding " If you were a
business owner, would you want your employees spending time on business that
does not provide revenue ? ".. to wich i answered " Yes, it it meant
potentially making a customer happy and receiving sales in the future from
the transaction ! ". and this goes on.. much to my anger..........

Long story short.. i will go out of my way to not buy any other parts from
your business on his account, and will promote my dis-content with kevin's
behavior.

I will also post this letter on a few forums.. one of wich

www.3wheelerworldforums.com

feel free to check it out !

Gaston.

[atczack]

Dang, why don't you tell them how you really feel... :beer

[twgranger]

They probably don't care. I went through the same stuff with my yamaha dealer. I never went back!!

[bigredhead]

If i really told them how i " felt " ... they probably would have a restraining order out on me !! LOL....

seriously tho.. i tried my best to keep it proffesional, i might not have a choice at some point and have to keep partial peace.

[wheelie king]

I think you kept if very civil. Unfortunately, twgranger is right. They don't care. They care about one thing. Money. I am fairly young (27), and even I can remember when "customer service" was really CUSTOMER SERVICE. It is too bad, really. I enjoy honda's products, and will continue to patronize them, but I never anticipate an intimate consumer/corporation relationship like there could be. I had an unfortuante experience with Honda also in the line of a parts problem, and was treated kinda crappy. So, I went with a good aftermarket alternative from a local cycle shop. I got treated first class, and problem solved.

Just my $ 0.02

[Coty]

WTF is up with dealerships, there is a local honda dealer near me that is the same way..they told me that there was over 100 manufactors making exhaust for my 86 200x, well i go down there to order one and they said theres only 1 company that makes exhaust, and he was too busy to worry with an old 3wheeler.... :mad: but i have learned that arguing with people like that is just taking away my sweet breath. so i went down the road to other dealership that specializes in Yamaha, Suzuki, and Polaris,(now honda) and buy my parts. :w00t:

[bigredhead]

my bike will get a barnett clutch when the time comes..

and it's " Allballs " bearings from now on too !

There are alot of good dealerships around here.. Honda just happens to be 10 minute walk from my house !!!! kinda convenient !

but too frickin bad.

I have alot of ATV buying friends.. and they will all hear my opinion on the subject... Kawasaki will be getting more sales this year.

My neighbor has a honda.. and he's selling his bike in a month or so... guess what he's buying now..IF YOU ARE READING THIS YOU D@%'S.

But like you guys said.. it's almost pointless. i know.

[LonesomeTriZ]

I know what you all are going through. I drive out of my way and pass other Yamaha dealerships just to hit my favorite place in the world. The Yamaha dealer I use has been in business for a lond damn time, and you can tell. They are very helpful and always want to hear our my trike projects are coming along. Their old parts guy even takes time to research and track down hard to find parts for me. I even get a discount over the price Yamaha sets. I could not ask for more. To make it even better, Florida, for the most part is not a trike friendly state.

[bigredhead]

And i'm not pissed that he did not know the answer to my question.. but rather that he never showed any effort, or gave me any options, places to look, etc.......

At my job.. i get asked questions all day " Tech support, shipping company " and i get a few a day that i have no clue..... what do i do ?

" Well sir.. i honestly do not know, but tell you what. give me you name and number.. i will find out and have someone call you , or call you back myself.. "

is that so hard to do ?

[rustbucket]

Yeah I had the same deal tying to get parts for my trimotor yammie dealers son told me to get rid of the piece of junk and buy new. Then the owner (his old man) heard him and told me he was very sorry and that i should try another place. I stopped in the and told him what i needed and he was more than happy to get (especially since it was within reach) On a sad not I found out today that my favorite dealer the suzuki joint no longer sells "new" bikes or quads they only have boats but they will still have biike parts available it kinda sucks becuase untill a couple years ago when the built the new yammie place zukis were like the only bike around. Very good place to deal with to always found the part somehow.

[TimSr]

My first suggestion is that you take your complaints to the dealership, and NOT to Honda. The dealership is NOT Honda. It is not owned or operated BY Honda. They sell Honda products and service.
As a former owner of a computer service business, Im going to stick up for the dealer. Sure, when you pay for parts, the dealer makes money, but he makes the bulk of his money on service and installation. If you havent paid for installation, you cannot expect to pay only for the parts, and then have them do the research to train you to install it over the phone. Trust me, it would be cheaper for them to install it free, then it would be for them to install it over the phone.
This was the main reason I sold my computer business. You sell a sound card for $15 that you make about $4 on, and $35 for half hour labor to install it and set it up for the customer. They buy the card, but "will save the money and do it themselves." They take it home, pick up the phone and call me, asking how to install it it, how to setup the drivers, etc. etc. When its all said and done, Ive got an hour wrapped up on supporting a card I made $4 on because a guy didnt want to pay me to install it. I could have installed it free and lost less money.
Sorry, but In my opinion, you buy parts, you get parts. You pay for service, you get service. He has a right to expect to be paid the normal labor rate for doing research and tech support if you wish to do the labor. He is losing money at a rate that will quickly cancel out whatever profit he made on the parts. He may have SOLD $350 worth of parts, but I guarentee he did not make near that much. At a $50-$65 an hour labor rate, it doenst take long to make his profits on your parts, zero. When you are on the other side of the fence, it starts to look a little different.

[bigredhead]

the computer business and ATV business are bad examples.

I do computer work..so i know first hand !!!

30 $ for a single bearing = big margin. x 8 = alot more than 4 $.

and i simply asked what part i needed to use. not how to install it.

[bigredhead]

http://www.toysforbigboysltd.com/

and i did take it to the dealership as well !

:D

[MTS]

I know what you all are going through. I drive out of my way and pass other Yamaha dealerships just to hit my favorite place in the world. The Yamaha dealer I use has been in business for a lond damn time, and you can tell. They are very helpful and always want to hear our my trike projects are coming along. Their old parts guy even takes time to research and track down hard to find parts for me. I even get a discount over the price Yamaha sets. I could not ask for more. To make it even better, Florida, for the most part is not a trike friendly state.
i have a yamie dealer like that too there great! sorry to hear of your bad experiance bigred my honda dealer hear is awsome....

[OldSchoolin86]

I own a well and pump company and have been dealing with customers for a long time. I believe this Kevin guy totaly screwed up. It says a lot to a customer when you can't take two seconds to try to explain something. What it says is that if you aren't going to make me money right now then I don't need to deal with you. This is a horrible way to deal with customers. Sure it may get old telling someone how do something you'd rather be charging them to do but that's just part of sales and service. When you treat someone like this it's a narrow minded, short term way of thinking. Long term thinking would be to take a second and if nothing else, politely explain that if your not there, you won't be able offer the best advice and service you can and then offer to make an appointment for them. Most of the time I will tell people how to do things and guess what, they come back again for more parts and a lot of the time they just decide to let me do the work anyway. You always have to treat your customers well becuase the day you decide to be a jerk, the person you treated will let as many people as they can that you screwed up.

[smokinwrench]

I own a well and pump company and have been dealing with customers for a long time. I believe this Kevin guy totaly screwed up. It says a lot to a customer when you can't take two seconds to try to explain something. What it says is that if you aren't going to make me money right now then I don't need to deal with you. This is a horrible way to deal with customers. Sure it may get old telling someone how do something you'd rather be charging them to do but that's just part of sales and service. When you treat someone like this it's a narrow minded, short term way of thinking. Long term thinking would be to take a second and if nothing else, politely explain that if your not there, you won't be able offer the best advice and service you can and then offer to make an appointment for them. Most of the time I will tell people how to do things and guess what, they come back again for more parts and a lot of the time they just decide to let me do the work anyway. You always have to treat your customers well becuase the day you decide to be a jerk, the person you treated will let as many people as they can that you screwed up.

Well said, I agree 100%.

[rob0781]

Gaston,i'm sure i mentioned this to you before,but don't use toys,thats the worse honda dealer around i love hondas and wouldn't ride nothin but,i also wouldn't let that 1 dealer turn me onto kawi's,go to adriens cycle on church street right across from moncton high,that dealer is awsome the chick there that runs it really knows her stuff,and she gets your order in twice as fast.......adriens is ther best in my opion and there also a honda dealer..

[hrc85250r]

my dealer up here in potsdam sucks **edited**.... he is also a harley and bombardier dealer.....this is not a huge dealership, but is has an awesome/huge showroom for the size of the dealership.... ok, ive come hear for parts quite a few times, they dont really know me much, the guy"john sovie" makes all of his money off rich french-canadien @$$#0!$ that ride their corny road kings and whatever, I HATE THEM! so, naturally he is going to ignore eveyone else unless they are going to buy a brand new machine... he mostly only deals with his loser mechanics and rich local business owners and canadiens...i know this for a fact, my town is small...all of my friends that go there have the same experience, no service...you can stand there right in front of them at the counter and they will walk by you a thousand times with out asking if you need help or anything, one time my friend had some tires put on his cr250's rims they were sitting against the counter when we went to pick them up and we grabbed them and stood there for 10 mins and we finally just asked him if he wanted us to pay him, and we did and then we wanted to get some premix oil and he ignored us until we just walked out...pissed me off big time....i guess since my dad always smoked his snowmibile ice racing team back in the day that doesnt help either, they dont get along very good....i called hima few months ago and asked him if he had any old hondaline stuff and he sad yeah, come on down and we can talk, so i did after class one day, it was dead in his shop....i talked to him and he said the stuff was in his barn and he said well, its in storage i dont really want to get it out..., WTF! you told me to come down and talk to you! why did you have me come down you stupid piece of **DONT TYPE AROUND THE WORD FILTERS**...whatever, i think honda has some of the WORST hometown type dealerships i have ever seen...i went to a suzuki dealership about an eighth of the size of that one with only like 4 showroom bikes and a z400 and they helped me out ASAP....i wish they were honda.....o well....JOHN SOVIE CAN HAVE HIS FERRARI AND LAND ROVER, but im not paying his payment for him!

[markdb420]

I drive past two Honda dealers to go to the one that I just bought my 450r at. The other two I have purchased from before, Cycle World (sell Honda, Kawasaki, Susucki, and Yamaha) I purchased my 400ex from them and had to haggle the hell out of them to get them to $100 below sticker price on a 2002 400ex when the 2003 400exs were in the showroom also, and Honda of Va Beach, where I bought my 85 250r from in 1988. I went to both before driving to Honda of Norfolk, and I was quoted $6899 + tax at Honda of Va Beach for a 2005 TRX450r and Cycle World wanted $7200+ tax and processing fee for the same bike. Both would have had to wait to get the black one in. I went to Honda of Norfolk and bought my 2005 TRX450r for $6250 out the door and no processing fee! The salesman does the whole deal and even washes it himself! Their parts people are old school and the don't have an outrageous markup on parts like the other two dealers. Honda of Va Beach has parts and service together and the jerk that is at the parts counter actsas if he is doing you a favor to get you some parts! What a joke! I have to drive an extra 15 miles to Honda of Norfolk, but it is well worth it. I order most of my parts online from Service Honda.

[3 weelin geezer]

I agree with TimSr on some points but I would treat it more on a case by case basis. Looking up a part # during a slow time of the day is fine. Makes the day go by quick. Now if the guy wants me to go and do a complete diagnosis of his car so he can save the labor charge that a mechanic would ask for, I tell them that I am not trained in doing such work. Really, I am not trained to work for $ free.99 an hour. Especially when they just went to the competition, got something and want me to tell them what it fits (shouldn't they know? What did they ask for?) or where THEY took it off of THEIR car.

[Dynofox]

If you have a question about which part to use in a certain place why not just go to a site like www.partsfish.com or www.bikebandit.com and find your answer (shows exploded views of parts)? You said you had the part number so you could easily find which part goes where. Just my 0.02.

[bigredhead]

Well.. the problem is a bit more complex :eek:

The bike had one seal on it, and the part i bought off e-bay had the other type, the Clymer manual, Partsfish etc... don't specify wich one it it and both seals had been removed from their packaging( longer story !! :p ).

I was'nt asking for a diagnosis.. this was a simple A or B question, that i had hoped honda would know off the top of their.... i was wrong about that ! :mad:

They did re-deem themselves tho.. i actually got a reply !

-----


Good Morning Gaston


Thank you for sending this letter to our dealership because
unfortunately most dissatisfied customers don't say anything so we
cannot rectify the issue at hand. I am sorry about your dissatisfaction
with our dealership and would like to apologize on behalf of Toys For
Big Boys.

I do understand your frustration with not obtaining an answer to your
inquires and for that, again I do apologize. Unfortunately sometimes
our parts catalogues are "not the best" for assisting our customers on
how our product is assembled and disassembled but we do try to assist as
much as possible. Our parts catalogues can be printed for our customers
convenience, we do allow our customers to examine our repair manuals
plus we also do sell Clymer repair manuals for the person who is a "do
it yourselfer".

Our service manager Ken ( I don’t think you were speaking with Kevin )
receives numerous calls daily for assistance and we try to handle as
many as humanly possible but I hope you can appreciate its very hard to
provide proper mechanical assistance over the phone. It is much easier
to explain to a customer how things work when they are at our counter
with parts in hand. If our parts counter staff cannot answer your
question then we will find the answer for you. Steven in parts along
with two of our techs have been working at this dealership before ATV's
were "born" and are quite knowledgeable when it comes to ATV repair.

We do appreciate your business over the years and hopefully you realize
your business is important to us and we don't want to lose you or any
customer over dissatisfaction with our service.

Would you please contact the undersigned at your convenience so I can
find out what information you do require.


Sincerely yours


*name and number removed for privacy. :D

[foster]

Would you please contact the undersigned at your convenience so I can
find out what information you do require.


Sincerely yours



Ha ha! Call him up and ask him for the phone number for G. Bourque! :D

[bigredhead]

ask him for the phone number for G. Bourque!

:D :D :D .... Bwaaaaaaahahahahah.. oh man i shot coffee out my nose when i read that.... hahahaha

[petesatc]

to Timsr........just a few months ago i went to a honda dealer to ask about some atc parts forsale....the guy asked me in the office where i sat down.....the guy had a call on the phone which was private so he left the office.....on the table was many orders for honda......with the buy and sell prices on it .....and the profit margin......
these parts ranged from 'o' rings to cam's, engine casing,etc mostly for CR's....but have a guest what the mark up was???the average was 98%!!!!! YES 98% it did depend on what part it was and how expensive the item was.....but still 98% honda make very good cash on there parts!!!!
anyway i also got one of the other younger guys there to print me a list of parts he had listed under HA2(250r) the list i got also had the buy and sell price on it...this really took the p***.......on the list was loads of parts but i'll just take one.......front master cylinder complete......it retails for £175 his buy price just £30!!!! wow i want profit margins like that..400%!!!!!!!.. i don't know if the margins are different from country to country as i live in the UK but i would'nt have thought so.........
so at least the honda dealer can do is help you a little
thanks

[Meat-BoX]

I drive 120 miles round trip to k&H Kawasaki in Little York NY. South of Cortland NY

When I was in the midst of the Tecate Build I was up their ass for parts and Info so much they could tell who I was by my voice. They actually spent over 30 minutes on the Phone with me on several occasions and were allways cool. All other experiences with other dealers have been lame, and when a new Yamaha Kawasaki shop Opened up 2 miles up the Power Line Trail from my house I was Excited. Their name is Action Motorsports but I call them Lack Of Action
Motorsports. Lack Of Action so bad I still order Parts from K&H and have em mailed to me. I probably could recieve my parts from K&H before someone picks up from service at lack of Action.

It just seems to me that the way to do Business has Changed with the times. And I dont like the way most places do business. No loyality to the Customer.

[Dirtcrasher]

They should have gone out of their way to look up the part number and see which side the seal went on. The hell with them making money on service. Our gas is up, food is up, insurances are up and our pay doesn't adjust nearly as fast. How long until we can't even afford to fix our ATC's because we can't afford the parts?? Let the high class send their ATV's in for service and treat the rest of us with a bit of respect and give us 5 minutes of their time. I won't even buy my parts from my local dealer because he is 40% higher than Service or Western Honda and he charged me 80$ to bore my cylinder.
When I walk in, most of the parts guys are not exactly killing themselves to do anything so maybe the structure of the dealership is at fault.

[250r'en +TCB]

:Bounce yeah they can be stupid like that. I have to try and get parts for my trike to man, it bites the big one...