Looking for a Mechanic

[coyotebmw]

Within the demise of Cascade BMW, here on the eastside of Lake Washington in the Seattle area, we have lost a service center for our bikes. Does anyone know of a good mechanic on the eastside of Lake Washington in the Seattle area? I have have heard that Craig Buckingham still does work up in the Monroe area some where, but Ride West in Seattle knew nothing about that. Any suggestions?

[Ironhorsecowboy]

I would have thought a city as large as seattle would support a couple of dealerships. What was the reason for their demise? I frequently viewed their website and had ordered a couple accessories from them in the past.:dunno

[coyotebmw]

You must have never been in the Seattle area. The Seattle/Tacoma/King County area is over 89 miles north and south and 20 miles east to west. The population is over 3.5 million. With the loss of Cascasde BMW there are only two dealerships to serve that large area. What makes it harder is that the east/west areas are split by Lake Washington, which is known as one of the worst commutes in the nation. It is a 18 to 20 mile ride, through some of the worst parts of the commute for me, or anyone living on the Eastside of Lake Washington to take our bikes to the Ride West dealership, which is the closest to the eastside. Needless to say why should we do that if we can find a mechanic on this side of the lake. I did find at least one possibility today, in that Eastside Motorsports, the Ducati dealer has a mechanic with BMW experience.

[Ironhorsecowboy]

I lived in Kirkland for about 1 year way back in 1974 and I thought Seattle was huge as you described. Especially coming from Tennessee with about 20,000 people in Chattanooga. Unbelievably, I rode a Honda 125 street bike from Kirkland on the interstates and across the sound to the shipping docks in town where I worked for a while. Yes, it was scary on that small a bike in that kind of traffic. That's all I had for transportation as I was 18 years old. Hey, do they still have the Ivar's vendor down on the waterfront that sold the best clam chowder I ever tasted. That was some great stuff.

Hope you find a wrench on your side o' town. IHCB :lol

[coyotebmw]

I also first lived in the Seattle area in the mid 70's and it has changed a lot from back then.

Then there was an airport in Bellevue, and Issaquah and I405 and I90 had little traffic. To cross the Lake was an easy communte especally if you lived in Seattle and worked on the East side. No one else did, so you had it made. Even if you worked in Seattle and lived on the East side you could get to work in about 15 to 20 minutes tops!

Now it doesn't matter what side of the lake you live on, if you work on the opposite side figure 30 to 90 minutes one way! (if you are lucky).

As to why Cascade BMW went out of business, the story I heard this weekend was that they wanted to move the shop to a better location (in Bellevue, vs Kirkland) to be closer to their customers, and BMW USA did not approve and pulled their franchise. At least that is the story I heard. If so, it seems pretty vindictive of BMW. It sure doesn't sound like they have the customers best interest in mind.