Fed up with these clowns

[TeKnophile]

I don't agree. The dealer makes money in his shop (or at least the good ones do) and this is a chance to show you top notch service so you would consider them when you purchase your next bike.

If a business thinks they can afford to run off customers because they didn't buy the vehicle there, they won't last long.

Several independent BMW shops in Colorado prove that money can be made providing quality service to BMW owners.

Bingo! You Sir are correct.

I ran my own business for 10 years before joining the Mairne Corps and this is indeed the key to longevity. Its the little extra you give to make the customer say "ya know, he is a great guy. He didnt have to do that." Even the little things like remembering kids names or where someone is from. I could always get a persons business if I could make friends with thier kids or even pets and I would always give them a deal just a few dollars less than the other guys.

[TeKnophile]

No, they're lying to you. This is just their excuse of the day. It seems they have a book full of them.

You need to speak with the shop owner. Phone him/her, book an appointment, go and talk. Dealing with shop managers and their seconds has been a total waste of your time and resulted in near complete frustration for you.

When you do go to meet the owner - no weapons, right?

You dont really think I need one, do you?

[REBGEN]

You dont really think I need one, do you?

I seem to recall reading about your association with the United States Marine Corp. You ARE a weapon!


P.S. Ditto comments regarding a direct conversation with the owner...ASAP!

[SteveAikens]

FINALLY...The missing part of the equation. Why was the bike not returned to the selling dealer for repairs? He already had a relationship with you and your wallet. This dealer only has a bike he did not sell taking up shop space.

Good luck ever getting satisfaction.

You're way off base here. the service shop is a profit center - and a very good one if it's run right. This one's clearly not.

TeKnophile - I told you my involvement with BMW riders in the springs on the 2nd and offered to hook you up with some folks there that could help you there if you emailed me - even making my email address public so you could. It's a little late for that now.

We're here to help but can't do much for you except read your rant [which certainly seems justified in this case] if you don't follow through with offers to get you some local help.

Hopefully, they will have done the job right and you'll be on the road in the next couple days but I'd damn sure CAREFULLY inspect the bike to insure everything is right BEFORE you ride off their lot.

Good luck.

[pffog]

I don't agree. The dealer makes money in his shop (or at least the good ones do) and this is a chance to show you top notch service so you would consider them when you purchase your next bike.

Can't agree more, in fact the service will not only turn a profit, it will be their BEST salesman!!!!

Unfortunately, at least on the auto side, many dealers push the service department to became salesman, and push products and services that are not needed.

When the loyal customer created by great service, comes back to buy another vehicle, the accounting dept. should put the commission into the service cash register, not the salesman's paycheck.

I learned long ago, NEVER frequent a dealer that spends big $$$ advertising, they do that because they couldn't keep customers, as someone said word of mouth is the BEST and only advertisement you need.

[beemerdons]

TeKnophile, I'm the BMW K1600GT Owner from Arizona that hit a deer last October and waited for 5 months for Idiotic-Moron-Goofs at Salt Lake City BMW, UT to make repairs.

Long story short one month after I finally got my GT back last March this sad excuse for a BMW Motorcycle Dealership went broke, how they stayed in business at all is so scary.

Sad state of affairs is that there is a fantastic nearby BMW dealership in Sandy, Utah that would have been savvy enough to get my K16 back on the road in just two months.

However, BMW Roadside Assistance hauled myself, my Son (then 14) and my broken BMW to SLC, near the Airport. Then started five months of exactly your same scenario!

Finally in February I had the good fortune of being referred to Mr. Anthony Cavanaugh.

Up till then I was just dealing with any lackey who picked up the phone at BMW's 800 #!

Once Mr. Cavanaugh got involved, he cut through all the dealer poop and fixed my bike!

I hope for your sake that Anthony is still at Motorrad, he'll professionally help you out:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anthony Cavanaugh

Motorrad Team Lead

BMW of North America, LLC

Customer Relations and Services

Telephone

(201) 263-8215

(800) 831-1117 ext. 8215

Fax

(201) 930-8484

E-mail

Anthony.Cavanaugh@bmwna.com

Postal Address

P.O. Box 1227

Westwood, NJ 07675-1227

[TeKnophile]

You're way off base here. the service shop is a profit center - and a very good one if it's run right. This one's clearly not.

TeKnophile - I told you my involvement with BMW riders in the springs on the 2nd and offered to hook you up with some folks there that could help you there if you emailed me - even making my email address public so you could. It's a little late for that now.

We're here to help but can't do much for you except read your rant [which certainly seems justified in this case] if you don't follow through with offers to get you some local help.

Hopefully, they will have done the job right and you'll be on the road in the next couple days but I'd damn sure CAREFULLY inspect the bike to insure everything is right BEFORE you ride off their lot.

Good luck.

Again thank your for your kind offer. I have been in touch with one of the local club who relayed me to jay the club member and wrench extraordinaire who is going to help me out in future with the basics. My apologies for not reaching back to you immediately. Oh and thank you for your service. Three tours makes you a very lucky/wise man indeed.

[TeKnophile]

TeKnophile, I'm the BMW K1600GT Owner from Arizona that hit a deer last October and waited for 5 months for Idiotic-Moron-Goofs at Salt Lake City BMW, UT to make repairs.

Long story short one month after I finally got my GT back last March this sad excuse for a BMW Motorcycle Dealership went broke, how they stayed in business at all is so scary.

Sad state of affairs is that there is a fantastic nearby BMW dealership in Sandy, Utah that would have been savvy enough to get my K16 back on the road in just two months.

However, BMW Roadside Assistance hauled myself, my Son (then 14) and my broken BMW to SLC, near the Airport. Then started five months of exactly your same scenario!

Finally in February I had the good fortune of being referred to Mr. Anthony Cavanaugh.

Up till then I was just dealing with any lackey who picked up the phone at BMW's 800 #!

Once Mr. Cavanaugh got involved, he cut through all the dealer poop and fixed my bike!

I hope for your sake that Anthony is still at Motorrad, he'll professionally help you out:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anthony Cavanaugh

Motorrad Team Lead

BMW of North America, LLC

Customer Relations and Services

Telephone

(201) 263-8215

(800) 831-1117 ext. 8215

Fax

(201) 930-8484

E-mail

Anthony.Cavanaugh@bmwna.com

Postal Address

P.O. Box 1227

Westwood, NJ 07675-1227

Thanks for the reference. I will hit him up shortly but not before i have had a sit down with the owner of the dealership. Very sorry to hear about your run in with the deer. I pray the two of you were uninjured and that you at least got some deer jerky out of the ordeal.

[SteveAikens]

Again thank your for your kind offer. I have been in touch with one of the local club who relayed me to jay the club member and wrench extraordinaire who is going to help me out in future with the basics. My apologies for not reaching back to you immediately.

Good deal. Jay will take good care of you.

Oh and thank you for your service. Three tours makes you a very lucky/wise man indeed.

You're welcome.

Stay safe.

[JDOCKERY132445]

Did the OP finally get this resolved?

[KKELLER149854]

It sounds like you haven't been the squeakiest wheel at the dealership. Maybe you should consider being a thorn in the service manager's side. Like every day contact or multiple contacts per day until he moves you move up the priority list.

If I were in this situation , I"d write (USPS certified with signed receipt) the owner of the dealership about the problem getting the bike serviced properly. Keep a copy and send that to BMW Motorad at the same time. Personally I would do it right away. Then follow-up with a call to the dealership owner as soon as the receipt card arrives back.

I trust you have documented all your issues in writing with dates and times, who you spoke with and their general response and plan to include that information to the dealer and BMW Motorad.

Th owner may be the cause of the we don't give a s@#% attitude. Or, he may not be aware of the issue. But, the sooner you tell the people in charge, the sooner the issue may get resolved.

[alfreeland]

Damn, I read through four pages of this diatribe and there is no resolution?
What happened???? Where's the OP with the ending to this story?

[TeKnophile]

Sorry for the delay things have been pretty busy at work lately and I haven't had time to get on here much less ride.

After my last frustration with the dealer I went to go pick up my bike and have a sit down with the owner. Unfortunately the owner was not it the the General Manager was. Apparently the owner spends most of his time playing, racing and the like and is rarely in the shop (their words not mine) and so the GM is about as close as I was gonna get. I also asked the service managers second in command (SM was on vacation) to join me in the office with the GM. I then calmly reviewed the sequence of events and frustrations. At one point the GM tried to placate me by saying the BMW has had a number of problems getting parts shipped out due to the fact they have grown so fast in the last few years. I stopped him on the spot and told him that I would have understood or accepted that had they bothered to keep me up to date but that the real issue and most of my anger was from their gross incompetence and lack of professionalism and furthermore that we would not have had most of these shipping delays if they had bothered to read the service manual before placing the first order. He agreed and I plodded on that them having my bike for a total of 35 days for a simple job like this was unacceptable and that I did not care how busy or understaffed they were basic communication was not a complicated or difficult subject. I also told them that in my line of work (USMC) failures like this get people killed. While I understand this is not the same environment I as well as most customers are unwilling to deal with this. Finally I told him I didnt feel like I could trust his SM and that I would rather deal with the assistant who had actually done what he said he would.

I then turned to the assistant SM and asked if I had misstated or distorted anything because I wanted to be sure we were all on the same page and they didnt feel I was being unfair. He agreed with me and apologized. At that point the GM asked what I felt they could do to which I told them that if a friend loaned my his nice new BMW for 30+ days I would have offered to make his payment for the month at a minimum. The GM agreed with this and cut me a gift card for the dealership on the spot. Finally I told them that I really didnt want to drive to the Denver dealership everytime I needed something and that I was here talking to them not because I wanted a prize but because I want to help them work through their issues. He then said that they didnt want me to go to Denver to which I replied "Then dont make me".

This all occurred at the closing of the dealership on a Sat so when I took my bike and the clutch was slightly better but completely I could not contact them until Tuesday. When I did their only guess was that they had received a bad master from BMW. I humored them by allowing them another day and a half to install another (after the 10 days shipping of course). Surprise it wasnt fixed and I still couldnt ride unless the lever was adjusted all the way out to its farthest reach. Now they wanted to do a new slave cylinder. I told them I would think about it but I was busy for a little while.

This last weekend I decided to make the trip up to the Denver shop to see if their techs could figure it out. I dropped the bike off about 0945 and showed them the problem and gave them the background as well as a warning that I would not tolerate a lack of communication. They called me about 2pm to tell me they couldnt replicate the problem. So the wife and I drove from the other side of town to show them because I could not get them to understand on the phone. I then showed them the problem and they took it back to try a few things while I wandered the dealership. The SM came back a few minutes later to explain they were at a loss. When we went outside to go over it again I asked if there was a chance this set screw did anything.IMG_0546.jpg

He then took it back to the shop for a few and then came to find me with a triumphant look on his face. He explained that this adjustment point was not in the manual and they werent on the hook if it messed something up. I was unconcerned as this was FINALLY the common sense solution I knew was right in front of me the whole time. We then adjusted the screw (hit me up if you would like to know how) until the bike was correct. The SM then told me it was no charge due to all the hassle and them making me come back to help them. I thanked them for helping me fix such a cantankerous issue and then bought a very nice pair of Held goretex gloves I had been eyeballing because they had gone the extra mile for me.

So at this point I will be stopping by my local dealership to share this tidbit of wisdom with their techs so nobody else needs to go through this pain. Like I said I dont really want to drive all the way to Denver nor do I want all of you out here to need to.

Final tidbit of information I picked up at the Denver dealership:

BMW has issued a campaign (read: recall without obligation or notification of owners) for my bike and likely the rest of the K1300 series as well for a cam chain adjuster issue/replacement. The problem is that they will not allow the dealers to do the work unless the bike is in for a scheduled service. I am now at 6k but I have already done my oil change and Ill be damned if I am going to pay $400 for someone to change the rear diff fluid and check some bolts. Ill be talking to Jay when I take the bike over to get her new shoes (PR3s) on shortly.

Finally thanks again to everyone out there. Now lets go ride!

[bikerfish1100]

Glad you got it all sorted out. And just in time for some Killer Kolorado weather!

[argent brick]

......We then adjusted the screw (hit me up if you would like to know how) until the bike was correct.......

NOT FAIR!!!! We read through this whole thread and you don't tell us how this screw is adjusted? We want to know!