| Author |
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Daves
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 05:15 pm: | 
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I am as close as your nearest phone or internet connection |
Grimel
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 05:36 pm: |
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FTD, Knox HD/Buell is just insane. Same bozo owns Knox Honda/Yamaha. With a straight face I was told $267 to change the rear tire on my Magna $127 for labor. |
Livnlo
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 07:13 pm: |
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mdm i am in nh and have been threw two dealers one of wich i am suing for damage to my bike that they did and gladly told me they would fix as long as i payed cost but any way merideth hd in nh although a litlle ride from big moose in portland is a hell of a place this dealer has regained my faith and allowed me to keep my bike cause i iwas ready to sell cause of service issues i now drive over a hour to bring there maybe you could try them goodluck |
Kootenay
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 07:16 pm: |
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Dave, I'm happy to order parts from you (especially after arguing with the parts guy at one of my "local" dealerships--the "good" one, even--that yes, Lightning pegs and Firebolt pegs are different; he was convinced they were identical). But warranty service is another thing altogether...
Oh, and the most Buells I've ever seen in one dealership here in BC is perhaps 3 or 4 (guess you gotta reserve floor space for all those Harleys!). They did let me demo a Ulysses, though. |
Rafartist
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 07:27 pm: |
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Yeah Daves that is nice, but do you have a clutch lever, or a shifter, or an o-ring for the oil derby, or a coil, or a spark plug wire, get the picture. These are without question elementary equivalents of stupidity to not have in stock. They all have chrome grips, mirrors, leather saddlebags, articles of clothing bearing the HD name, etc. But not to have a clutch lever in stock after a minor fall in the driveway caused by the POS second quality bolt that holds the kickstand on, come on Buell. Maybe they should ditch the dinosaur motor, draw up a contract with another motor manufacturer and truly get in the game. HD is tarnishing Eriks dream big time. |
Concor
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 07:54 pm: |
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Thank the lord i live in the milwaukee area. Like steve mackay said surrounded by good dealerships, Hals is great. |
Static
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 07:54 pm: |
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From my own experience, all of you who have had problems with dealers may want to consider actually writing a letter of complaint to Buell and cc'ing everyone in the chain of command from the dealer's service manager on up. You may not get a lot of response from the dealer but you will likely get the attention of Buell. It's worked well for me. |
Daves
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 08:05 pm: |
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yes, I do have clutch levers,brake levers,shifters o rings,spark plug wires(for XB,don't even get me started on plug wires for Tubers being obsolete) turn signals, shifter linkages, shifter brackets for Ulys(they bend when you crash)handlebars, mirrors and all sorts of other stuff.
I don't normally stock coils, I can count on one hand how many I have sold in 6 years.
I don't put them on the wall because they are not packaged for display and yep I fight for all the wall space I get.
When I came here 2 years ago we had NO BUELL SECTION, I got about 5 feet to start out and am up to about 15 feet now.
I also have seats,bags,windshields,more exhaust systems,race ecms for XB and tubers that are not on display. |
Rafartist
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 08:12 pm: |
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Buell needs to start sending you to other dealers to clue them in and to check back on them from time to time and see how they kept it up. I wish so bad that we had a dealership within 3 hours that operated like yours seems to. |
Molly_hatchet
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 08:19 pm: |
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why oh why arent they all like daves...shouldnt there of been something in the buell/h-d contract that would make all their dealers be as competent. gee that would of been swell. |
Xlcr
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 09:29 pm: |
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Yes, let's talk about how wonderful Japanese dealers are. Firstly, none of the Japanese 'motorcycle' dealers around here seem to be aware that they ARE motorcycle dealers. If you go in to look at a bike, they treat you like a second class citizen. They seem to be in the business of selling four-wheelers, much the more so since gas prices went up, as four-wheelers are street legal hereabouts. The showrooms are all full of four-wheelers, and the bikes are back in the corner and covered with dust.
They wanted to make me a salesman at a local Japanese dealer once. I refused when I was told my job was to sell them the biggest and most expensive bike I could talk them into, regardless of what they came to buy or how inexperienced they were.
In other words, they wanted me to murder people so they could earn more money. I don't care what anyone says, talking totally inexperienced 16-year-olds into buying 600 fours, or even not talking them out of buying 600 fours, is murder in my book. I've watched too many of them get into bad crashes within the first two weeks of ownership. |
Phonemanjustin
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 10:06 pm: |
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The last dealer I went to had a folding card table for all their Buell stuff and it was around the corner into the storage area. |
Skyguy
| | Posted on Thursday, July 06, 2006 - 10:22 pm: |
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Daves, Nice picture! My local dealer has a larger wall area just for bar end tassels though....................
(Message edited by skyguy on July 06, 2006) |
Kdan
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 03:32 am: |
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Stone Mountain HD's a great dealer. I scored a fan the other day and while it's under warranty, I paid the extra $12 to do it myself without the whole drop the bike off and figure out how to get home and back. |
Corporatemonkey
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 04:19 am: |
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I have asked this before. How about a forum section to rate your local dealer? Maybe a simple poll for each state? Good, bad, and the ugly...
I am so far lucky that I have a good dealership, but I plan to be doing some serious traveling soon. I would like to know where I can get help if I need it. |
Rafartist
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 07:39 am: |
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WTF, you had to pay to do it yourself??? Thats BS. |
Jaimec
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 09:34 am: |
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No, if he did it under warranty, it would've been free. Since he did it himself, he had to pay for the part as warranty only covers work performed at the dealership BY the dealership. Just the way it is, doesn't matter which brand of bike you own. It's a liability thang. |
Seattle_bueller
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 03:05 pm: |
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Gee, I feel kinda bad now. I go to the same dealership as Corporatemonkey and it is great! They not only have lots of Buells (15+) on the floor but the sales staff does not treat Buellers like second class citizens (although the Buells are stuffed in the back corner of the store). Heck, even the parts department has most things in stock. My only complaint is they do not have a BRAG group.
Overall I would have to say I really like dealing with my dealership. If you are ever in Seattle, check them out. |
Daves
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 05:31 pm: |
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you mean a rate your dealer thread like this one?
http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/3842/3608.html?1150157422
It's been there for years |
Corporatemonkey
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 06:26 pm: |
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Daves, I have seen that, but it is not very well laid out. It is difficult to sort through the info. (apologies to the admin, I do realize what hard work you do)
I was thinking something along the lines of 51 categories (50 states + international) within each state category list each official Buell dealer (there are not that many per state). Then have a simple 3 button poll (bad, mediocre, good). If it is easy enough to use, most people will spend a minute to rate their dealer. If someone wants to elaborate about their dealer they can post below the poll.
With the amount of users on this forum it would fill up in no time with very valuable data. In fact I bet BMC itself would LOVE to have this data. It would show Buell who really is helping the brand, or who is just turning and burning bikes...
For people like myself, if I am traveling and something goes wrong. I could quickly look at the overall poll totals for the nearest dealer, without having to search through thousands of listings.
Here is a great example for consumer goods.
http://www.epinions.com |
Daves
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 06:51 pm: |
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Sounds good to me. Maybe Blake can set something up. |
Buckstar
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 07:01 pm: |
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Great idea corparate!
 |
Crusty
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 10:02 pm: |
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So what happens when I post how my dealer fixed my problem, and went out of his way to get me going, etc; then somebody else chimes in that the same dealer ripped him off and he tells everybody to avoid them?
While rating seems like a good idea, a lot of it would be subjective. |
Whodom
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 10:27 pm: |
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So what happens when I post how my dealer fixed my problem, and went out of his way to get me going, etc; then somebody else chimes in that the same dealer ripped him off and he tells everybody to avoid them?
While rating seems like a good idea, a lot of it would be subjective.
Like most internet rating sites, you'd have to take everything that's posted with a grain of salt. It seems like for every product I've ever researched on the internet (electronics, tires, etc.) you'll find 9 reviews that say the product is great and 1 that will swear it is the absolute worst piece of garbage ever created. Hopefully dealer ratings would be a little more objective as the reviewers could cite specific examples. |
Corporatemonkey
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 10:30 pm: |
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Simple, It is just like ebay. On ebay nobody has a 100% satisfaction rating. Most are in the high 90%. When purchasing from a seller most of us look through the rating to see if there are isolated problems, or a much larger overall problem.
If you post that you had an issue about a dealer, and 35 other people said that they have had nothing but good experiences with your dealer, that would lead me to believe that you were there on an off day. All dealers have them...
But if 35 people agreed with you that your dealer sucked, well then I would avoid it, along with everyone else who read the rating.
Best part is that by doing this we are helping the brand, by weeding out those dealers that make everyone elses(like Daves, and Court's) job so hard.
I nearly gave up on buying a buell because of bad dealer experiences. It wasn't until I found this place and asked where to go that I got a good experience.
If anyone needs help setting this up let me know I would be willing to do what I can. |
Buellgirlie
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 11:07 pm: |
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i'm 100% on ebay, 228 folks. 
D |
Corporatemonkey
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 11:28 pm: |
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There's always one joker...  |
Imonabuss
| | Posted on Friday, July 07, 2006 - 11:34 pm: |
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365, my experience with Rocklin was very good; they seemed to be enthusiastic on Buells. The other two dealers you mentioned may be good too, I've just never been there. |
Blake
| | Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 - 12:18 am: |
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We have a dealer ratings page. I'm hesitant to put up a more organized permanent format just for the fact that the vast majority of input comes from unhappy/disgruntled customers while the happy folks aren't so compelled to provide their input. It isn't fair to the dealerships. I've dealt with four Buell dealerships and every single one of them was okay, not perfect, but fine by me. I do always make a point to speak directly to both the service manager and the mechanic/tech who will be working on my bike before leaving it for any work. |
Toona
| | Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 - 01:11 am: |
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365, I visited Folsom last Oct. They had 6 XB's on the floor including a Uly. Probably 8-10 feet of accessories on the wall including the optional Shifter and Voltage "paint sets" hanging on the wall, with saddlebags, tail bags, race exhaust etc. No apparel though. |
Ride365
| | Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 - 01:21 am: |
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Oh ok, I thought from your other post that maybe ya had some hands on experience with them and service... Ya, I've been in and out of there quite a bit the last few weeks, just curious as to if they fall into the category of one of the HD dealers that SUCK when it comes to Buells and service, or is it worth saving myself some garage time at home to bring my future bike to them for assistance and professional setup... I guess I'll have to be the guinea pig, ha! |
Corporatemonkey
| | Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 - 01:21 am: |
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Blake I agree that people normally only post if they have a problem. But if it was as simple as clicking one of 3 buttons, then people would not be adverse to posting. KISS at its finest... |
Molly_hatchet
| | Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 - 01:26 am: |
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the whole one person had a good expierience wit ha dealer and someone else had a bad one is right on the money...ive seen a few people that had no problems with downtown harley...i thought they sucked....ya they have buells i think my biggest problem was the sales person i delt with....she was awful..... most of the rest of the staff was tied up checking out my buddies impala wagon while i was tryin to buy a bike hahahaha thats what i get for goin with him....really i hated downtown and never went back....but thats just one persons opinion and id say if u live in or around seattle givem a try make up ur own mind....like i said before i had no idea how bad it is else where compared to some id say at least they had buells and a couple of the guys ride em..... |
Jlnance
| | Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 - 07:23 am: |
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So what happens when I post how my dealer fixed my problem ... somebody else chimes in that the same dealer ripped him off?
If we were smart, we would try and figure out what was different.
I've found that who I talk to at the dealership can make a big difference in the whole experience. |
Court
| | Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 - 07:47 am: |
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I have some real concerns about dealer ratings pages. These are based on hundreds of interactions I've had resolving issues with Buell owners and dealers.
I know many owners.
I know many dealers.
I know the internet.
I have a very difficult time making the leap of faith that a meaningful service would result.
I'm still a big advocate of BUELL OWNERS making their dealers better. I think it's called "demand side economics". I'll go through the whole thing again, but when was the last time you spoke to the owner at your dealership and said something like "hey, I know these things are high volume or making the greatest contribution to your bottom line, but I love mine and would be willing to bring my friends in if you'd help out by providing minimal stocking levels and invest in service training?"
Laugh.
It works.
Go see your owner today...get back to me in a month.
Doing something with your feet will always be better than typing something with your fingers. |
Pwnzor
| | Posted on Saturday, July 08, 2006 - 11:00 am: |
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the two most powerful voting tools: Your feet, and your wallet. |
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