Independent specialist or main dealer. It wouldn't bother me who did the work and stamped the book as long as it was done. Doing it yourself is going to impact on the value of the bike, no matter how good you are (something I wouldn't know). It smacks of penny pinching and I'd be wondering what else has been skimped on. Just the way my mind works I'm afraid. Once the bike gets a bit older, it wouldn't worry me so much if at all.
Tend to service most of my bikes myself and always take photos of the work in progress, cams out with pictures of the rockers, fuel filter out, oil draining and old filter removed etc and of course got bills for genuine parts fitted so I can show what has been done when and always include a pic of the mileage.
That would be enough to convince me the bike had been looked after. But I'd still be pushing for a lower price re: the empty service book. Fickle, ain't we...
Unless there was the slightest noise or wrong feel from the engine on a test run , then I bet you'd be a lot fickler. Coz I noze Ducati buyers are special critical. :smile:
Been in touch with dealer. They are doing winter service rates so something like £40/hr rather than £70. They have quoted £420/£460 for the service which is a 2nd annual so things like valve clearances, belts, tensioner, air, oil, tps, fuelling, ecu faults and general fettle with brakes etc. I also got some money off a left hand panel as I have a hole in mine after dropping something on it. Comes to around £750 or thereabouts. With service kit being £220 and panel being £350 I don't think another £150 for doing everything else is too bad ?? I suppose this will also be recouped when it comes to sale time. Thoughts?
I looked into this ruling a little while back and it only covers car dealers and not motorcycle dealers, if your bike is under warranty then it must be done by an authorised dealer. Personally I wouldn't touch a Ducati or most bikes without service history.
Yes this is true unfortunately. Shows how much weight car manufacturers can throw around in the EU parliament.
My 999R has never been back to the dealer . Every service has been done by me . Do you lot think for one minute that the stealer dosent just say hes done it stamp the book and give it back like it was when he got it . My belts are changed every year , whether they need it or not , and you know what I know they have been done because I done them . Not taking the word of a stealer saying hes done it. Service records are as true as the person that wrote them . By the way my ducatis have never let me down and do thousands of EU miles.
It only matters if you intend to sell the bike again at some point. Then it will matter a lot to most buyers that it has been main dealer (or equivalent) stamped full service history. But if you just buy them and ride them into the ground like i do, then it's pretty academic who does the work. I just service mine in addition to what the dealer does until the thing won't work at all anymore! Eventually they all trend to being worth not more than a couple of grand, no matter what you started with (save for Desmosedici, Supermono etc).
Strange how their outgoings (electric, rates, staff wages, water bill, insurance costs) REDUCE in winter. I suppose we should be happy they kindly pass this saving on to the customer and drop the labour rate by nearly half...
^^ Supply and demand, better to cover costs and make no profit or a slight loss, than have nothing to do.
Glad I have an old(er) bike and I can round a nut off or two. Only thing I'd still be shy of doing myself is valves and a proper fuel set up.
I can actually watch my bike being serviced by the dealer,and get fed cups of tea,when I take it in.I get to see what is done and also get useful feedback from the technician doing the work. The problem is that for every honest and capable dealer there will always be a dodgy one.Once you find a good dealer I reckon they are worth their weight in gold.
I did that with my Desmo recently. Before they started the service, the mechanic showed me a couple of small marks before removing the fairings (apparently a few people have tried to say the dealer damaged their bikes and demanded new fairings). Anyhoo, I asked if i could watch him service the bike (out of curiosity, not keeping tabs on him) He had no problems with it and did a very professional job and was very friendly and chatty throughout. I didn't see him do anything I wasn't capable of doing myself, but that stamp in the book and receipt are worth more than I paid for the service in my eyes. I'm always amazed that people think that dealers wheel bikes into the mysterious secrecy of their workshops, and take the piss by doing nothing for 4 hours and charging hundreds of pounds for the priveledge.
There are good dealers and there are bad dealers . There are good independent garages and bad independent garages, it's like everything in life the real trick is to find one that you trust and are happy with the service they provide. I have many bikes of a few different brands and when you look at the hourly service rate costs that some dealers charge which can be £75 plus per hour. Why not do the basic service work yourself and keep all the detailed receipts for the item you have bought to do the service. With today's camera phones and ipod cameras you can even record yourself carrying out this work and save it to usb stick to show any future buyers what you have done. The down side of some of the big dealers is you get a different person working on your bike each time and maybe paying a dealer £75 an hour for the apprentice to do a basic oil change when you could do it yourself. I'm a big fan of the independent garages as most of them are a one or two man band and your custom is what decides if they survive or not so most go with giving a correct service for a fair price and you get the same person working on your bike each time. Whenever I buy bikes you can always tell what type of person is selling and how well they have looked after and serviced it. I remember going to see about buying quite a rare Ducati and after checking various service paperwork he had and old mot's it became quite obvious as the two never matched up and he had just got his mate to write out some old service work sheets from the place that he worked in London. The same goes with any bike I buy, I always collect in a van and give a complete going over before taking it out on the road.
Mines at Moto Rapido after having the winter service done, cost of 425+, labour rates is on winter price at 45 an hour, they called me to say the fan relay was corroded and needed replacing, it didn't work, I would never have checked that myself tbh, it bumped up the price and with a couple of plugs by about 50, I trust them to do a thorough job I just hope it stops raining for me to pick it up
You can tell how good a person is with spanners by the quality and quantity of his tools . If he hasn't got a flywheel locking tool then he hasn't tightened the flywheel nut properly . If he doesn't know how to set the TPS or have torque wrench test certificate then he hasn't been doing it correctly . A set of belts cost me £130 ish and I change them every year . If I was paying for labour I couldn't afford to do this apart from it not being necessary . If i`d had my 999R serviced at a dealer for the last 7 years how much would I have spent . No doubt a lot more than an un stamped service log book .
The side effect of the EU ruling is that most main dealers run fixed price (and very reasonable) servicing for cars and bikes 3 - 15 years old. Check main dealer prices before defaulting to the local independent as that main dealer service may be no more expensive
