dont understand why all these faults take so long to rectify. it;s a bike with relatively simple wiring and relatively easy access to components. under warranty with factory back up? one marque i worked on gave you a couple of hours to diagnose if you couldn't you would phone the tech hotline they would give you a few pointers, if unsuccessful you request a dealer visit, simple. cant think of any vehicle that sat in that dealership for more than a week. Audi suck.
Sorry but I would walk away whatever the manufacturer was especially as you're not talking peanuts in the sums of money you are spending. get your money back ASAP and Go to another product.
The dealership is doing all it can by the sounds of it - however they are interested also in hanging onto the sale. For him all the while the bike is being messed with under warranty he’s not lost the sale. Most (99.9%) of dealerships will be loathed to refund, and if they do it’ll be in the form of another sale on their books – as for them it’s all about new bike registrations. Remember that in rip off Britain we don’t have a lemon law, so the dealer is not obliged to refund you. He will exercise his right to replace under warranty. The apology in reality is a no pain situation for him initially- as numerous warranty claims hurt dealerships in the long term. You’ll know when this point arrives as he’ll be desperate to push you into a 'attractive discount' on an alternative model. If it were me, and I’m not saying this is right... it’s just if it were me. If you want to stay with Ducati, and want another model; Go into the dealership, and make it clear that you have no faith in the bike model. You do however want to stick with them and Ducati, and would consider another model. Choose your weapon of choice, and if the price is not too far removed, say a couple of thousand, ask that Ducati as a gesture of goodwill pay the difference and you all stay friends. If the dealer says he can’t do that, If he hasn’t done so already, then ask that he gives you one of his equivalent demonstrators as a rider until your problem is solved as you don’t see why you should be without a bike. If he says he can’t do that, then write to Ducati UK, and copy in Ducati Italy, and your dealer. (if it’s a chain, then get the name of the brand manager) outlining your request to the dealer and his reply. You have been left without a bike and Ducati still have your money. You have not been offered alternative equivalent transport. This is the second unit to have had issues and therefore as a model it is not fit for purpose, and you have no faith in the model and certainly do not want to own such a thing out of warranty. You want to stay with the family and feel that given your inconvenience, lack of faith in the brand or its mechanical integrity you don’t feel that as a gesture of goodwill an exchange for X model is unreasonable, or would like Ducati UK to offer you one of their fleet as alternative transport until your machine is rectified as you do not see why you should suffer without a bike. This will particularly hurt the dealer as they get 25 quid from Ducati for every demo ride. Copy in also OFT, as the product is not fit for purpose. If Ducati say shove it up your arse, then use Facebook and twitter – Ducati pages and also might be worth throwing one on VWAG page as its now part of their family. Don’t go into a rant, just lay down the facts and the replies, and you are disappointed that Ducati feel that this is acceptable for the premium they charge, and ‘Italian charm’ is no longer an acceptable reason. Oh and watchdog would love to get their teeth into this one. Now – one thing to bear in mind – trawl the forums or the internerd for similar occurrences. Because if you have another case of the same thing happening anywhere else in the world, then the issue will be a known fault and thus a technical bulletin, and the dealer / brand is obliged to replace/repair that issue for the lifespan of that vehicle – in or out of warranty- as it was never fit for purpose (car or bike – little known fact that ) Dealers often try to ‘encourage’ customers to change to another model as the warranty life ends as they know that afterwards the cost comes out of their pocket. Audi had this with the roofs of A3 cabriolets, which were absolutely shite. They kept rubbing and wearing the fabric, and I personally know of one owner (my neighbour) who had four replaced under warranty (the roof mechanism is circa 5 thousand euros wholesale and about 15K cost to dealerships). They tried to sew him up as the warranty was coming to an end with a different car PCP. I told him about this little detail, and he went back to the stealership and pretty much recited this little fact and told them that he was happy to move to a different model at no extra cost as a goodwill gesture by Audi, or failing that was more than happy to have a new folding roof every six months. He got his Q3 for no additional payment. All manufacturers now have a pot of cash set aside for ‘Goodwill Gestures’ which a dealer can request to draw from to keep customers. It’s what pays for when you rant that your engine has blown up three months out of warranty, or in the case of Mrs Sev’s CLK, when the gearbox speed sensor crapped itself, and the dealership wanted to charge us 1400 quid for a new gearbox ECU, I fought and succeeded to have the thing replaced FOC as goodwill – despite the fact that it was four years out of warranty. I had kept my end of the bargain – I had serviced it on time at a main dealer, I had used only genuine parts, and irrespective of the fact it was seven year old car, for a major component to fail at 27K miles was unacceptable. Again, documented cases all over the web, and also technical bulletins leaked formed the basis of the case. The last time I ever had anything like this bike wise it was at frontiers in Wimbledon, with my SS- early cylinder head studs. They let me just have their demonstrator – not their virago courtesy bike for as long as it took to repair. I had a 916 for almost three weeks- they were an amazing dealership. IN stark comparison to Motorcycle shitty who, refused to replace the part when the paint peeled after 18 months on my 750 SRAD belly pan, I rode the bike down to Suzuki HQ in Crawley, dumped the keys at reception with a covering letter, telling them why and what rubbish service I had received – one week went by and I got a call from Suzuki HQ saying that the bike had been fully looked over, serviced and all corroded fasteners and that panel replaced. Oh and a seriously apologetic call from the Farnborough twats. In a similar vein, and on the same bike they installed the Spyball alarm wrongly and it cut in as I was riding along. They wouldn’t refund after it had to be removed – until I rang Spyball in Italy, had a whine. Sorted full refund within 24 hours. ------ Lay down your terms, remember that Ducati still have a stigma of unreliability albeit much diminished in respect to the Japanese brands, and you are paying a premium over and above an equivalent Japanese bike for the Ducati Owning privilege. The dealership are feeling no pain whatsoever over this, so again one of their demonstrators being offline is not unreasonable given the fact you are without a machine. It’s easy to smile with simple warranty jobs as they don’t pay anything, they feel no pain, it’s not out of the comfort zone and you tick the smiley box on the customer satisfaction feedback slip. It’s when you start making requests like this that you find out just how good a dealership really is. It’s easy for a dealer to smile when you’re pouring twenty or thirty grand their way, or have to warranty recall. If you’re not happy about the dealer response, go straight to the organ grinder. er.. sorry for the long post!
I seriously considered buying a multistrada when they appeared, as a replacement for my beloved ST4S. So glad that i didn't. Initially the price was a problem but you can justify that to yourself if you try hard. The Bike itself doesn't look like its a better tourer than the ST and now after a few years worth of stories such as this it seems the quality control has fallen away too far. My ST has never let me down.
Back in 2000 I had a brand spanking new Ducati 748S, single seat, marchini wheels, termignoni, superchip, sps brakes etc etc. it cost an arm & a leg. It was my only means of transport and so I used it for commuting to work & back on. After 600 miles from new a valve dropped straight into the engine destroying half the engine. At the time I used a local bike shop, well respected in Ducati`s and so I trailered the bike to them to see what they thought. They explained to me what had happened, showed me the damage and told me that they could get a replacement head, piston/liner, fit them and have it back on the road within 48 hours. However. Because the bike was only 2 months old, it was under Ducati warranty and so id be better off taking it back to the Ducati dealer and let them fix it for free. So, they put it all back together and off to the Ducati dealer it went. I explained to the Ducati dealer that it was my sole means of transport and they basically said tough, they dont offer any sort of courtesy loan bike or vehicle and the only option would be for me to hire a car myself out of my own pocket. They then proceeded to have my bike for nearly 4 months whilst they fixed it. Their explanation was that they couldnt just replace the head, they were only allowed to replace each individual broken bit and each part had to come over from Italy, low stock levels etc. etc. Eventually when the bike was ready I went to pick it up only to find that they hadnt fitted my carbon termignoni exhaust system and had fitted a stock system instead. Luckily they had one (which I presume was mine) lying about and so fitted that. At various times during the 4 months I spoke to both the dealer & Ducati themselves and noone really gave a monkeys about the fact id dropped a large wedge on one of their bikes and it had spent longer in the dealers than in my garage. No apologies, offers of any compensation or anything. Id have had better service from Skoda. In actual fact the Ducati dealer in question was quite rude to me as if it was all my fault. Some time afterwards I found out that the reason the Ducati main dealer took 4 months to fix what was a 48 hour job was that it was peak season for them - everyone wanted their bikes serviced ready for the summer period and the dealer was prioritising those jobs where they could make money on, rather then doing warranty repairs which apparently they had to do for free.
they wont do for free, but will only get book times and probably no mark up on parts. yip said it before on here, bikes very seasonal,cant be expected to hire and fire like the hotel trade. audi still suck. :smile:
@rabbitstew ; whatever the reason there was no excuse. Seasonal or not, poor service is poor service. The problem is that its not in the dealers' interest to pursue warranty as they foot the bill themselves and reconcile at the end of the year / quarter / whenever. The OEM can still choose to tell them that they won't pay for this or that, which is why even when you bleat warranty they still stroke their chins and bellyache, and when out of warranty, why they don't want to know. In the car world some OEM's also punish dealerships with high warranty claims by delaying stock, not delivering new model orders immediately, delaying part orders and not giving technicians training on new models thereby preventing the dealership from stocking them sooner. Shit rolls downhill as they say. Which is why the facebook / twitter is now a very powerful tool as you reach thousands of people who are willing to hear what you have to say very very quickly. thats when you find out how good a dealer is. @finm ; agreed. WAG and especially audi have quite a reputation for poor service. Its in part to the brands being so strong that they just sell themselves.
May I ask who this dealer was that treated you as though you had no real grievance and tossed you to one side while they continued to line their own pockets?????!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry figareo, when I say no pain whatsoever, what I'm really saying is that at this stage its so clearly a manufacture / model fault that other than the inconvenience of the owner, the dealership knows that Ducati will honour all warranty claim on the bike, and therfore not leave them out of pocket. I think I'm probably safe in saying that the two bikes / engines that have already been returned would not have been so readily supplied had Ducati themselves had cause to doubt there was an issue. To my knowledge there's no dealership owned and run by Ducati UK in the country, I believe they're all franchises. This is the thing with warranty, in that if its reconciled at the end of even every quarter instead of the year end then a new engine / bike is still a massive chunk and risk from a dealerships profit if he doesn't know for certain that DUK will pay for it. Of course, there's the fact that the dealership might lose the customer as might the brand, and the prospect of dissatisfied customers maligning them as being shite. In this case though I think they've done what they can. So let me rephrase that as "feeling no significant financial pain or inconvenience over this" From Redbury's initial post, the dealer can't do much more, short of offering him their demo bike as a ride until his is sorted and then arguing the toss with DUK to recover lost demo ride revenue. Personally, I think DUK should be bending over backwards to prove what lovely sympathetic people they are as this shouted in the right way could snowball and impact sales of that model line significantly - al la Watchdog Fiat 500 ecu issue, dealers were returning deposits and having new car deliveries cancelled on the back of it. Unfortunately it seems endemic of OEM's these days just ignoring stuff like this and relying on dealership chains to take the flack from irate customers. In the case of Motorcycle shitty they deserved everything they got, and more, but there are genuinely great dealers out there trying to polish turds.
Bmw are specialists at ignoring calls for warranty claims, and Honda used to be top notch at pretending everything was fine when it really wasn't. So it's nothing new at all. Vote with your wallet and buy something else, they'll soon get the message.
yea, BMW and Merc for sure file their warranty claims t the end of the year, so the stealer up to that point foots the bill for the repair - at the end of the year they pray that the OEM doesn't quibble it (if it isn't a factory recall item or bulletined), as if they refuse to honour it the dealer foots the cost, and gets the kicking for submitting too many warranty claims. However the minute its logged as a dealer concern, then it becomes a known issue. BMW et al. won't acknowledge bugger all in Britain anyway unless they are forced too out of sheer embarrassment as we don't have a lemon law, so really the buyer has no real leverage legally - the dealer and oem can keep choosing to 'repair under warranty' forever and a day. We have the fit for purpose consumer laws that in reality cover us up to around six years for reasonable wear and tear, but bringing the full weight of them to bear is a different matter, The ideal customer for any dealer and OEM is the guy who; buys a machine on a PCP plan and takes up GAP and other financial cover products (new registration and massive product commission) Services it there religiously After 3 years trades to new model just as warranty ends (new PCP and renew covers - commission and new registration) - having done about two thousand miles a year on sunny sundays. Buys lots of optional official performance after market extras (dealers have targets to flog these) Buys his clothing and accessories (more targets to shift) In the case of Redbury - says sod it, I've had enough - sign me up for a new bike with your 'attractive offer' (dealer gets new registration sale, and new pcp / products and would you like a set of pipes with that sir? ticks in the box). Win Win. Dealers also must buy a certain level of stock from OEM's so if the bikes an utter lemon then tough shit - once you've bought the stock flogging it is your problem. And if you don't buy the stock then your shop might not get invited to be allowed to supply or stock or be trained to service the YAdaYadaRR-SL-Rsp If cars are anything to go by something like merc will sell a dealership a car for around 30% off RRP- specced options are extra. Merc will make normally 200% mark up on the car. The gap insurances they love to sell are generally around 50% commission - that's the cash cow, as is tyre cover and the glorious supagard OEM branded paint and bodywork treatments which cost dealerships around 50 quid and sold for over 300 - and rarely applied correctly anyway. That and the fact that dealers MUST give the OEM a shit load of cash to outfit the franchise with the brand image - at last count I think it was circa 100K for a car dealership with panels, flooring and all the other bullshit baffle and bling. Its the situations that Redbury is going through that happen 2 or 6 months out of warranty that will shop you how good a dealership really is, as they need to go to the OEM and fight your case as to why he should have a new engine - but few do. Its hard work and not in their interest. Just remember if you're not happy, and you've kept your end of the bargain with regular servicing and genuine parts etc then you can fight it out with the OEM directly. If it comes to that, then the dealership concerned generally has some explaining to do, especially if you're adamant that they did nothing to help you and you don't have faith enough to take a bike or car back there. (or just drive the thing back to head office and dump the keys and a letter on the counter telling them they might as well keep it- that's how fed up you are of the thing, as I did with the SRAD). Like you say Fig, vote with your wallet - and when you've bought your alternative splash it on their fackpoo or twatter so everyone can see it.
Agree with looking elsewhere , but I've looked at honda ,yamaha etc either got there own problems or just plain bland .Paying a premium price should get you a better end product , but it doesn't seem the case whatever you buy now , only difference seems to be how good the manufacturer is at dealing with claims on inferior products.
Merc sell a dealership a car at 30% off the rrp? Really? I call rubbish on that but I can find out Monday as I know someone who works there who will tell me straight. So a 40k car has 12k profit within it? I realise I've not knocked the vat out but trying to keep it simple. I've been doing it wrong for the last 13 years by sounds of it at ford with our 7.5%.
Sev makes a good point, I had a 749 with stalling issues, approaching a junction and coming to a stop pull in clutch and bike would die, It went back to the dealers once a month for 6 months, each visit would see them keeping the bike for a week, the first 2 visits I got a bandit to run around on, After 2nd visit I wrote to Ducati UK stating my disgruntlement at the replacement bike, every visit after that I got the 999 they had as a demo Another 2 visits later I wrote to Ducati again stating how unhappy I was with the bikes problems and it was putting my safety in jeopardy, bike would take a damn site longer to start after stalling, well on its 6th visit they kept the bike and replaced it with a brand new model. I had also pointed out that after doing a lot of research I discovered it was a well known issue. Well the new bike was fine never had a problem with it, since then I have had several more Ducati's and the only problem I have suffered is the immobiliser wire from the ignition breaking
I can't speak for ford, but when I was one of the development team for the w199 platform body in white technology merc sold to dealerships at rrp -30%. that went for new and used. I used to be able to buy one car per annum at the same price as a main dealer from designated centre at the same price as said centre bought the car. Even employees were not and are still not allowed to buy wholesale from the plant - a dealership has to be involved, and I couldn't sell it before 12 months. Fiat employees got a better deal, 45% off fiats, 25 off Alfa and 10 off Maserati and Ferrari, but again through a dealership designated, and also were not allowed to sell for at least a year. (generally the dealership bought them back from you as even the book trade in price was more than you'd paid for the car and he knew the car's history). Honda UK employees get the car on a monthly lease for the monthly cost of 10% of rrp- but it included tyres and insurance. It was extended to the Honda F1 employees but the swindon factory got the arse, so the same offer was not extended to the surrey based team who are now running honda engines. I no longer have any direct association with merc, but have plenty of friends who still work in Sindelfingen. That 12K is prior to any deductions for tax etc, and different manufacturers might have different structures - especially some of the other brands who do not / cannot charge anywhere near as much for the vehicle. Remember merc / bmw/ audi can charge massive markups as their brand allows them to do it, an A3 / golf / skoda octavia are different markup and price / brand segment structures but they share the same floor plan design. It depends only on how much your pride will let you pay. A colleague I now work with was designing on the Fabia for VW Audi in east Germany at the Fabia/polo plant. The fabia design team were told to simplify design to give appearance of cost as part of their brief. SO in essence, make it look cheaper - but maintain quality. however, the development costs won't be realised until the model is a good couple of years into its model run or near face lifted as before that the run is repaying all R&D, tooling certifications etc. I'm sure even your fiesta runs into ten or more million pounds of development to production costs before it hits the market. Change headlamp style? certification and homologation costs. Change floorpan /crash structure? crash certification and homologation costs (hence using the same floor plan across models - its the crash testing and certification that's a nightmare). EU / middle east/ USA / china /japan all have their own standards and your vehicle must be certified in all these markets and meet their standards if you want to sell it there, but I'm sure you know that already. It would be interesting to see what the current sale is from merc to a dealer. While you're there ask them to give you the BOM cost of the car, say a C and and E class estate, that should be interesting.
Its quite believable that the big German car manufactures have that amount of mark up. The starting price of a 5 series is £30k and the top models £60 - £70k. It doesn't matter what engine, wheels or interior it has that's just more profit for BMW. Our local BMW Sytner often has a sale on cars with £10 - £15k off RRP.
