I understand why you have said that but , one of the bonus's of a forum is that we look after each other (in a roundabout way) and we warn of the dealers to avoid and praise the dealers/independents/accessories so other forum members can make their own minds up but also save people from being taken advantage of. Good case being the ex ducati in wolverhampton. I appreciate it's a fine line and there are always two sides but often some dealers do read in here and sometimes matters can be resolved and other dealers can raise the bar.
Reading what you have posted - I think you have been too nice and understanding... the issue alone would have had me on the phone as soon as the dealer opened that day or the next.. Let alone waiting months for an answer... as others have said... I also would not have been paying myself without having Ducati support... And definitely... would let others know that your experience with the dealer is not good... even if you do not accuse them of doing incorrect work... which you have not... that caused the issue.... they should have supported more... assuming the bike had a full service history from Ducati dealers.. You would not expect this kind of failure and would hope that a dealer / Ducati would support further. Ranting and raving definitely never helps the issue be resolved... but being too easy going and letting the dealer / anyone walk away from an issue is also not the right solution... there should have been a middle ground that worked.. But that's just my 2 cents.. You clearly are a patient man...
Every service has been done at Ducati Glasgow, including the belts (4th April 2017 @ 5637 miles... belts broke (or rather, the bike broke down with bits of belt material poking out of the belt cover) mid May 2018 @ 6437. For fairness sake, the previous owner paid for the service and belt change in April 2017.... If any DG staff are on here, can you check your inbox please and job card clockings on job 35590. I can accept that the belt broke or a part seized in the head, but getting charged 13 hours to inspect it feels over the top. If I was told on the phone that you warrant your work for 12 months, and "I'm really sorry but there's nothing we can do to help" I would have least saved £1250.
Also - if you booked the bike in for a 2 hour inspection - how can they charge you for 13 hours without first asking for authorisation... again... seems wrong to me....
That’s only 13 months. Surely they would want to be helpful, only one month over and many miles within. Also, why would they not want to investigate what had gone wrong for their own sake? Such a shame you will never know for sure if whoever fitted those belts messed up or if a titanium valve just lost its head
I must chime in here and say I've always found Ducati Glasgow 1st class with any dealings I've had with them. And I've had a few. I'd consider them my 'go to' dealer such has been their helpfulness in the past. And I live just south of Doncaster! Big up to Cornerspeed and Ducati John too
They must be in such a happy place. An engine goes pop @ 6437 miles just 800 miles after they changed the belts and rather than be customer friendly and properly helpful. They can charge over a grand to 'investigate' whilst discovering nothing and offer to repair damage for over 10 grand. You 'help' the customer by shrugging your shoulders whilst muttering 'tough shit' when the customer isn't looking. I am very envious of Ducati Glasgow but glad that they are not in the same country as me... It would be nice to think that Ducati UK would be helpful.
1. Not close to me so don’t need to avoid 2. First time I’ve ever heard anything negative about them; always seem an above and beyond dealer, so very surprising 3. @Martin Ducati Glasgow is on here so should have a right to reply if he wants or deal direct
Hi Richard, Sorry to hear you're having bother. Apologies our team haven't got back to you, i'll need to see what has happened from a comms point of view. Reading this on the forum tonight is the first i've known about this so i'm sorry for coming late to find a solution. Anyway, since being alerted to this thread, I've done a little digging with the tech that worked on your bike and my workshop controller who also supervised. There are unfortunately quite a few unexplainables as the service advisor that you dealt with no longer works with us so i'm drawing a bit of a blank from that perspective. On checking our system, there seems to be 16.87 hours against the job which is crazy and doesn't make any sense at all. I'm guessing (as he's not here) that the advisor has tried to do you some kind of deal and billed 13 hours instead of the 16.87. He wasn't technically trained and wouldn't know better so would have billed what was on the job but without him here to explain, I can't fully understand what has transpired there. I then went back and quizzed the tech and from memory (he did the job back in June), he felt it would've been around 4 -5 hours all in. So I went into the system and checked the actual time clocked on to the job which was actually 5 hours and 3 minutes to be precise. So genuinely at this time without a lot more investigation and digging through job cards etc, I can't fully explain how on earth this has happened. I very much doubt it is a system error; as the system is pretty good and we don't have many issues - I can only assume there has been some kind of human cock up somewhere. Of course I need to get to the bottom of this to ensure it won't happen again. With the above in mind, i'm more than happy to refund you the difference between the 13 hours you've paid and the 5 hours it actually took. As to the damage in the engine, we found no apparent cause for what had happened but the cams/head were in a bit of a mess and were unable to tell us much. The tech has suggested that he would have liked to look much deeper into the engine to try to find out the cause but we didn't get authorisation to do so. My workshop controller also examined the damage at the time and felt there had been some mechanical reason for the engine to lock, rip the belt and damage the cam lobes in the way they were. However, without getting the go-ahead we're only guessing. The estimate has now cleared off our system so I can't check precisely what was included in it but the unfortunate thing about the R engine parts is that they are pretty expensive (Ducati set the prices, not me) hence the price to fully rebuild - that's not the norm for a rebuild by any stretch of the imagination but at that price the engine would be virtually new. We're now closed until Tuesday but we can resolve this for you then. Please accept my sincerest apologies for your upset. Martin
Thanks Martin, I really appreciate you taking the time to look into it. This thread has proved how great this forum is, and the great intentions of Ducati Glasgow. Martin, I fully accept your apology and fully understand how these things happen.... no hard feelings. Good reputations aren't earned by business' that are perfect and never make mistakes.... but by the way they go about correcting them. As my grandad always said, "there's only been one perfect person...and they nailed him to a cross!" I suppose I should have been a bit more determined to speak to the service manager, but I had a 2 month old baby at the time plus work commitments etc.... bikes were at the back of the queue. I have had the compete head priced up, and the Ducati list prices for R parts are as you said, I have only managed to cut the price by hunting round for "new old stock" parts, that would be unrealistic for a main dealer service/parts adviser to do. Might I add, I was impressed with your premises, and the staff I spoke with face to face were attentive and very friendly. There was a young guy fitting protective film, Jessica, and an older sales guy upstairs with whom I chatted to whilst having a look around too. I know you guys will be really busy, so no need to dig everything out on my account, I look forward to speaking with you next week to arrange the refund. One final point, there have been four people (other than those seeing this) I have spoken with about this 13 hour bill... I shall speak with them all on Monday to let them know it has now been resolved. Cheeers, Rich.
No problem Rich, I’m glad I could help and will always do my best to do so. I’ve just rembered that I am at the NEC on Tuesday and won’t be back in the dealership until Wednesday so if you could wait until then, that would be very helpful. Thanks once again for your understanding. Mart
