Totally agreed,but you don't need to invest £250,000 in a fancy Ducati interior decorators makeover . Clean and tidy,organised,all the necessary tools too. So yes all of the above where I go too. And I am in the interior design business.
The surroundings are somewhat immaterial to me, although a tidy organised workshop is reassuring, I deal with people I like and trust.
Making the investment is more than just to have a branded place. It means as a business you get manufacturer support, kudos, and it attracts more customers. Whether it cost them £25 or £250k is not my problem as a customer - but it does mean I get to enjoy the nice surroundings and bean-to-cup coffee! It does not, however, come at the expense of top workmanship and customer service: both of which are always my #1 and #2 criteria. If you can enjoy both of those AND the plush surroundings, I'd be silly to say 'no' - as long as the pricing was within my acceptable budget.
There is no rule of thumb. A workshop is only as good as the man in charge and the people he employs whether the place looks like a pigsty or a NASA laboratory.
customers used to ask me when i was back at the dealerships "whats the difference between a mechanic and a technician?" about £40ph i recon.
Yes,spot on. So the thrust of this thread is that I use a very good dealer,with knowledgable mechanics,clean and tidy shop and service bays,just not the most up to date interior. But Ducati want the interior refurbished at a cost of £250000 which is payable to Ducati too, really not a nice way to try and do business, Ducati will disappear up its own arse if this carries on long term. They are only looking to attract inexperienced and niaieve customers.
I keep typing a different response to this then deleting it. I choose where I buy a bike by the best deal at the time. I choose where I get them serviced by reputation and price. There's a bloke in a very basic set up on a back street in a viaduct arch that I chose to go to rather than faff about getting recovered to Ducati Leeds 20 miles away when fuel hose disconnected itself in tank. I pushed it 2 miles from where I broke down, he charged me £30 to fix. No brainer, but then he's never done a belt service on a duc before so I'll be headed to an independant 40 miles away when the time comes based purely on where a woman at work told me her bloke who restores bikes takes his hyper. I think you need to separate the two things. Surely the marketing decor is aimed at selling more bikes, not service.... Or is that your point? Subway or sandwich shop..... Pizza express or pizzeria...... Outdoor market or supermarket...... 'Ad-vertising infinitum'!
I think I am upset that Ducati are imposing trading restrictions,or ways of doing business with Ducati. They want shiny showroom,yes they feel it sells more bikes that way, but like many,I travel to where the best reputation is for mechanical services,problems etc. So I find that the best expertise is not normally found in the shiny shop, but the true experts are being squeezed out and will be stripped of the Ducati concession is they do not pay Ducati £250000 for a refurb to ducatis wishes and criteria. Maddens me and I could well walk away from being a Ducati customer for my next bike as a result.
Honda, Suzuki and BMW did this several years ago and thinned out their dealerships. Ducati are just catching up.
It does upset me that specialists like Baines or Proteam,who know everything there is to know about previous ducatis are not deemed to be up to standard in ducatis eyes. Although Ducati are next door neighbours to baines,and one person in baines probably has a better knowledge than everyone put together in Ducati HQ , call me old fashioned, but proper human expertise in irreplaceable. NB I only selected those 2 servicing specialists at random.
Here's a small example of proper service - I'm up here with work for a few days and Ducati Manchester have let me keep my bike secure overnight in their showroom, given me lifts to my B&B and given me everything I need to give my bike a clean before the next leg of my journey. I've never bought a thing from these guys but if I'm ever in the market for a new Ducati ...
