Recently we got a customer bringing a Yamaha venture roya star to Fantasy Customs after it had sat in a local garage for 6 years. Of course the last dealership who worked on it only "cleaned" the carbs of the bike. Low and behold they had made some rookie mistakes there and also charged big money to top off their "professional factory trained and certified service"
This service from the shop who's name I will let remain out of this but I'm sure everyone near the Ann Arbor area has heard of them since they have been around forever and are the only Powersports dealer in the area. Their service included not properly seating one of the cv boots inside the carbs as well as cracking two out of the four float bowls near the drain screw causing them to leak gas. Also I noticed on their work order it states they performed a compression reading on the front and rear cylinder giving only one psi reading for the front cylinders and one psi reading for the rear cylinders. That's right I said CYLINDERS with an s. Meaning more than one. In fact there are four cylinders on this big 1300cc motorcycle. Two cylinders in the front and two cylinders in the rear. If you did a compression reading on the motorcycle and for some reason only decided to do two of the four cylinders then you would still want to note which side cylinder on both front and rear of the engine you preformed this reading on. This was information provided to the customer that they were charged for and charged a significant amount for by the way. ($130) I'm sure the customer paid for all four cylinders to be tested and not only two of them.
The bill from this dealership:
With a the carbs being cleaned, brake fluid and engine oil changed, spark plugs and a new battery installed. The total bill came to $1066 only $148 of that were parts installed including a $88 battery, $12 spark plugs, $15 oil filter, $12 fuel filter $13 can of carb cleaner?(Yeiks!) and $8 for brake fluid. That leaves $900 of the bill to labor. If you plan to charge $900 to preform the work listed above on the given motorcycle you better truly be using certified mechanics. That is why people will pay $100 an hour For a dealerships service because they are supposed to have the best trained mechanics who they have to pay a decent wage to work at their dealership. Most people don't know that this dealership along with most of the other dealerships including car dealerships are all a bunch of liars and crooks when they clearly state: their technicians are factory trained and certified mechanics.
How they get away with it is beyond me but it's not fair at all to the customers. The dealership pays some kids $10 an hour to wrench when they are not certified and shouldn't be touching a customers bike unless maybe just pushing it into the shop. Then they lie to you and say the work was done by one of their professionals who's name may be on the work order they handed you and they feel justified charging you $100 an hour for the work done by the same kid who was just flipping burgers at mcdonalds a week ago and hardly was able to graduate high school. the dealerships are paying maybe $10-$15 an hour to these kids. Sorry to tell you but no, the mechanics name that is written on your work order is not the name of the kid who worked on your bike for $10 an hour.
Anyways enough with the rant about my poor customers getting ripped off before they found my shop. (Poor fellas) I have seen hundreds of these stories.
Drum roll.....
After the much needed service from real professional who truly is a real trained and certified motorcycle mechanic here at fantasy customs the bike is back running 100% again. All ready to enjoy the open road and miles of smiles ahead. Maybe some cleaning needed before you stop at any bikes shows ;)
Where ever the winding road takes you always remember you can count on fantasy customs to have your back.
Enjoy the last of the warm Michigan weather this year!
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