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[Andy C]

I took my Himalayan in for it's 3000 mile service yesterday - I was told that you have to have it dealer serviced in the first 2 years in order to keep the 2 year warranty valid.

Anway I was not happy - on the way home I noticed that the idle speed was around 1700 RPM wheras before it was just fine - I have since reset it to 1250 as per the manual.

At home I noticed some oil mist to the rear of the engine which I had never seen before, then I noticed that the oil level was above the top mark in the window, infact the window was full, I drained out 450Ml to bring the oil down to the upper level - could the fact that it was overfilled caused the oil mist.

The chain was also way too tight - you could nearly play a tune on it, now slackened back off.

This was after being serviced by a bona fide Enfield Dealer, trust me once the 2 years is up I shall not be going back, neither am I going to grumble to the dealer as there is still another year to go on the warranty.

Can you trust dealers, or was I just unlucky?

[papasmurf]

In my experience good car/motorycyle dealers are when it to comes to servicing are as rare as rocking horse poo and Unicorns.
(Don't get me started on Hardly Dangerous dealers.)

[windmill john]

A southern BM dealer replaced my clutch. When I got it back, the injector plates were back to front, forcing the injectors into an awkward fit.
They weren’t even my injectors! So old rusty ones.

My local small dealer, always helpful, fitted two rear tyres to my R65. They were not fitted correctly, theY were not circular to the rim. Now admittedly the cast wheels were hard to work with. I started fitting tyres myself from then on. I did need to sand the rims.

I bought a S/H BMW R850GS. I had bad vibes, took it to south London BMW. Their ‘chief’ mechanic took it for a ride. Got it back and he said big ends had gone. Stick in some thick oil and get shot if it......
Checked out the BM Bike forum, correctly balanced the throttle bodies myself and it ran beautifully. I sold it 30,000 miles later for other reasons after using it for commuting and trips to Portugal, Germany and Belgium.

Just bought my Classic 500. A 2017 model. I was meant to be part exchanging my Transalp against a new Classic 500, but they didn’t come back to me twice. Never even said hello when I walked in. Maybe a small point bearing in mind COVID, but I was the only person there.

Annnnd breathe.....

[stinkwheel]

It's not just Enfield dealers. I haven't taken a motorbike to a motorcycle shop of any description for over 15 years now. I wouldn't trust them. This is after paying one top dollar to service a new bike for a 3 year warranty period then finding convincing evidence it had never had the plug, tappets, coolant or fork oil touched since it left the factory.

There is the odd mechanic I'd trust but no garauntee they would be the one working on my bike if I booked it in.

I do all my own maintainance and if there is more complex engineering to do, I take it to an engineer. Yes, I've made a few howlers over the years (missing the split-pin on a brake torque-arm being one of the more spectacular ones) but at least I didn't pay someone else a fortune to mess up my bike.

[windmill john]

Papasmurf, I spent six months working in a hardly able to dealers. Hated it hated it hated it..... sorry, I meant I didn’t like it.

Part of that time I worked in the service area. I had customers coming in for services. At the same time, the sales team would be selling bolt on chrome crap and ask me to tell the service customer who was already waiting, that they might be delayed for the bike to be ready whilst they added this extra chrome to a new purchase. Sometimes I would be asked to ask the customer, who had already been waiting an hour or two if they can rebook their service and reschedule and come another time!!!!!

Unbelievable!

[Rattlebattle]

I have bought several new bike keys over the last few years. Apart from the RE I have always let the dealer carry out the first service, usually just an oil and filter change and a general check over. Then, I’ve done the first annual check and all subsequent work myself, one of the few people I trust to do the work.....
Two exception: My new Honda. I lack the tools to do the V-tech valve check at 24,000 miles. If I still have the bike by the time it’s due I’ll go to a trustworthy independent mechanic I know. The other exception is my RE C5. Had I bought it from one of the good RE dealers that were around when Watsonian Squire were the importers I’d have adopted the same approach as with other bikes. But I did not. Under the current importers all sorts of dealers in other makes, including Chinese, have sprung up. I don’t believe that they attend any technical courses on maintaining the current range. Mine put in 10/40 oil for example, on the basis that he uses it it the bikes he races...

The UCE engines need a relatively large amount of work in the first service, but the current crop of dealers ( not the long-established ones) seem to think that RE bikes are the same as any other, but they’re not. I did my homework before buying my C5. This told me that the first service was key and that a careful eye needed to be kept on the amount of sludge and other debris that is on the filters. Without doing the first service myself I couldn’t know this, so I did it myself.
The law states that a warranty cannot be voided if the work is done by a competent mechanic and the specified materials are used ( paraphrased). I always keep receipts for oil, filters etc and record the date, mileage and work done, together with comments such as amount of brake pad wear, tips on doing the job next time etc. I feel that in producing this I’ve never had a trade-in value reduced and if I sell privately the buyer has always been satisfied that the history is genuine. The RE dealer I used was quite happy to process a warranty claim provided it was unlikely to have arisen from work I’d done. A potential downside of my approach is that I wouldn’t get a goodwill fix once the bike was out of warranty. This wouldn’t be guaranteed anyway. The reason I normally let the dealer do the first service is that in my experience these days if anything is going to go wrong it’ll probably be in the first year. If it survives that ( my bikes always have) the odds are it’ll be ok. The other point usually made about dealer servicing is that you need the ECU updates. My approach here is never to buy a new model, let the pioneers help with the development then buy one once it’s sorted.
It’s worked well for me but not everyone can service their own bike, in which case you need to find a good independent mechanic/dealer you can trust.

[windmill john]

I think I go back to what I said in another thread. If I had the money, I may very well have bought new and have the dealer service everything. Then every three years, PX. I would just blank my mind to any thoughts that they haven’t done certain jobs. I’ve unfortunately always spent all my money on bikes, not house money, just what I allow myself. This then has meant I’ve had to service myself.

Always done it. Goes back to my first bikes and a friend who was a natural mechanic and we worked on our bikes together.

[Nitrowing]

My local shop used to be fantastic but weren't making much money. A local businessman stepped in to help...
The decent mechanics ended up leaving and they've now had my GoldWing for over 2 months to sort the back brake

[PO51UHD]

Bought my Interceptor from nearest dealer. Time for 1st service, he said “we don’t measure tappets, we do it by ear”. Took it elsewhere and they did a proper job. Brake recall letter came, called dodgy dealer to book in for check and he did his best to persuade me that it was unnecessary. Booked it in elsewhere...
Problem is most of the RE dealers are owned by the importer so there’s no point reporting these instances...

[Wheaters]

Over the years of car ownership I’ve developed a distrust of garage “mechanics”. I can honestly say that since owning my first bike in 1971 I have NEVER taken any two wheeler to a garage or bike shop for a service.

The only two times I have needed professional help was for crank rebuilds on my first two BSAs. The first was after a new but faulty crank pin sheared whilst being run in (it had been double drilled in the same hole!). That was carried out by Roy Pidcock, who was the East Midlands grass track champion for some years and fitted some of his redundant racing parts to my old C15. He knew his stuff, that little bike flew after he’d worked on it.

The second was when a big end seized on my A7SS on the M1! It needed a crank regrind, a crankcase repair and a new conrod......I still stripped and rebuilt it myself. There were so many crooked dealers back then that as a usually skint young man I decided to learn how to do stuff myself and it’s stuck with me. Roy Pidcock was an exception! His son, Chris, was also a good racer and carried on with Pidcock Motors, still going today.

Problem is, it seems, many garages will put the least experienced worker on a “straightforward” service job on a bike. It’s then a bit of a lottery how well it’s done.