Dealerships and Repair Shops Won’t Work on Bikes over 15 Years Old 😳

[HadaDaytona]

I moved recently to SW Michigan and called around to all kinds of shops to get a quote on repair work. With too many projects I considered farming out some jobs. Each phone call started with what kind of bike and what year. When I replied a 2000 Guzzi they replied we don’t work on anything over 15 years old 😖. This was the answer on every call.

Is this what the world has come to ? I know after 2008 many dealerships went out of business. Are there so few shops now that they can pick and choose to work on newer vehicles only? I know if they needed parts for my bike they would be told that part is NLA. They may feel that they don’t have time to sit on the phone to chase down parts.

 

[gstallons]

I don't have an answer for you. there are many reasons . I DIY because I trust myself and myself only .

[Lucky Phil]

1 hour ago, HadaDaytona said:

I moved recently to SW Michigan and called around to all kinds of shops to get a quote on repair work. With too many projects I considered farming out some jobs. Each phone call started with what kind of bike and what year. When I replied a 2000 Guzzi they replied we don’t work on anything over 15 years old 😖. This was the answer on every call.

Is this what the world has come to ? I know after 2008 many dealerships went out of business. Are there so few shops now that they can pick and choose to work on newer vehicles only? I know if they needed parts for my bike they would be told that part is NLA. They may feel that they don’t have time to sit on the phone to chase down parts.

 

Probably because people that own bikes over 15 years old won't pay the going service rates and the work will usually be major and parts availability almost non existent. Then they will need to put too many hours into sourcing parts and probably have the bike taking up workshop space for months on end.

A close friend of mine that ran a specialist motorcycle marching and race bike building business for 40 years had a customer leave him an Triumph twin aluminium head for a full rebuild. This was only a few years after he started his business in his garage. New valves, guides and seats, the whole 9 yards. The old guy came to collect the head and when he was presented with the bill told my mate that for that sort of money he could keep it, he wasn't going to pay that. My friend advised him of the hours he's put into the work but this guy was refusing to pay, obviously trying to negotiate the cost down. My friend confirmed that he wasn't interested in paying the bill and the customer then watched as he went to the bandsaw and cut the head in two. Apparently the look on the guys face was worth it. People don't like paying for the complex stuff old bikes often require to make them run well again.

Phil 

 

[gstallons]

If you owned a shop you would want to get at least 50% up front before you start . If not you would have a lot full of $$$ converted into bikes no one would want . AND trying to get ownership of a bike from a mechanic's lien is absurd . 

Phil , I do like the magic trick w/the triumph head !

[pete roper]

Sadly, this is very true. Even newer bikes can be a problem. I had some real doozeys when I was an official service agent in the Noughties. On more than one occasion I was threatened with physical violence by disgruntled customers who thought their bikes should be fixed for nothing after they’d done stupid shit to them.

As for the folks who own 1970’s and ‘80’s Guzzis? Well they expect ‘70’s prices for parts and labour! In my last twenty years or so I just had a policy of refusing to work on any bike not built this century. That was after I had one arsehole dispute the cost for some clutch parts and a gearbox rebuild on his Eldo. While I was off dealing with another customer he went through my toolbox and stole a whole load of my Guzzi special tools! Then he had the temerity to phone me up and get shitty with me because I dobbed him in to the police!

With something like a Gen 1 Hi-Cam things are much, much worse. They were never made in large numbers and were built at a time when quality control was in the toilet and many of Guzzi’s suppliers had cut them off for non payment of outstanding bills! This led to some, errrr? ‘Creative’ assembly at Mandello. As Chuck said of the Centauros of that period the only reason the factory bothered assembling them was to ensure the owner got all, or at least the majority, of the parts! Parts for them are generally very hard to get and things like belts have long been available only as NOS which means even your ‘New’ belt is probably thirty years old!

Then there’s also the fact that many workshops don’t employ skilled labour and those that do have clever, qualified shop staff can basically name their price! I certainly wouldn’t buy a new Guzzi if I couldn’t service it myself and wouldn’t trust any ‘Official’ shop to do it properly. A thirty year old orphan is orders of magnitude more difficult!

[Lucky Phil]

Agree with all of this^ On the RE forum a couple of years ago a guy have a very new one that started running on one cylinder only.  No nasty noises or vibration just dropped a cylinder. The workshop at the RE dealer couldn't figure it out so RE gave him a new bike and he still winged about it every post he could! Got the equivalent of a lottery win from the manufacturer and still winged. Anyway the point is the 650 is a basic air cooled twin, how hard can it be to diagnose a dropped cylinder? 

Phil

[gstallons]

Well , if the people at the dealership don't know ANYTHING , it can be very easy to not be able to diagnose the misfire.

 Pete , it would be extremely difficult to not declare war 9and I mean WAR) on the tool box robber.

For the ones who do repairs for a living , customers fall into two inevitable categories . Good customers you would go out on Christmas Day and help them because their money is good and you appreciate their patronage . Bad customers that beat you out of money , tell insane stories about you and will never leave you alone.  I do not understand why some dealerships have a cutoff on "vintage" vehicles ? The problem is not the bike as much as the customer. The bike is an inanimate object , the customer can be a pain-in-the-ass.

[Bill Hagan]

13 hours ago, gstallons said:

I don't have an answer for you. there are many reasons . I DIY because I trust myself and myself only .

Ditto.  Do my own.  I have well-stocked tool and parts cases.

OK, OK.  

My moto-techy friends do the work.  My job is to supply the tools and beer.  Several bring their own of both.  

Moto Grappa Tech Days 2024

Seriously -- tho almost all of that was -- I'd last about 30 minutes in a "retail" business of any kind before I, some asshat customer, or both of us wore orange suits. Kudos to those who can do it.  

Bill

Edited Friday at 12:59 PM by Bill Hagan
Corrected fat thumb errors. :-)

[Admin Jaap]

On my 1200 I do the maintenance myself and luckily there is a real talented young mechanic in our village who isn't afraid of stuff over 15 years old. (My 1200Sport is now that old)

[Pressureangle]

I was parts manager for Peterson's H-D in Miami through most of the 90's. Service had a policy of refusing work on any Iron motors- the last of which was built in 1985, so then only 5-6 years old. The rationale, which I can't argue, was that many of those customers with older bikes were simply not willing (or able) to pay the dealership's shop rate, and by then they all knew the 'Warranty Time' for their bikes and often demanded that they be met- which was patently ridiculous even when the bikes were new. I questioned it until the Key West poker run crowd came through- we would change oil and tires on those bikes during that sponsored event, but no mechanical work. There were some pretty ugly conversations over it, even though there were a dozen aftermarket shops locally that would do the work, and do it well, and do it cheaper than we would have- we actually partnered with some of these shops because we were overloaded with work in those days anyway so it was better for everyone. Yet they complained. 
Probably didn't help that half of us rode Iron motors ourselves...

[p6x]

3 hours ago, Admin Jaap said:

On my 1200 I do the maintenance myself and luckily there is a real talented young mechanic in our village who isn't afraid of stuff over 15 years old. (My 1200Sport is now that old)

The "we do not work on old motorcycles" is something I discovered when I came here.

In Europe, generally, a Moto Guzzi dealer will work on your vintage motorcycle, as long as you are not asking for restoration works. There are specialized (plenty) shops that do that.

So what is different? for instance, if you have an old bike, the dealer may pre warn you about compensating the search for parts, and other difficulties that he may encounter and may need to charge you extra for. The Mechanic which will be assigned to your bike may not be familiar, and may need to spend time documenting himself. All that will need some working for a final price.

But what I found, because I asked while in France, they only refuse if the owner does not want to cover the costs that I stated above.

Now, we need to factor in, that in Europe, motorcyclists use their bikes to commute and not only for leisure. Having older motorcycles is not rare, and getting the spares is usually easier, faster, cheaper.

[p6x]

22 hours ago, HadaDaytona said:

I moved recently to SW Michigan and called around to all kinds of shops to get a quote on repair work. With too many projects I considered farming out some jobs. Each phone call started with what kind of bike and what year. When I replied a 2000 Guzzi they replied we don’t work on anything over 15 years old 😖. This was the answer on every call.

Is this what the world has come to ? I know after 2008 many dealerships went out of business. Are there so few shops now that they can pick and choose to work on newer vehicles only? I know if they needed parts for my bike they would be told that part is NLA. They may feel that they don’t have time to sit on the phone to chase down parts.

 

There was recently an open house at one of the dealership which I like to go to as a ride reason.

I asked and got permission to visit their workshop. All the mechanics are very young. But since they are an Indian dealership, I would expect that they could work on my Guzzis. They said they would, providing I bring whatever spares required, so they don't have to spend time they would not know how to charge.

I found that going to places in person, and speaking face to face may break the ice. I know, business is business. But you don't know who you spoke to over the phone. Maybe a bored clerk that will just repeat over and over what he has been told to say:

If "Bike" = > 15 years age

Then "No"

When you get some time, go to these shops and maybe speak to the owner directly.

When I was on the verge to purchase a Honda CBX 1000, we have a shop here in Houston that does restauration. The guy was very friendly, and honest. He told me that he had no experience on the CBX 1000, but he did not see it as a problem. He said that he knew where to get information from people that he knew that had that experience.

This guy: https://wolfsmithsheights.com/

Now he said right away that his hourly rate was $175.

You ought to find someone that is going to accept to work on your bike. Just don't take no for an answer.

Edited Friday at 08:26 PM by p6x

[LowRyter]

Yep, it's harder and harder to find someone to work on legacy bikes.  There's parts support, personnel, expertise, and tech data issues.  But guess what.  It's going to get much harder to get independent support for new bikes too.  All this computer support it about to get too expensive, even online repair manuals, given all the makes and models and separate subscriptions.   

[p6x]

2 hours ago, LowRyter said:

Yep, it's harder and harder to find someone to work on legacy bikes.  There's parts support, personnel, expertise, and tech data issues.  But guess what.  It's going to get much harder to get independent support for new bikes too.  All this computer support it about to get too expensive, even online repair manuals, given all the makes and models and separate subscriptions.   

As MPH said to me recently, they have one Moto Guzzi dealership in Houston that brings the new Guzzi for maintenance rather than doing it themselves. I am not certain if this involves the V100.

There is a YouTube channel that I follow, "Bus Grease Monkey".

This guy specializes in fixing, maintaining old buses.

He is subscription based. I do not know how much it costs, but when you subscribe, that gives you the possibility to use his services for your vehicle. You still have to pay for spares and labor, but you, at least, have the assurance that someone will bail you out in case of emergency.

You can easily find his channel on youtube. I don't know if this is the future business model for maintaining your vehicle, but if the EVs are going to ramp up, eventually, sometimes in the future, there will not be enough business for workshops to sustain their workforce, hence starting a subscription base system.

Going back to MPH, Mike and Davey are both the wizards that make the shop reputable. But they are not getting any younger, and I see no apprentice with them. I asked Davey about it. Passing on the knowledge so someone continues. So far, I have not seen any changes.

MPH is supposedly moving to Hempstead, and I am going to lose the convenience of having them 10 minutes from where I live.

Iron Power Supply is my next bet for maintenance that I won't do myself.

[Lucky Phil]

It's the same with everything these days. I needed all the guttering replace on my single story flat block small house a few months ago. 50 linier metres of guttering. No down pipes just gettering. Going rate 100-110/LM! So $5000 for a simple guttering job. Materials? $800. So $4200 labour for 10 man hours of work for a pro doing it day in day out that involves about $500 worth of tooling/equipment. About the rate a heavy jet commercial pilot earns for stick time with 500 lives in his hands.

Solution? I bought the materials online delivered and the wife and I spent 25 hours taking our time 4-5 hours a day being super cautious to eliminate any serious errors and doing a first rate better than a pro job on it. I've never done guttering before but I know how to string line the required fall and fit the support clips and I have good quality tin snips and a pop rivet gun. The corners are all done with cast fittings these days so they are a doddle. So that's $4200 net in my pocket.

I think a lot of the issues with getting work done these days on anything, houses, cars, bikes is that the average person totally lacks any sort of basic hand and mechanical skills and is at the mercy of anyone in a trade. The value system then becomes distorted. The ultimate degradation of our forbears ability to carve out a life from the wilderness by hand, swearing and sweat. My single biggest fear getting older is losing the ability to do things like this myself. It's just fundamental to who I am and the foundation of my independence. Not looking forward to losing that.

Phil

Edited Friday at 08:41 PM by Lucky Phil