It's not the price I mind - it's the principle (or lack thereof) behind the price.
If you're in the habit of having your LC serviced by a BMW franchise, watch out for them not bothering to have changed the billing codes on their systems to accomodate the LC bikes.
On Monday afternoon, I picked up my bike from it's final warranty-related service.
I always check all items on the itemized bill, and one in particular caught my eye. Around R118 for 500ml of rear-drive fluid. Since the rear drive only uses 180ml, this would mean being charged for 320ml that isn't used on the bike. How handsome!
Pointing this fact out to the service advisor, he didn't miss a beat. "It's also used in the gearbox", he says. Really? On a bike where the engine, gearbox and clutch all share the same oil? I picked up immediately that he was bulls#!tting, because even if he were talking about the old gearbox, 320ml wouldn't be anywhere near enough to fill it (it takes just over 1.5 litres).
At this, he changed tack again. "Oh well, that's the bill for a major service on the air-cooled bikes. We haven't changed it to accomodate changes on the new bikes." (Implying that since no one else has complained, what right have I?)
And the dealer's profit margin must have plenty of room for error, because when he saw I wasn't going to drop the issue, the service advisor simply struck that line item from the bill.
The morals of this spurious story:
If you're in the habit of having your LC serviced by a BMW franchise, watch out for them not bothering to have changed the billing codes on their systems to accomodate the LC bikes.
On Monday afternoon, I picked up my bike from it's final warranty-related service.
I always check all items on the itemized bill, and one in particular caught my eye. Around R118 for 500ml of rear-drive fluid. Since the rear drive only uses 180ml, this would mean being charged for 320ml that isn't used on the bike. How handsome!
Pointing this fact out to the service advisor, he didn't miss a beat. "It's also used in the gearbox", he says. Really? On a bike where the engine, gearbox and clutch all share the same oil? I picked up immediately that he was bulls#!tting, because even if he were talking about the old gearbox, 320ml wouldn't be anywhere near enough to fill it (it takes just over 1.5 litres).
At this, he changed tack again. "Oh well, that's the bill for a major service on the air-cooled bikes. We haven't changed it to accomodate changes on the new bikes." (Implying that since no one else has complained, what right have I?)
And the dealer's profit margin must have plenty of room for error, because when he saw I wasn't going to drop the issue, the service advisor simply struck that line item from the bill.
The morals of this spurious story:
- Watch out for dealers who try to fleece you using preposterous excuses.
- Watch out for service advisors who don't believe a customer could know a bike better than they do.


thinking about it if they think it holds 500mm theres a chance they never changed your final drive oil as well.....