CW Motorcycles

[Hands Free]

Following a bit of a tumble on the bike this summer in France I had my GS repatriated to the UK. It requires an engine rebuild and tidying of various other more cosmetic bits and pieces. (I hit a tree stump at the side of the road with the sticky out boxer engine!)

Initially - it was sent to Park Lane Battersea as they're closest to where I live - but I decided to send it down to CW in Dorchester from there instead, as they did the last service and sorted out the engine misfire that Park Lane failed to fix previously. Seemed a sensible choice given their reputation, previous experience, good write ups etc

However - the bike has been down at CW for 7 weeks and we're no further forward and am now wondering whether i'm going to see it back on the road this side of Xmas...

Over the weeks I spoken to Darren and Wally who have both put the lack of progress down to delayed parts from Germany. For the last three weeks they've been waiting for conrods to come. When I spoke to Darren yesterday - he said the conrods have arrived during the week but on checking the head, it needs new valves aswell - so that will take another few days while they're ordered from Germany... makes me wonder why all of this wasn't done at the same time as the conrods were ordered..

Up until now I would have agreed with the comments here and elsewhere about CW - they've been pretty good at sorting out problems and have a well deserved reputation for attention to detail and customer service, certainly by comparison with other BM dealers. Now - i'm not so sure. Partly, I think they may be victims of their own success (too much demand for a relatively small company to cope with) but could also be first signs that things are going awry....

I'd consider myself a fan of BM's generally - and my 1150GS in particular - but like a lot of others on this site the affection is not unconditional. When I saw the new 1200GSA at the NEC last weekend I decided I'd probably buy one in the spring, but I had to remind myself that the bike is only part of the whole package.....bike + dealer + service. So guess that I'll hold off on that one for the moment.

On a more positive note, I have to thank BMW Emergency Assist for their help in recovering my bike and me back to the UK. I'd read a bit of negative comment about them on this site previously, but on this occasion they sorted everything out completely. Got the bike picked up from an unclassified road in rural France on a Sunday afternoon (by a deaf, non-English speaking local garage owner with Schumacher ambitions - no i'm not complaining!), got me back to where I was staying and generally all very helpful, efficient and well organised. Top marks.

 

[Hands Free]

Picked my bike up on Saturday from CW.

All is forgiven..............

Although its been 3 months wait - i'm coming round to thinking its all been worth it! It's running very nice and smoothly now and probably better than it did before.

I suppose this was the reason i sent it down to CW in the first place. Their mechanics seems to know what they're about, and it shows up on the finished article.

When I arrived on Saturday, Darren & Wally took the time to go through all the things done & the guys in the workshop showed me the old engine parts & what needed done and why. This might seem like small beer, but its not what you get from some other BM dealers, and it's reassuring. Even if you're no mechanical genius you can understand it all better.

Reminded me of the difference with previous experience in London - where you collect the bike and only half the jobs mentioned have been tackled, and they're not very sure about what they have done on the ones they have attempted.

This was always going to be an expensive job and I was prepared for that - but I also appreciated that CW managed to reduce costs on some of the parts without cutting too many corners (I told them to rebuild it to more or less to new condition) and they managed to save a bit of cash where possible.

So all in all - despite the long wait - i'm eating my words, CW are still streets ahead when it comes to communicating with the customer and doing what they say they'll do.

I know its what you might expect but its surprisingly rare!

The only downside was the 3hr ride back to London - nearly froze my bollox off - cheers Aerostich