Helicoil or Time Sert ??????

[ronniez1a903]

re dakar

hi jona
glad to hear you got your bike sorted mate.
how did your trip go
best regards Ronnie

 

[JohnnyBoxer]

Well my bike is fixed after a week of hell

2 lessons learnt ...

In future I'll take my time to replace spark plugs

Secondly I'll never ever pay a BMW dealership in Rotherham to do work on my bike again ... Staff are great but their prices are absolutley extortionate

Probably burnt my bridges here but being billed £12.79 for fitting and removing a workshop stand and £12.79 for removing 6 bolts to take my hand guards off on top of a bill for £620 for other labour on the head slightly raised my blood pressure once I sat down and read the invoice ....

Now time to relax and pack for my European trip, I'll have to reduce my beer intake by 5% for the week to pay for the repairs

Never had a problem like you describe, always found them fair and reasonable - but I guess labour rates add up when they have to remove items, fitted to a bike

They've just done the ignition and clutch cover on my G650 XChallenge and found a way to do the clutch, laying the bike over & without dropping the oil, whereas most dealers would have dropped the oil out & charged me for 3.75 litres when it was only renewed 3-4 months ago

3 weeks ago, I was returning from Plymouth (after a Spanish trip) on my 1150GSA and the battery failed, we managed to boost charge the old battery for 10 mins to enable the bike to start and luckily I had a full fuel tank so I ride 300 miles non-stop to Rainbow to diagnose - arriving at 1.30pm.

Spoke to Steve and he got a battery immediately from stores, interrupting what he was already doing and put it on 'fast charge' and said it would take about an hour to sort me.

Steve said to bring the bike around to workshops, but even after 300 miles it wouldn't start, so Steve grabbed the laden bike and took it down from the showroom in their internal lift

To help them I stripped off the Baglux harness, so they could access the tank and left them to it returning back upstairs for a coffee

I seem to remember seeing a mechanic working on a Dakar with the head off and thought wow, don't get many Rotax engines in bits, so wondered why it was in 'terminal care'

Within the hour, I was back on the long road home again..................top service from the best BMW dealer in the network

If you want eyewatering service & repair costs ..............try a London/Home Counties BMW Dealer

Obviously my biggest bill has been for my latest cock up !!!!

If you don't know what you're doing, best leave it to those that do

 

[Micky]

Secondly I'll never ever pay a BMW dealership in Rotherham to do work on my bike again ... Staff are great but their prices are absolutley extortionate

Probably burnt my bridges here but being billed £12.79 for fitting and removing a workshop stand and £12.79 for removing 6 bolts to take my hand guards off on top of a bill for £620 for other labour on the head slightly raised my blood pressure once I sat down and read the invoice ....

Now time to relax and pack for my European trip, I'll have to reduce my beer intake by 5% for the week to pay for the repairs

Well said JB

You can say "Rainbow" Jona, it's easier to type than 'A BMW dealership in Rotherham'

Billed for fitting a workshop stand ... mmmm your bike doesn't have a centre stand and so needed the workshop one fitting for the work to be done. It's a faff of a job which takes workshop time, trust me, so time has to be paid for. A dealership is not a charity I'm afraid and time is money ... yours or theirs

Billed for removing your handguards

... in a post on another thread you said that the Barkbuster handguards fitted (none standard) were 'causing issues' ... those issues had to diagnosed and rectified, unfortunately taking more time .... please see above

I hope the centre stand from Gracies 650 can be modified to fit your Dakar, it was good to meet you ... and thanks for the bottle

Now we get to talk the same language Jona ... reduce your bier intake by 5% to pay for the repairs

5% equals £620.00
A weeks bier bill equals £12,400 strewth

Have a great trip ... full report on your return please

 

[Jona]

Never had a problem like you describe, always found them fair and reasonable - but I guess labour rates add up when they have to remove items, fitted to a bike

They've just done the ignition and clutch cover on my G650 XChallenge and found a way to do the clutch, laying the bike over & without dropping the oil, whereas most dealers would have dropped the oil out & charged me for 3.75 litres when it was only renewed 3-4 months ago

3 weeks ago, I was returning from Plymouth (after a Spanish trip) on my 1150GSA and the battery failed, we managed to boost charge the old battery for 10 mins to enable the bike to start and luckily I had a full fuel tank so I ride 300 miles non-stop to Rainbow to diagnose - arriving at 1.30pm.

Spoke to Steve and he got a battery immediately from stores, interrupting what he was already doing and put it on 'fast charge' and said it would take about an hour to sort me.

Steve said to bring the bike around to workshops, but even after 300 miles it wouldn't start, so Steve grabbed the laden bike and took it down from the showroom in their internal lift

To help them I stripped off the Baglux harness, so they could access the tank and left them to it returning back upstairs for a coffee

I seem to remember seeing a mechanic working on a Dakar with the head off and thought wow, don't get many Rotax engines in bits, so wondered why it was in 'terminal care'

Within the hour, I was back on the long road home again..................top service from the best BMW dealer in the network

If you want eyewatering service & repair costs ..............try a London/Home Counties BMW Dealer



If you don't know what you're doing, best leave it to those that do

Well said JB

You can say "Rainbow" Jona, it's easier to type than 'A BMW dealership in Rotherham'

Billed for fitting a workshop stand ... mmmm your bike doesn't have a centre stand and so needed the workshop one fitting for the work to be done. It's a faff of a job which takes workshop time, trust me, so time has to be paid for. A dealership is not a charity I'm afraid and time is money ... yours or theirs

Billed for removing your handguards

... in a post on another thread you said that the Barkbuster handguards fitted (none standard) were 'causing issues' ... those issues had to diagnosed and rectified, unfortunately taking more time .... please see above

I hope the centre stand from Gracies 650 can be modified to fit your Dakar, it was good to meet you ... and thanks for the bottle

Now we get to talk the same language Jona ... reduce your bier intake by 5% to pay for the repairs

5% equals £620.00
A weeks bier bill equals £12,400 strewth

Have a great trip ... full report on your return please

Hey fella's I totally understand what you are saying and I know you are both good friends with Rainbow. I'm not the kind of person who wants to get into a pissing contest over this
They did a great job but I just think the workshop stand and hand guards removal bill was way over the top when I was already giving them £600 give or take for labour!
I was also told by them that a part would take 7-10 days to be delivered from Germany and there was no quicker alternative, I managed to obtain the part myself in 3 days through Allan Jeffries in Bradford!

As I said earlier, the shop staff and mechanics are a great friendly bunch but I still think their labour costs are extortionate. Rant over

Micky ... Thanks once again for the stand. I've not had time to get it sorted yet because of my travels abroad and work! The trip by the way was awesome! Ypres and the Somme will definatley be done again but Normandy was a bit dissapointing. I need to do a bit more research before going there again. I passed on your regards to Martin and Kate who said "Hello"! a lovely couple and excellent biker friendly place to stay

Please don't be upset that I'm not a fan of huge bills! you and Johny Boxer must be closet millionaires

 

[Jona]

P.S

It took me less than 5 minutes to put the none standard hand guards back on without any issues

 

[Micky]

Hey fella's .......

Please don't be upset that I'm not a fan of huge bills! you and Johny Boxer must be closet millionaires

There's no-one more careful with his money than JB

Me .... I'm a pensioner

 

[skywalker]

I was also told by them that a part would take 7-10 days to be delivered from Germany and there was no quicker alternative, I managed to obtain the part myself in 3 days through Allan Jeffries in Bradford!

I still think their labour costs are extortionate. Rant over


Please don't be upset that I'm not a fan of huge bills! you and Johny Boxer must be closet millionaires

[/QUOTE]

Jeffries obviously had a cam in stock - that was lucky.
Labour costs - i think if you do a comparison for the work that was done you may find they are quite cheap compared to other dealers.Sounds like you asked for extra work to be done on top of the original work. As Micky said dealers aren't charities.
Rule no 2 - don't listen to your mates - screwing a spark plug into an alloy head to "cut its own threads" is a receipe fo disaster as you ultimately found out re your original post

 

[JohnnyBoxer]

Rule no 2 - don't listen to your mates - screwing a spark plug into an alloy head to "cut its own threads" is a receipe fo disaster as you ultimately found out re your original post

That's a new style of quality engineering

 

[Jona]

Jeffries obviously had a cam in stock - that was lucky.
Labour costs - i think if you do a comparison for the work that was done you may find they are quite cheap compared to other dealers.Sounds like you asked for extra work to be done on top of the original work. As Micky said dealers aren't charities.
Rule no 2 - don't listen to your mates - screwing a spark plug into an alloy head to "cut its own threads" is a receipe fo disaster as you ultimately found out re your original post

No, Jeffries didn't have the item in stock. It came from Germany.

As for rule 2 - Thanks for the advice but I listened to no one but myself and believe it or not accidents do happen

Can I make up rule No 3?

 

[(RIP) Kaister]

Rule no 2 - don't listen to your mates - screwing a spark plug into an alloy head to "cut its own threads" is a receipe fo disaster as you ultimately found out re your original post

if you know what you are doing and you're lucky - and only as a last resort, you can modify an old plug to work like a tap to re-cut the threads.