I had a friend who recently brought his truck into a dealership for some work and the mechanic dropped it off of the lift, doing some major damage - $10,000+. The dealer wanted to fix it and he wanted a new one. The truck only had a few thousand miles on it. He eventually got a new one, courtesy of the manufacturer. I watched a mechanic at a HD dealership almost drop a customer's bike one day I was wondering if anyone here ever had something like that happen to their bike.

 

Here's my nightmare story:

Working in Iraq, I've hired the dealership to do all of my mods so that when I'm home, I can ride and not spend time in the garage. It's much more costly, trust me. This particular dealership is owned by the father of my best friend in high school, so they know me very well. Over the past year and a half I've spent about 40K with this dealership, that includes buying my bike from them, cash, no loans or credit.

This past summer I bought my son a 93' Sportster. The primary cover had damage done to it due to a leaking battery. I dropped the bike off this winter before coming back to Iraq. I asked that they either polish or replace the cover and I also hired them to replace the buckhorn bars (to include cables as needed) on it as a Christmas present for my son.

I've been working with one particular employee the entire time, so we've developed a great rapport with one another. He contacted my wife and asked her to bring my son to the dealership so he could mock up different bars and risers for him to make sure he got the bars and fit that he wanted.

My wife and son went down one day and the guy I've been working with wasn't in so she had to talk to another guy who made a smartass comment stating, "What do you think we're going to do, spend time trying out different bars on your son's bike"?

My wife was taken back and embarrassed by this since the guy I've been working with had every intention of doing just that. Another employee stepped in and spent a little time with my son and he was able to pick out something he liked.

When my wife told me about the smartass comment the one employee made, I called the dealership and filed an unofficial complaint. Two days later my wife received a written apology in the mail.

Needless to say, I was pissed off. For one, I've spent a small fortune with this business and expected that they would treat my family much better than that. Not that this employee even knew that it was my wife and son, but that shouldn't have mattered. Here you have a woman going into a bike shop, and knowing my wife, she was most likely intimidated to begin with, stepping out of her comfort zone. So, you have a woman who is uncomfortable and doesn't know bars from risers and a brand new, 16 year old rider who you would want to welcome into the biking community, treated like you were doing them a favor.

Where the hell do some people get their "holier than thou" attitude, especially at Harley Dealerships?

 

Makes you sick, did you ever have a chance to talk face to face with the ******* that treated your wife & kid that way?

Sorry I don't have any dealership horror stories as I try to buy mi bikes 4-6 months used just after the initial inspection has been done to avoid the "new tax" and mainly to avoid the assraping that always occurs at dealers. I was in sales years ago and know better that no matter what people think, unless your buying something new from a salesman they would rather not even use you to wipe their *** with afterwards, so don't even expect anything more than that. It is a sad fact that if you realize salespeople basically hate you unless you are signing paperwork on major purchase, but that is truly how it is at the core of every deal. Few exceptions aside from people who are personal friends with said salesman, but that's how it goes.

That is why I avoid them alltogether, and always get a kick out of salesmen when they walk over to me if I am looking at a new bike and I lie and say I just bought one of these in another town, they immediately treat you like the plague, best way to browse.

Sorry to any people that don't realize this, and always wonder why that friendly salesman that sold you your bike really doesn't want to talk with you and merely refers you to the parts counter anymore.

Maybe attitude by ****ty salespeople is part of the "mystique"

 

I haven't had the chance yet, I was and am back in Iraq when this occurred.

 

Well, my horror story at dealership is kinda different, taking in account I'm in Europe, to begin with.

Just by buying a harley here we pay more than you. I'ld accept a 1$=1€ ratio, but here we have a 1$=1.5€, so my FXDC costed me 17000€ , you can make numbers (22011.60$).

Anyway, that's not the horror story, that's the price we Europeans have to pay to ride a real bike. That's the horror story:

I went to the Barcelona dealer, as my brother Sportster and my sis-in-law Sportster were bought there, and I have very good feedback from the seller that deal with my family also from some work-mates. I did not want to use a loan to get the bike, so I waited till I had the money for the one I wanted + equipment and got there.

So there I go, after working, to the Barcelona Dealer, and ask for the guy I have references, he is on hollidays, and I have to wait for the other seller to finish with a couple that is buying a pair of Buells. After he is finished, he asks "May I help you?", and I tell him that I'm looking for a dyna, either an Street bob or a SuperGlide custom, that it would be my first bike, and so on. He was sit down all the time. He looks at me like he is "evaluating" me and says "we don't have any", and keeps working in his computer. I think: "Ok, I'm a systems engineer with a geek t-shirt, maybe he thinkgs I'm just here bothering him", and explain him that I have the intention of getting out of there with a bike, that I have enough money saved to buy it without asking for credit, and that there are like 50 bikes on the room, and one of them is a dyna (was a Low Rider). He looks at the dyna and says, "uhm, yes, it's a dyna". At that point I got mad and asked him to give me the prices of all the bikes in the 2007 catalog and got out of there.

Called my brother and told him that I was not going to buy a Harley if that's the kind of treatment a customer gets when saying "Hey I have 20000€ to spend, can you help me?". He told me to calm down, and called a friend of him. He told me to go to Reus dealership, that there was a dyna waiting for me.

Went there on friday and got out with the bike, well, with the bill, as there were some mods and had to wait for the insurance. I was offered the chance also to test the other bikes just in case I preferred them (mainly a softail nightrain and a night rod special)

So, more or less it's the case of jakeiniraq, an ******* with the smartass attitude leaving a bad image on his business.

Another nightmare: When I was given a price of 700€ for the SERT (912.73 US$) and I was reading here in the board about prices for the TTS, Finally I got the TTS (and I'm happy with it! Just disabled the fugly active valves and now the bike goes smooth) and I'm buying most of my HD pieces at zanotti's. But again, that's because of HD Europe being stupid with prices.


BTW, thanks to all the members of this board giving out ideas all the time, you've turned me into kind of a DIYer!

 

Last year I took the bike to the stealer for some winter mods. I picked up the bike and as soon as I started it, the engine light came on. I quickly realized one of the O2 sensors was not connected so... I connected and thought problem solved.

10 miles later I heard some knocking, so I stopped the bike to investigate and realized the same pipe was not even connected to the manifold !!!! Looked closer and found the nuts sitting on the engine block !!! This year I have since heated my garage and am doing mods myself.

Lucky I didn't burn a piston!

 

We bought a Sporty for my wife in September. I wanted to surprise her with the addition of a sissybar, T/S relocation and saddlebags when we picked it up, so I called the salesman to have him set up the install. They didn't have the bags, but they did the T/S relocation anyhow.

She called to get the VIN for insurance purposes. Salesman called back, later in the afternoon, to give her a new VIN. They had to get another bike from a different dealer. Somehow, while doing the accessory installs, they managed to drop the original bike off the lift!

 

Unfortunately, the answer to your question is in your question.

 

I... have had nothing but pretty good luck I guess at the dealers. Everyone I've walked into, have been treated really well regardless of what I was looking at.

 

Taking a deep breath...

My local dealer couldn't get the bike I wanted in a timely fashion so I made a BIG mistake and called another dealer south of me who takes out full page magazine ads touting their prices and customer service. Called and spoke to salesman who said they had what I wanted and gave me a trade in price on my 6 month old, 700 mile pristine Nightster.

I trailered the bike there (a two hour drive) late on a Saturday. Salesman quotes me a great price on the new Fat Bob. The one I was getting had about $700 worth of black accessories, most of which I liked, and like I said at a great price.

Salesman immediately begins backing down on my trade in price. Says because I'm using my credit union and not HD financing that lowers my trade in. Then he says the tech said my bike was running rough and they would have to "tune" it. New trade in offer is $1000 lower than what he initially said. We argued and he gave me a little more by "adjusting" the price on the new bike. While he was doing my paperwork he was also writing up a deal on another guys' bike SIDE BY SIDE on the desk. All this time he was bragging to me and my girlfriend about how he was outselling the previous high seller there and that guy was pissed.

Since it was so late I couldn't get a copy of the contract. I left my Nightster there with the promise that the papers would be faxed to my credit union Monday morning and my bike would be delivered to me that afternoon. I also wrote them a check for $1000 for a deposit which was required even though I left my bike.

Monday my credit union guy calls and tells me that the contract shows the selling price of the new bike to be over $2000 more than I agreed. I called the salesman and he said that he had given me the price of the stock bike and had not realized that there were $2000 of accessories on it. I told him I checked the retail prices and it was just $750 worth of accessories and he said "Yeah , but there was a labor charge for putting them on". I argue with this guy for several more calls over the next few hours (I had taken the day off work in anticipation of getting my bike). Finally I told him to cancel the deal and he said they'd be keeping my $1000 deposit. I said fine, he could shove it up his butt and I would be coming for my old bike and also keep my self respect. I also told him I'd be blasting him on this board and my credit union would bad mouth him to any city employee that ever wanted to deal with them ever.

So now the sales manager gets on the phone. Better attitude and wants to know what can be done to save the deal. Several more calls and the price comes down. Tells me that the salesman was wrong about the HD financing lowering my trade in as well as my bike being out of tune. Now it's not a GREAT deal as before but it's an ok deal and acceptible. I ask what time are they delivering the bike. He says "The salesman didn't tell you? Our delivery guy is off this week".

By now it's after 2PM so off to Wal Mart for ties downs and then begin the 2 hour drive (again!!!) to get the bike. Finally get the bike home and unloaded by almost 10 PM.

To add insult, later that month the dealer emails me a special, offering a $1000 gift card and free extended warranty to anyone buying a new bike from Nov. 7th till Dec. 31st. I bought mine on Nov. 3rd!!!!! THANKS A LOT!

Icing on the cake... Harley starts their MSRP trade in deal a month later which would have given me $1500 more on my trade in... sigh...