[GTO]

We'd like to cover this on our news section. Please forward the email you wrote to Kawasaki via this page.

Thanks!

[bigron]

Here is what I ve learned in the past 2 decades of visiting these so called premium bike dealerships with friends who went to buy/order their bikes.
Firstly, it is imperative that you know what you want and that you are completely aware of the product and its ins and out. Thankfully, you dont need a suit clad monkey to give you that information. All available online through various forums.
Secondly, be firm in your approach and let them know your mind. They will have leverage and the whole idea is to get them to an equal footing by making it clear what your requirement and expectations are. Be willing to walk out. Never show desperation. ( In his own words. you are not buying a 150 cc commuter so he should not treat you like one). Though I dont believe in this notion. Since for a 150 cc buyer that very much could be his/her premium bike.
Lastly, take people with you. The more the merrier. Who can counter his absurd service charge claims etc.

Happy Shopping!!

[timuseravan]

Originally Posted by v12

I am telling you - you should have stepped inside the Triumph showroom. It would have been the experience of a lifetime. Maybe you would not have bought the bike - but the experience would be unforgettable. That's the main difference between the Triumph and Kawasaki showrooms.

The experience is definitely good in Triumph showrooms but they also charge around 20k as handling charges.

[shifu]

Originally Posted by GTO

We'd like to cover this on our news section. Please forward the email you wrote to Kawasaki via this page.

Thanks!

I just did. I have emailed you their response, and also sent a screenshot of the tweet I sent them for this.


If we can raise some noise about these unethical practice, I am sure it'll help...

[JayPrashanth]

Originally Posted by Ironhide

What I am surprised that is why the major automobile publications are not taking up a case against this. Are they so beholden to automobile manufacturers that they cannot see what is obviously a very wrong and unethical practice? It is common knowledge that in the the RTOs across states, bribe taking at all levels flourishes rampantly without a check.

:-D Easy answer. They depend on ad money from these companies. So, they won't take a stand.

Cheers,

Jay

[sajands]

Originally Posted by greenoval

They don't even want to discuss or pacify the customer! The attitude is we are doing you a favour, take it or leave it!

Please do report this dealership to RTO as well as they should be aware of much malpractices.



These dealerships treat customers as if they are doing us a favor.

[neil.jericho]

This is hardly surprising news, Kawasaki India has been known to give its dealers a free hand and refuses to clamp down on them. And as long as customers, knowingly or unknowingly, part with these illegal charges, nothing will change. Look at the BMW ransom case. The way I look at it, the Kawasaki dealership has done the OP a great favour by showing their true colours.


Kawasaki India is going to make a fabulous case study someday. For all intents and purposes, they should have been the defacto number 1 big bike manufacturer in India today. Over the last few years, they have had a more diverse portfolio than HD and Triumph (the other two biggies) and yet the others still do well. Triumph sumbly plodded their way through the detune fiasco which should have been the death knell for their dealerships and have relatively pricey offerings today (still no Speed Triple, argh!) but through a great and test ride friendly dealership network, they are in the hunt. HD is HD, they have a strong run but could have faced serious challenges to their sub Rs 10 lac range had Kawasaki India brought the Vulcan (with its fantastic Ergo Fit USP) in at the right time. Honda has quietly been going from strength to strength with the sensible CBR650 and exciting Africa Twin and the occasional Goldwing (4 got delivered in the Cochin dealership in a day!) with bargain basement service charges and a supportive dealer network. Suzuki's ever green Busa and the smart new GSX750 and V Strom should turn things around despite the short service intervals. Yamaha, well Yamaha seems to be asleep so lets not wake them up yet. Kawasaki has the broadest product change compared to all its competitors (Z300, N300, N400, Z650, V650, Vul650, Z900, N1000, V1000, ZX10R, ZX14R, H2, H2R and maybe a few more Im forgetting) and should by all means have eliminated the competition with its reach of dealerships, service supply chain logistics and brand value. But by allowing some of their crooked dealership to do as they please (inflated ex showroom prices, illegal handling charges, arrogant sales people, no test ride bikes, buy it if you want it mindset, inflated service charges), Kawasaki has given its competition enough room to succeed.

[Haroon]

Kawasaki is presently having a free run in India where most of their bikes are being 'bought' and not sold. Unless, the competition pulls up its pants and gives them a run for their money, they will continue to fleece. And anyway as it stands 9/10 customers are willing to pay (either under duress or willingly!). So Kawasaki stealers or even Kawasaki India cares a damn. All those Japanese ethics and civility will remain in Japan.

When I hear these horror stories, I always wonder something on the lines of the AMA in USA, for us in India especially with a huge biker population, a reasonably big group that is also into leisure/adventure/touring rides, and we paying 2-3 times more for our shiny superbikes than our counterparts in many other countries and with most of major big bike manufactures having directly set up offices thru Indian subsidiaries etc, its high time that we also organize into a Pan-India group whose collective voice can be heard. Ofcourse, this will surely need influential bikers, lawyers, if possible few lawmakers (as patrons) and other related 'helpers & volunteers' so we can form a formidable association that can collectively take up such issues and other stuff including those stupidities from the govt on not accepting DOT/SNELL helmets etc. or bikers being harassed for being in full riding gear as guilty of 'racing' etc or even those faulty brakes, engine stalling issues, misleading HP figures on some superbikes etc. The group can also be consulted on any two-wheeler related rule changes etc etc. There could be a small yearly subscription and member privileges like assisting in genuine consumer issues and other biker related road assistance etc.

I know there could be a viewpoint that a good number of influential bikers may not want to do anything with such mass groups as long as they are content with their Sunday breakfast ride or one Leh/Ladhakh ride and so for them a 'few extra chips' charged by the dealer will not have any effect, but then at some point of time things can effect one and all, so we need to be prepared for that....biker brotherhood needs to be seen in action and not on a patch or T-Shirt only!

I know its a long shot to put this together, but just some wishful thinking....

[ChiragM]

Thanks to Arun S for sending this information in. Heartfelt gratitude for sharing it with other enthusiasts via this Team-BHP page!

Arun recently booked a Suzuki Gixxer and was asked to pay handling charges. Here is a narration of the incident in his words.

I wanted to share my inputs on the handling charges issues being discussed for the Ninja 300 and the BMW 310 twins. Specifically, in response to a post by BHPian CrAzY dRiVeR requesting owners to post the price quotes in the thread.

My experience was with booking the humble Suzuki Gixxer, but thought of sharing it with Team-BHP as it might be useful for any Team-BHP reader.

Last week, I had asked my younger brother to visit a few Suzuki showrooms and get a quote for the Suzuki Gixxer ABS variant. None of the quotes showed any break-up. The showroom guys quoted only the final price of Rs. 110*** for the Dual Disk variant and Rs.114*** for the ABS variant. Later, I visited one of the showrooms personally with my brother in tow. Upon enquiring for the break-up, they came up with fancy terms such as registration charges and other charges (attached a quote for reference).

When asked for an explanation, the sales person gave standard responses such as handling charges for storing the vehicle in the yard, charges to take the vehicle to RTO and also added RC smart card charges. I had to disagree and approached the manager/owner of the showroom directly and had a discussion for 15 minutes and got the charges completely waived off.

Yesterday, I went to complete the booking formalities and had another bouncer awaiting. They said 2% extra charges would have to be paid for using a credit card. I had another round of discussions and got that waived off. I finally booked the motorcycle without paying any additional charges.

Waived off charges:
Registration charges: Rs. 2650
Others: Rs. 1135
Credit card charges: Rs. 1680 (2% of 84000)
Total: Rs. 5465

Back at home, I tried to find a few more things and started browsing. Bikewale.com lists the on-road prices from each showroom. I believe the website gets the on-road price from the showrooms and publishes the exact break-up. I have attached images from Bikewale from different showrooms displaying the different charges.

[tchsvy]

Originally Posted by Shumi_21

[b]

Me: I am here for a TD, and have few questions..

GATT: This is Kawasaki, you don't have any right to question here

Me: Hmmm…...

I don't have any experience with premium motorcycle brands and their dealers but I do have bought 3 two wheelers in the past and this was exactly how I was treated when I went to TD and book a Trigger from a Honda dealership, and I have seen how they behave if you are there to book an Activa, it's sad to see Kawa and their dealers stooping so low, after all this is not an Activa that you were interested in.

But as other members rightly pointed out, their sales are up and they are taking it to their head. Man, I dream about getting my hands on Versys 650 someday, downloaded and watched PowerDrift's review numerous times, hope Kawa sort their attitude issues soon.

[LOL_FWD]

Idea of most of the dealerships nowadays is simple. Outright Profit. They only care on how much they make it even though it means via unethical practices. This behavior is also aggravated because the people who pay up the entire amount demanded by them trump the number of people who actually question them on the fraudulent charges.



In the past couple of years i have visited few bike showrooms in Bangalore. It was either just to see the new bikes in flesh or most of the times to help out a couple of friends/family choose the right motorcycle for them. I've had great experience from Keerthi Triumph, VST Ducati, Suzuki Pai Sales (Mangalore) and MV Agusta Motorcycles. But dreadful dealership experiences are as below.

1. Tusker Harley Davidson, Indiranagar :
- Downright thugs.
- Fleecing the customer by charging exorbitant amounts for spare parts to servicing to being downright callous when a potential customer is looking at the new bike.
- They don't even let people touch their showroom display bikes, let alone offer a test ride. We were rejected a test ride even though we had confirmed it over the phone before reaching the showroom. No explanation given on why.
- Test rides were offered only after we got in touch with Harley Davidson India.
- I still remember when i asked about their "Handling/Registration" charges while booking the Iron 883 for a friend few years back when Harley bikes were selling like hot cakes. They said and i quote , "Sir, we will be charging these amount to you no matter what as our company policy. You either take it or leave it".

2. Bison Harley Davidson, Koramangala :
- Better folks than Tusker.
- Their good charms last only till you buy the bike from them. It's pure business after that.
- Even though they hadn't agreed to waive off the extra charges for new vehicles, they offered to compensate by giving free Harley Accessories.

3. Tusker BMW Motorrad, Lavelle Road :
- They are now following the same path set by Tusker Harley. Same thugs, different uniform.
- Staff already seem uninterested while answering queries by customers.
- Pretty sure i read in this forum about how their selling/servicing practices are with the recent BMW launches.

4. Khivraj Kawasaki, Indiranagar (Guess shut down now) :
- Test rides were only offered after you cough up the booking amount.
- They were only interested in selling the slow moving bikes. When asked about the bike which we were interested in, they wouldn't respond properly.
- No queries answered over phone. They urged us to talk to them in the showroom even though it meant driving for 2 hours in peak traffic for us to reach the showroom even to inform the price of a N650's visor.
- Horrible and delayed services. They tried to get away by just topping up the engine oil instead of changing it completely during the free service period.

RANT OVER.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by ChiragM

Thanks to Arun S for sending this information in. Heartfelt gratitude

Thanks Arun. Enjoy your Suzuki Gixxer and hope you join the forum soon. I'm really thankful you took the pain to write in, in response to my post.

And the quotation you received clearly shows how dealers are still openly collecting handling charges - some directly under the same label, whereas others try to hide it under different tabs, like Kawasaki does under registration and RTO charges.

Whats different obviously is the treatment towards the informed customer. While Suzuki dealership tried to retain the sale by waiving off those charges for you, the Kawasaki dealership mentioned in this thread almost showed the door to the customer. And that's what really gets my goat!

Once again, thanks for writing in. Appreciate it.

[quickfox11]

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

Off-topic:


Could you share the details of this in a relevant thread? Would love to hear your experience.

Done Sir.. (Yamaha R3 BS4 launched @ Rs 3.48 lakhs)Here

[dextor]

Handling charges is illegal but does everybody know? First time vehicle buyers might think it is part of sales invoice & pay without issue. While we have been discussing so much on this issue, I can suggest one thing which might be easy on this forum of TeamBHP -

Thousands of people visit TeamBHP for information on different kind of vehicles. Also google search on several topics bring us to this site. Can we have some sort of flag/small section/square on homepage to say handling charges if added to vehicle sales invoice is illegal & people should outright reject such payments thus curtailing such practices.

Just thought this can be helpful for some but I know site admins would also be under limitations.

[udainxs]

Originally Posted by greenoval

Attaching the terse reply on WhatsApp. Note that I had niether accepted/rejected the add-on charges nor did I threaten the dealer of booking cancellation. All I demanded was an explanation of the charges. I also forwarded a link of the court judgement to explain my apprehensions. Frankly, I would have still gone ahead with the purchase had Kawasaki shown some sensitivity when I wrote to them to understand their stand. However, before anything else came the decision from the dealer to cancel, making me realise that my choice to buy or not doesn't really matter. What matters is whether the dealer wants to sell the bike to you!

What offer had you requested?


They all charge this, but some dealerships are ready to negotiate, if not drop the charges completely