[2000rpm]

I was recently wondering about getting a new bike for city / suburban commute in Mumbai and I was shocked to see the state of affairs at most bike showrooms in Mumbai.

In general I experienced the below
- No quality staff to attend to customers
- No test drives available for most models. People give you funny looks if you tell them you want a test drive for a common bike like FZ-S
- Dealers pushing mandatory useless accessories for about 5K.

My ranking from best experiences to worst experiences is as below
Rank 1 - Royal Enfield (Got TDs for all bikes)
Rank 2 - Suzuki (even got the TD for VSTROM)
Rank 3 - Hero
Rank 4 - Honda
Rank 5 - Yamaha

Special Mention to Yamaha (Surya Motors Kalyan) for the such a poor experience that I literally witnessed people walking out of the showroom shaking their heads.

Have 2-wheelers become commodities? What am I missing?

[raycers_honda]

I can just imagine the state mentioned. I have seen I drop in the service of Honda scooter and bike service centre’s too. Absolutely horrible attitude from the staff right up to the main managers. It’s as if they are there to do a favour for us. On many occasions I’ve given my scooter for repair and have it returned with a screw missing or the foot mat not fitted properly or even simple things like the washing of the bike. They just don’t bother. Forget showrooms, they know for a fact the product will get sold , if not from you, then a million others. Hence they don’t give a damn.

[Sebring]

Bangalore is better of in this regard. Test rides are quickly arranged. Exception being Kawasaki who neither have bikes for TD nor the sales guys have any interest.

[rajeevsulu]

I live in a tier 2 town. Here response from the showroom guys are much better than in the cities. It is horrible in Bengaluru compared to Erode, the town where I stay.

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

I was recently wondering about getting a new bike for city / suburban commute in Mumbai and I was shocked to see the state of affairs at most bike showrooms in Mumbai.

In general I experienced the below
- No quality staff to attend to customers
- No test drives available for most models. People give you funny looks if you tell them you want a test drive for a common bike like FZ-S
- Dealers pushing mandatory useless accessories for about 5K.

My ranking from best experiences to worst experiences is as below
Rank 1 - Royal Enfield (Got TDs for all bikes)
Rank 2 - Suzuki (even got the TD for VSTROM)
Rank 3 - Hero
Rank 4 - Honda
Rank 5 - Yamaha

Special Mention to Yamaha (Surya Motors Kalyan) for the such a poor experience that I literally witnessed people walking out of the showroom shaking their heads.

Have 2-wheelers become commodities? What am I missing?

The suburban area that you are referring to suffers from this attitude where two-wheelers are simply commodity and hence the owner treats it as a business. TDs are seen as unnecessary expense. Many don't even keep a TD unit at all.

However, I have had a mixed (good to ok) experience with different brands in Thane area for TDs.

1) Yamaha 1 - Owner was sitting next to sales manager and when I reached showroom for TD of FZ25 (newly launched then), the owner whispered to sales manager - "I don't understand what do the get in TD. What benefit does it have?". Sales guy still gave me a TD for 200 meters only.

2) Benelli (when they were operating) - TD easily available but for only 200-300 meters with staff as pillion.

3) Yamaha 2 - "No TD. We don't give TD. You can book and then do all TDs that you want."

4) Honda BigWings - All bikes ready for TD on your own for whatever time you want.

5) Suzuki - Same as Honda BigWings.

6) Kawasaki - All bikes ready for TD but with staff as pillion.

7) Triumph - Any bike, any place, any duration. They were even ready to bring the bike to my place any time. I never opted for on in the end as I had a change in priorities so actual TD never happened.


Now the real pain point: After Sale Service. Honda has simply gone down the gutter. It was good (not great due to volumes and AMC push every time) but now it is downright pathetic and waste of time. I recently gave them my activa for service with a genuine problem to solve. They attributed it to low battery charge and did only normal service. Not even spark plugs were changed which I actually had asked them to do so. One week later I took the scooter to a local mechanic and hen solved the problem in the gearbox for Rs 100 in one shot. He knew the resolution from my first description.

Bajaj ASS was similar. They do regular work and for actual issues, you are better off with a local garage who will attend to you properly. I had to take my bike to Bajaj twice after full service for a problem that they solved later in third visit.

So yes, two wheelers are pure commodity now (more so the lower displacements - anything lower than 200cc). Simply because the dealership and service center owners look at it as business only. They don't care about your hard earned money or emotions.

[AulusGabinius]

Agreed. So far Yamaha and TVS have been one of the worst, Honda a close second, and RE the best. Yamaha guy never gave us accessories worth 5k that we paid for, citing showroom location changes. Honda service is awful, but let's give them some consideration for amount of bikes they service, it's overloaded anyway. TVS registered my first free service as the second, so now no free service for a year. Change of oil filter cost me 350. Utterly useless. RE never gave a fuss. Honda was so annoying though that it got replaced by a Suzuki.

[JithinR]

Originally Posted by AulusGabinius

Agreed. So far Yamaha and TVS have been one of the worst, Honda a close second, and RE the best. Yamaha guy never gave us accessories worth 5k that we paid for, citing showroom location changes. Honda service is awful, but let's give them some consideration for amount of bikes they service, it's overloaded anyway. TVS registered my first free service as the second, so now no free service for a year. Change of oil filter cost me 350. Utterly useless. RE never gave a fuss. Honda was so annoying though that it got replaced by a Suzuki.

For TVS, if you haven't already done it then go ahead and raise a complaint. When TVS is directly involved the service centers (at least in Bengaluru) fall in line very quickly.

P.S. Hope you did adhere to the max ownership day/kms limit for these services.

[am1m]

Can't understand how anyone can buy, or be expected to buy any vehicle without a proper test drive/ride. The sad fact is though, a lot of people do. They probably borrow the bike from friends, which is good when you need an extended time to decide. But for a brand/showroom to make it a standard practice to deny test rides, not have a dedicated TD vehicle, provide ridiculously short rides, or rides only with the staff as pillion is pretty sad. Granted there will be a percentage of idiots coming off the street who will have no intention of buying and just want to gun the TD vehicle, unavoidable. But does it make business sense to deny or put off the larger percentage of possible buyers with such stupid policies?

[AulusGabinius]

Originally Posted by JithinR

For TVS, if you haven't already done it then go ahead and raise a complaint. When TVS is directly involved the service centers (at least in Bengaluru) fall in line very quickly.

P.S. Hope you did adhere to the max ownership day/kms limit for these services.

I'll do that, thanks very much! Kind of divided on the bike overall though. I'll be posting a 5000 km review soon. And yes, I did, services were on time and within the km limits.

[Yieldway17]

It's exactly that, most two wheelers less than 1.5 lakhs or about have become commodities for the manufacturers and the dealers,and they simply don't care. I tried calling couple of dealers last Friday to check if they will be open on Christmas day and the people picked up the phone didn't even have any courtesy to answer a phone properly let alone try to get contact details of a prospective lead. One lady literally said, "I don't know" to the question and hung up.

I find two wheeler buying more exhausting than the cars and hence last time when I bought my scooter, I bought it unseen, no TDs, no PDI, no visit to the dealer to collect the scooter. The SA from the dealer delivered the scooter to my colleague's home one evening and I just picked it up on the way to work next morning.

[anjan_c2007]

Seems that we are returning to the Vespa/Bajaj and Lambretta/Lamby days. No buyer had then known of any such term called 'test ride.' But they all had lots of job security, as waiting lists spanned 10-15 years. But all the makes and models listed in the OP are available off the shelf. Hence the reasons for their laid back attitudes are beyond one understanding.

It's sad and pathetic to know that these two wheeler dealers have become so hide bound.

[WhiskeyTangoFox]

Quite sad honestly. If anyone is purchasing an RE in BLR, do not go to the following showrooms:

1. RE Koramangala Motors (Dairy Circle)
2. RE Electronic City Motors (Kudlu Gate/Singasandra)
3. RE Electronic City Motors (Bommasandra)
4. RE Bommasandra Motors

The First Showroom (RE Koramangala Motors) is where my friend purchased his Himmy from wherein they delayed the delivery of the bike which led him to escalate the matter to higher ups at RE, post which they delayed the registration and procurement of the number plate. Almost 30 days post delivery to register it and another 20 days over that for procuring the plate. All this after a 4 month wait time for the bike.

I took delivery of my bike from the Electronic City Motors at Kudlu Gate/Singasandra and my oh my what a crapshow. They didn't delay the delivery of the bike, in fact I got it earlier than promised, but their attitude was absolutely trash. No one cares when a customer walks in, you could sit there for half an hour and no one would bother. In addition, on the day of the delivery, they asked us to come at 5:30pm, and we were there onthe dot. They made us wait till 6:30pm and brought out the wrong bike (cross verified the VIN) with all my accesories fitted. They took it back, removed and refitted the accesories onto my bike, cleaned it and finally delivered it at 7:30pm.

Another horror story that happened there was with regard to them delivering the wrong bike, a friend of mine riding it for 500kms without realising it and then them calling him back informing him of the same, and swapping the odometer as if nothing happened.

A third and more recent incident from this showroom is when a friend of mine purchased his GT 650 and they took the cash from him for his personalised number, didn't deliver the bike for almost a month after the promised time, then didn't apply for registration for another month after that. They later informed him that the number that he wanted wasn't available after paying the cash in full. They still haven't procured his actual number plate. My friend just had one made that resembles an HSRP from a local shop using the RC that he got on digilocker. Speaking of RC, they haven't given me my physical RC copy yet and I have to go to the RTO to collect it.

Their service station is also sub par. Avoid this showroom at all costs.

I haven't been to the Bommasandra Motors showrooms personally, but a couple of my friends who bought their bikes from there told me about the absolutely crappy customer service they offer, similar to that of the Koramangala Motors Showroom.

The only showroom and service centre worth going to IMO is the Company Store (atleast towards south BLR). They do a pretty good job for the most part. Not sure about the showrooms and SVCs near HSR and Lalbagh, maybe the other members who have had better experiences can update the same here.

[the.dogfather]

I have had a similar experience, while buying two wheelers, more so when it comes to scooters in Bangalore.
When we were looking to buy a scooter in 2016, my wife wanted to blindly buy the TVS Scooty Zest as she used to have a Scooty Streak earlier and it was light weight. In order to convince her that weight is not that much of an issue when it comes to scooters, I asked her to try the other options available.
In most showrooms, they would directly show you the price list and models and not even offer a test ride. Only exception here was Vespa, who offered a test ride first, maybe as they knew the pricing was on the higher side, and a test ride would be needed to justify the price.
On asking, Honda, TVS, Suzuki and Mahindra 2 wheeler's showroom guys did not waste much time arranging the test drives. In fact, all had a different section for test drives, and helped us test driving all models(Honda and TVS have a lot of options). Mahindra Gusto experience was the best in that regards, where the salesman encouraged us for a longer test ride and also helped us with the seat height adjustment option, asking me to try with a higher seat height, to highlight the feature.
The worst experience had been with Yamaha, which even though nearest to my house, failed to provide a test ride after 3 visits, each time claiming that test ride vehicle has gone for display at mall or at a corporate event. However, all these test rides were rather short, hardly a few hundred meters, with Mahindra being an exception, who encouraged us to take it longer.

I am glad that Honda has Big wing dealerships now, as in 2015, when I was looking for test drives for Honda CBR 250 ABS, it was not available in most showrooms. After visiting many Honda dealerships, finally the one told that he has the bike available, and when we went there, they only had the CBR 150. The sales man said you can test ride the 150, 250 is the same just more power and less mileage. He also told me spending more for ABS is a waste of money, and I can save some money with the non ABS version which they have in their warehouse stock.
When I insisted on a test ride of the 250, they asked me to come after 2 days in the afternoon, for test drive, as evening the bike will be delivered to customers. They were planning to give me a customer's brand new bike for test ride, even before the customer could ride it. That was the final nail in the coffin, and I am yet to ever ride a CBR 250 .
The experience at KTM showroom at BTM also was quite bad, where they were allowing test rides in a service road adjacent to the showroom, which lead to a dead end in 300-400mts. RE and Benelli were quite good and we could easily get test rides for the bikes we were interested in. I finally ended up renting the bikes I was interested in for a day before finalizing.

This is in stark contrast with the experience in car showrooms, where test drives are the norm, and the price and discussions start after that.

[WhiskeyTangoFox]

Originally Posted by the.dogfather

This is in stark contrast with the experience in car showrooms, where test drives are the norm, and the price and discussions start after that.

Absolutely agree. All the cars that we have owned so far, starting from Maruti Suzuki, then Hyundai, Renault and now MG have shown exemplary service from start to end. I still remember the time when we went to purchase our Verna back in 2013 when I was a wee little boy. The sales lady, Ms. Roopa was so enthusiastic and helped hus make our purchase decision easily. The salesperson for Renault, Mr Rahul was also pretty good. More recently in 2021, when we bought the ZS EV, the salesperson Mr. Saran went above and beyond to help us get over the initial fear of getting an EV. We had a test drive at the showroom, followed by which they even brought the car home for another test drive and also to check if the car would fit in our parking spot. Saran himself came and checked if it would fit and encouraged my mother to take a test drive as well. We took a month to finalize our decision and they were very patient with us. We didn't have to set foot in the showroom for anything after the first visit. All the paperwork was brought home, including bank documents and the lot. We just had to go to the showroom for the final delivery.

Two wheeler dealerships have a lot to learn for sure.

[Ritkon]

Couldn't agree more with all the comments above. Even the ranking is spot on, though my experience with Hero has been better.

One more point I would like to make is that, most of the showrooms don't have a dedicated test ride bike. They (atleast Honda and Yamaha) allow test rides for 100 to 200m on bikes that are already booked and are really low on fuel. What damage this causes to the fuel pumps, since nearly all bikes nowadays are fuel injected; only time will tell.

The dealerships act, as if they are here to sell bikes and are giving you a favour by allowing a short ride. They expect buyers to walk into the showroom, give them their hard earned money and walk out.

This attitude needs to change and any dealer not allowing a proper test ride on a dedicated bike should be penalized heavily by the manufacturers and shunned by customers.