Team-BHP - Paid for Z800, but no bike! Kawasaki uncooperative. EDIT: Bikes delivered (page 11)

To add this, i recently heard a true episode from a anonymous source. When the owner of Kawasaki went to pick up his brand new bike from showroom, it was missing mirrors. As the narrator rightfully said, when the dealer knew the owner is there to pick up bike, everything should be ready. You dont start doing a mini CKD kit procedure when the owner is there in front of bike. Secondly, the tech staff was missing and unaware of how to fix it. It seems mirrors were given to security guy to assemble it, which he failed to. Finally, the owners friend (another premium bike owner) came over to help and he fixed the mirrors. This is absolutely BS.
I have intentionally not pointed out which dealership or whatever, but the take away from this is that, how the Indian customer is looked at. Me being a hardcore lover of brand Kawasaki, hope that customers are treated with respect and some care.

Mods: Pls feel free to del this post if inappropriate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pratap.pratu (Post 4063696)

Doesn't surprise me at all my friend. Having experienced the level of expertise of the so called service engineers at the Kawasaki dealership, I feel even a drunken monkey would be a better choice to handle the bike service and repairs.

Kawasaki never bothers to respond to emails. Not even a single response or acknowledgement! Their dealers are totally removed from reality. Right from the buying experience to the after sales service, the entire lifecycle is shoddy to say the least.

If the trend continues, brand Kawasaki will soon be in the bin, at least from the Indian context!

Hey guys,
My name is Samarth Singh, I'm new here, and I'm a moderator at another motorcycling site. That however least matters, because when it comes to motorcycles, I'm always standing with the true, rightful biker.
I'll introduce myself in detail soon in the Introduction section.

I joined Team Bhp, right after seeing this topic. I've followed the matter right from its start. I too had a belief that Kawasaki will somehow solve the matter, and that's what I await, let's see how it will go finally...

Let me tell you, even on applying for a tractor dealership, I was once asked a cool Rs. 1 crore as a long term interest payable deposit. I was thinking a lot on whether Bajaj keeps dealer deposits... But then I stumbled upon the link below:-

Here is Bajaj's Dealer policy:- http://www.bajajauto.com/dealerLocaterFaq.asp

The important points in the above link are:-

"Bajaj Auto does not take any deposit from the dealer."
"Bajaj Auto will send the vehicle only on advance payment. Credit is not given by the company."
"Bank guarantee is required from any Nationalized bank as per company's guidelines."

Now, that is about Bajaj, and its not yet clear if the same holds for Kawasaki, but I don't think its different.

I hope Kawasaki recovers the money from the guaranter bank, if at all there is one, or somehow gets owners their bikes...

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even on applying for a tractor dealership, I was once asked a cool Rs. 1 crore as a long term interest payable deposit. I was thinking a lot on whether Bajaj keeps dealer deposits

I believe this depends on the Principal company, most Japanese companies will ship vehicles only on receipt of full payment or bank L/C for agreed days which is less than 30. Whereas most German companies will work on credit which can vary from 30 days to higher depending on model / demand. Many times high-end cars are given to Dealer on some Form for display/ sales. These are billed only if the car gets sold and are taken back from the dealer if there is demand elsewhere. Taking deposit from any dealership is not very effective / preferred way as Dealers have to invest in the showroom, interiors, marketing expenses and manpower besides stock for display/ in-transit. That's the reasons companies do a lot of checks before appointing dealers and dealerships are given mostly to financially sound persons. Though not so familiar or low volume brands in India may have to make compromises while choosing dealers, but globally known brands should do better in managing their dealers. Maybe they can monitor their order book and ask direct payments beyond a certain value especially in cases where complete advance is asked. I recollect something similar happened with Delhi Porsche dealers before Porsche India was operational.

But I am not sure how Banks have dispersed loans without actual deliveries? And how will they recover their loans with no hypothecated bikes available as collateral? If someone does not worry much about CIBIL, what options will bank have for recoveries, should they also not get involved and try to work with Police instead of courts?

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Originally Posted by narula123 (Post 4073096)

Heard this new development from a couple of other forums that IKM has finally decided to deliver the bikes to all the pained customers via their other dealer Khivraj.

If this is true then hats off to the late but correct action from IKM. Finally someone in that company displayed logic and sense rather than doing a PR exercise.

Can someone confirm on this?

I heard the same news Narula , but am not sure how genuine the news is. If this was indeed genuine, Kawasaki would have put up the same in their website to get a more positive response after all the negative feedback they have received.

Will have to wait for one of the owners to update us.

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Originally Posted by Turbanator (Post 4073121)

Yes, that's true. But if companies were to inquire into each dealer's personal and financial life, they will have a lot of work on their hands, plus they can still be deceived, or even dealer's good time can change into a bad one. Another big factor is that a sound financial position is no guarantee of ethics and moral values. Who knows when a man turns dishonest?

An interest payable deposit still remains a legal yet safe way for company to proceed. After all, a sound dealer will anyways do same/similar thing with the money, right?
Had Kawasaki kept a cool 8 digit figure lying around, the dealer wouldn't have even tried anything fishy.

The Banks part is confusing to me too. No idea what to say about them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samarth 619 (Post 4073372)

The Banks part is confusing to me too. No idea what to say about them.

Usually the procedure for a bank to disburse a loan if there is a tie up directly with the dealer is, after the approval letter is received from the financier, the dealer has to invoice the vehicle and insure it and send the copies of both to the financier and then only the disbursement will be made to the dealer. Without this, how the bank disbursed the amount is beyond me. PSU banks disburse the loan without such formalities with just a quotation. But in this case, being private financiers, I doubt what could have happened.

A Birdie told me ::

Looks like that the issue would be resolved sooner than expected. Kawasaki has decided to take the hit in tune of 1.5Cr and distribute the bikes to all those affected. So All well that ends well.

It should be noted that even though Kawaski intially bungled up by remaining incommunicado, they have decided to act. They are planning to issue the bikes this week itself. Now let's wait and get the confirmation from affected parties.

BTW the actual behind scenes is totally different and my sympathies would be with Kawasaki who had to deal with fraud dealer.