[moralfibre]

Originally Posted by VellVector

Khivraj is on it's way out of Kawasaki, they are only running the service center till the new dealer gets their setup up and running. They have always been a reasonably lame service center. And now that they are on their way out, they really don't care too much. Same thing applies to the people working there.

Since this thread talks about Kawasaki's poor service, I'll chime in with a friend's experience. He has a ZX-14R that he took for service to Khivraj. They drained the coolant into a horribly dirty pan. Upon completion of service, instead of adding fresh fluid into the coolant reservoir, they tried to push the same used coolant. The pan was quite contaminated with residual oil, etc that was just given a wipe with a dirty cloth.

The most surprising bit is that they did this while the owner was inspecting the bike getting serviced. The culture of cleanliness at workshops hasn't trickled down at premium bike service centers either. Let alone handling your priced possession with good care.

[VellVector]

Originally Posted by moralfibre

I'll chime in with a friend's experience. He has a ZX-14R that he took for service to Khivraj. They drained the coolant into a horribly dirty pan. Upon completion of service, instead of adding fresh fluid into the coolant reservoir, they tried to push the same used coolant. The pan was quite contaminated with residual oil, etc that was just given a wipe with a dirty cloth.

Your friend was lucky, at least they refilled something. A friend of mine took his ZX-10R to them. They drained both the brake fluid tanks and forgot to refill them. He realized it the next day on his way to the highway.

[bikerzindia]

Latest news is that the springs that hold the clutch assembly weren't changed and as usual the Kawasaki guy is pushing the onus on KTM guys saying that we had nothing to do with it. Now this IKM person wants me to give it another try. Earlier Bhanu had told me that changing the damaged clutch plate wud solve the problem and now this IKM guy says that changing springs will surely solve the problem. I don't know if they are technically sound guys or Quacks!!

[mobike008]

Though this is no excuse for shabby service or customer experience but, thats the fact of life in India

I have no sympathy for owners who just hand over the bike and expect it to be ready in evening.

It needs a bit of involvement from owners as well and spend those couple of hours with service folks to ensure simple things dont go wrong ( nuts arent tightened properly, fairings aren't installed correctly and a whole bunch of other things that can go wrong)

[bikerzindia]

Well sorry but holding a verneer and checking the springs is not some knowledge the owners will be knowing. I do not want to be rude but how on Earth should we get a dream that the spring has lost its capacity if that is the real case? We in our group have guys who have done 25k,30k, 40k kms and their clutch assembly springs are fine but mine lose their capacity at 15K kms and they say it's normal. How about pushing the responsibility on KTM and saying that now we shall surely solve your problems since we are Kawasaki and not Bajaj/KTM. And still this is considered acceptable. If this is the case with so called superbikes and their services and spares availability then I guess my next bike will be a RE cos it is anyways notoriously famous/popular for breakdowns. Atleast with the extra amount I can surely do a world ride and any damn mechanic can fix it whenever it develops an issue. And yeah not to mention the availability of the parts. I can have panniers filled with spares while touring.

[moralfibre]

Originally Posted by VellVector

Your friend was lucky, at least they refilled something. A friend of mine took his ZX-10R to them. They drained both the brake fluid tanks and forgot to refill them. He realized it the next day on his way to the highway.

WHAT! This is beyond pardonable. How did your friend not realize this while riding back home?

Originally Posted by mobike008

Though this is no excuse for shabby service or customer experience but, thats the fact of life in India

I have no sympathy for owners who just hand over the bike and expect it to be ready in evening.

It needs a bit of involvement from owners as well and spend those couple of hours with service folks to ensure simple things dont go wrong ( nuts arent tightened properly, fairings aren't installed correctly and a whole bunch of other things that can go wrong)

I beg to differ. By that logic, every luxury car owner should hang around service stations overseeing every single piece of work being carried out on their priced possessions.

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by mobike008

It needs a bit of involvement from owners as well and spend those couple of hours with service folks to ensure simple things dont go wrong ( nuts arent tightened properly, fairings aren't installed correctly and a whole bunch of other things that can go wrong)

Originally Posted by moralfibre

I beg to differ. By that logic, every luxury car owner should hang around service stations overseeing every single piece of work being carried out on their priced possessions.

When you are paying a premium for service, won't you expect same service experience back? And forget all this, how many of such requests a service center can realistically honor? I know most workshops have grated window with sign "authorized personal" only. Not practical for a common man.

Though i love to stand by and watch, its quiet impractical if i have to spend the whole day at service. Can afford max couple of hours, and major service takes much more than that for most bikes. Starting with cooling down period before poking hands inside.

[Vid6639]

Originally Posted by Jaggu

When you are paying a premium for service, won't you expect same service experience back? And forget all this, how many of such requests a service center can realistically honor? I know most workshops have grated window with sign "authorized personal" only. Not practical for a common man.

Though i love to stand by and watch, its quiet impractical if i have to spend the whole day at service. Can afford max couple of hours, and major service takes much more than that for most bikes. Starting with cooling down period before poking hands inside.

+1 I remember the discussion with GTO once on the same. Any service provider should do his work as expected when he is getting paid for it. Why should we spend our time sitting at the service centre and supervising when we are paying someone else to do the work. Bare minimum requirement.

Which is why GTO mentioned that he doesn't even drop his BMW 530D for service but has it picked up or dropped by someone else and just coordinates over the phone.

So If I buy a premium car/bike does it mean I need to be involved and oversee the service to ensure they take care of my vehicle? This should not be the case at all and if it is then that service facility plain sucks.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by moralfibre

I beg to differ. By that logic, every luxury car owner should hang around service stations overseeing every single piece of work being carried out on their priced possessions.

You may differ in your opinion but, that is the harsh reality faced by every superbike/import owner in India

We go through a plethora of problems like :

Lack of technical knowledge to fix the bike
Spares availability
Human errors like incorrect fixing of fairing, nuts bolted improperly, oil change done incorrectly or even forgetting to change it so and so forth.....

We all spent lakhs of rupees on the motorcycle and most certainly expect a premium experience but, that is NOT there in India for now

So to make sure that our motorcycle is not messed up by these nincompoops it becomes important that you spent those few hours to get your bike serviced.

As there is not much volume in superbike sales you can easily spend the time with your technician and also get to understand the fixes he is making to the bike.

Till we get to global standards of customer service that is how things will continue to be in India

[dkaile]

I for one differ with the some of the above view points. We have got nearly all the major foreign brands in India. But do we have the same work ethics as say a Jap? Nowhere near, is my observation. I have tried quite a few major ones at that. Harley Davidson, Triumph, Ducati, Honda, Skoda and even at Toyota. I have seen that my Fortuner, which I personally supervise, is cared at a different level than say another one just standing there with the owner/driver coming at his own sweet whims. Then there is also the competence levels of these dealership mechanics, most of whom are picked up from local garages. They just lack the technical skill set of say a engineering background service technician that we find compulsorily in the West and Japan.

In fact I was so hassled by having to take my Harley 100 kms to get serviced that I developed my own skill sets and now service my Heritage Softail myself. Though I don't expect that from 99% of Teambhpians, but in the least, if you really love your steeds, you should at least give them 2 or 3 days of your undivided attention in a year that they require (I usually do one proper service per vehicle per year). Otherwise keep cribbing on such forums as to the lack of competency.

Cheers...

[Jaggu]

And i remember arguing with GTO on the other side, if i remember correct i was only pointing at the fact that one should be able to question back blind push backs from dealers. His point was why should one be bothered after paying big bucks.

Anyways i think we are digressing too much here, a clutch basket pressure spring becoming weak in such a short time is a clear part failure. It cant be even attributed to bad running in. I really can't understand why a reputed bike manufacturer would want to drag this painful and bad PR for so long. Just take the couple of hundred bucks bill under warranty and get a happy spokesperson is what they should be aiming for.

[bikerzindia]

They are ready to do everything under warranty but my problem here is should they do trial and error experiments and fixes putting my life on the line? And if yes then how many more times? It's already been three times with an accident once. 2 times I avoided accidents by getting the shit opened just in time. They may fix it 100 times free of cost but should I be risking riding on that ticking bomb?

[nkrishnap]

Originally Posted by mobike008

I have no sympathy for owners who just hand over the bike and expect it to be ready in evening.

It needs a bit of involvement from owners as well and spend those couple of hours with service folks to ensure simple things dont go wrong ( nuts arent tightened properly, fairings aren't installed correctly and a whole bunch of other things that can go wrong)

+1 to the point that sufficient time needs to given to work on a vehicle to fix any issue or even for the regular servicing.

But, why should a customer be involved and spend a couple of hours to get the nuts tightened correctly, isn't it a responsibility of the technician who works on the vehicle to fix it properly? Is that an unrealistic expectation or is it different for Kawasaki vehicles? I have had this experience with technicians for both bike and car doing lousy work and giving excuses. Whether the customer stays with the vehicle or not, the basics need to be done correctly no matter what.

For example, latest with my car was, not tightening the clamp on the turbo hose when I got it changed a few weeks back which is completely unacceptable and mind you the technician had a good 5 hours to fix a damn turbo hose which is a 30 mins job even for a new comer. This does not mean, since its Fiat and I own a Fiat car I need to live with such an experience

Building rapport and spending is time with the technicians is good but not everyone would be inclined that way. When some work is done on my car, I stay beside it no matter what and get the work done. But hey, I may be odd one out there, not everyone will be inclined to be that way.

In this case, Kawasaki folks/service centers and Kawasaki itself, they need the brick bats for the shoddy handling of this issue. Even if the issue was due to the owner at the first place, does not mean it needs to be handled in a shabby way.

[moralfibre]

Originally Posted by mobike008

We go through a plethora of problems like :

Lack of technical knowledge to fix the bike
Spares availability
Human errors like incorrect fixing of fairing, nuts bolted improperly, oil change done incorrectly or even forgetting to change it so and so forth.....

Ofcourse, this is harsh reality. I was purely talking about expectations for *premium* service. BMW Motorrad is closest to the best and that is extra-premium.

We all spent lakhs of rupees on the motorcycle and most certainly expect a premium experience but, that is NOT there in India for now

So to make sure that our motorcycle is not messed up by these nincompoops it becomes important that you spent those few hours to get your bike serviced.

Having been an ardent follower of stand-by-your-car-during-service, I can assure you that despite your presence, things can surely go south. I have documented various such issues elsewhere on the forum.

What we've adopted is a slightly different approach for our bikes. First we identified a very highly skilled technician from the workshop. Then we developed a close bond with the guy. Often appreciated his work and gave him credit where it was due. Then slowly we figured out that he was competent and well equipped to do a doorstep service. These bikes don't warrant much during minor services anyway. Net-net, our bikes are services in our apartment parking lot and under supervision. We get all the parts and consumables. He charges labour. Last time around, he gave us a chain cleaner and lube for free. Nice guy that is!

[raj.barcode]

Originally Posted by VellVector

Interesting. I was given to understand that he was being shown the door. He's been good with my bike, so personally I don't have any issue. Have heard a lot of grumbling about him from other owners though.

Bhanu has been very good with my Z800 as well.. no issues what so ever. He has been quite helpful in most cases. Like all service managers he is reluctant on warranty front but has decent knowledge w.r.t Kawasaki bikes are concerned.

Concerning Bikerzindia's versys 650 clutch problems, hopefully they will replace whats needed and also ask them run about 2 to 3k kms on a dyno/ road test to check if the problem persists on your bike because there are lots and lots of versys 650 owners who have done 20k+ kms without issue. An one off case is where diagnosis is becoming very difficult.