Servicing
 

Hi,

I need to get a 2 year service done on the bike (i.e cambelts etc) and am presently shopping around companies to get the best price. So far Moto Rapido in winchester have come in at £400 inc vat but ducati sounth london at £650. Why a such a big price difference? surely they are doing the same job, has anyone used moto rapido in the past. All help apprecieted as usual...

Hi Sylvester
I work by Ducati london South and they quoted me silly money to servicemy 916. I had mine done at Snells in Alton and I thought they did a good job and at a lower cost. They cant be far from you, do you not rate them?
Ian

You might want to bear in mind that Motorapido are, AFAIK, not Ducati approved which may be relevant as your bike is still under warranty....

Having become very cynical over this subject i would suggest getting the quote in writing.
I made a point of phoning around when i recently needed a 6K service. I checked that my chosen dealers price of £450 included VAT and usual consumables. Which they stated it did.
Bill came to £697. I will never go back to them

Depends if you are really bothered about the warranty or bothered about the bike...
I do eventually want to sell mine on and get summat bigger and better but...I want someone to love my bike as much as I do...
Nelly at Cornerspeed has serviced..added new bits and bobs and added me a crackin alarm for peanuts...(Well compared to italia Moto/coventry blah blah blah)
Ask anyone on here who's been to him...he treats the bike as if it is his own AND if you aren't happy then he'll take it back and sort it out...Service is great.
When I sell mine on I shall say stuff the warranty...Take it to this guy. You cant go wrong AND he knows the bike.
:D

AND the verbal quote is what you always pay...no sting:D

[Edited on 9-3-2004 by kwikbitch]

This has been my experince too, verbal quote, often as little as 50% of the final price. Ouch, especially as these people are supposed to be doing these jobs all day, every day. I could never get away with it with my customers.
Rgds,

Rob

Louigi Moto..major service, check alternator nut, smaller front sprocket, set up suspension, collected and delivered..£430. Top man.

Nat

I just had a 6000 ml service on my 996 at Snells £491.00
Don't tell the wife !!!!
Mark
:(:(

The problem with getting quotes for sevicing is what happens if they find something wrong when they start work? The classic problem are the rockers. A "basic" 6000 mile service at £400 odd can soon turn into £600 if you need three or four rockers at £75.00 each.
Or would you rather they didnt even look at the rockers and let you carry on riding it untill a cam shaft was damaged at god knows how many £'s!!

aaaah rockers ... mmmmm, lovely things, I have seven here ... I'm thinking of making a necklace of the expensive pieces of junk ....

£75 .. you'll be lucky .. plus the VAT, plus all the additional labour they add on .....

Still, according to Nelly all eight of mine are of the newer variety now, so hopefully job done ....

If this is the last service you need before the warranty expires then make sure you DO take it to a DUK Dealer, then they can go through it with a fine tooth comb and get all the bits under warranty, take it to an independent and you dont have a hope in hell ....

Sermon over.

True Dibble, i think they have gone up a bit since Nelly did my bike although i couldnt afford the newer style rockers so i went for the old ones. Sure they were around that figure though. Luck me, i only needed three. They are sitting on top of my TV at home!!

I agree with the comments made that problems discovered can increase the final bill,no arguments when that happens. In my case nothing needed doing other than what was expected and therefore quoted for within the 6k service.
£697 is shamefully far away from £450.
be wary.

I think i would be seriously fed up if that happened to me. Have you taken it up with them or even trading standards?

Not enough, i did pay the bill.
However i will never use them again. Neither will my sister who bought a monster from them on the same day i did.(and hers is a free first service!!!!) or her boyfriend who has a 998s.
They are 3 customers down, and anyone else on here who might be wary of using them.

Who was your chosen dealer Keith? I think we'd all like to know!

moto rapido - use them for servicing, cant complain at all, price given was price paid, always keen to help and answer questions (no matter how stupid!). Only downside is it can take a week, ok if like me its not your only transport. I'd be surprised if you weren't happy with thier sercive:D

When discussing dealers performance, please use emails and/or U2U messages as well as the 'Dealer Ratings' system under the 'Membership' button.

As it is unlikely that dealers have the time to visit the website and review what is said about them, there is the potential of only seeing one side of the argument. I don't know the details of Keith's situation, right now I don't need to know them and if I did I would send him a U2U - I trust others will do the same !

Hi Michaelj
This was a thread that i ranted on about just a few weeks ago. The dealer in question is Pro-twins.
They do good work, i just won't put up with this way of them earning a living.

If it is still of any use, had a 6k service at Bridge motorcycles,soton at a cost of £128.00 inc vat.
That was for a 748e,far cheaper than my local dealer. I thought they had under-charged me at first !!

They are not official Ducati dealers for that money are they?
What exactly did they itemise on your invoice, Not belts replaced or shims set.
Alternator rotor nut check etc etc.
Don't want to worry you

Way too cheap that is!! Be interested to see what they actually did beyond changing filters, plugs and oil.

All I had done was a routine 6000 mile service. As per the service book. I bought the bike through them new,not sure if there was a discount involved,nothing on the invoice to suggest there was.The branch at Andover are a official Ducati dealer,bike sales etc.The chaps at southampton had the tools to do a 6k service but they cannot perform a major(12k) service.Don't ask why I am not all the clued up on the technical stuff!This was last year,2003.
Anyway,I now have a 748s and It will soon be coming upto a service so I will post a quote here for a 12k service.

I just find it a bit odd that most dealers will charge £350 to £450 for the 6000 mile service. How did they manage to do it for so much less? If they have done it by the book then you are laughing!

I think one of the reasons was that their labour charges are not really that high( compared to say..3x ).They sell dukes,so if they are also going to service them they are going to have to do them by the book.
I never had any problems afterwards with the bike.It ran perfectly.Dean,from the Andover branch is ringing me soon with a quote for a 12k service.I will post it here for comparison.

When you get the quote, ask them to detail exactly what gets done. I still find it very difficult to see how they can do all that is expected for the figure you quoted.
A difference in labour charges is NEVER going to account for the difference between your invoice and £450 average elsewhere.

Labour makes up the biggest proportion of a servicing bill as long as no extra parts are needed.

A Ducati service that includes a belt change accounts for 8-10 hours labour in total if my memory serves me correctly. A Jap IL4 generally takes half the labour time to service.

Some time ago I bought a parallel and had it serviced by the dealer that supplied it. I did wonder what they had actually done when I got the bill, it was a lot less than the big bills that I had heard about. It didn't break down or suffer from some terrible mechanical disaster so looking back there wasn't a problem.

I have used franchised dealers more recently, yep they do cost more but some many other factors come into the equation, eg distance to travel, is the bike covered by warranty, previous experience etc, etc.

You makes yer choice and pays yer money.

Ray

Spoke to the guy at Bridge motorcycles,Andover today.He quoted me a price of £400-450 for a major 12k service.That includes belts,oils, labour,VAT,the lot.The other garage which is local to me quoted a price of £750.00.Both doing excatly the same service.Both of them did say that it is possible that the price may go up slightly,due to any unforeseen items that are needed.
But there is still a major difference between the prices!