I went my dealer at lunch to get some rear end oil for my 360. I asked the parts guy how much I needed, He did not know so he called the mechanic to ask him. The mechanic had no clue so he got out the repair manual. After five minutes of looking real confused at it he said “I can’t tell you how much”.

As I was standing there, I thought this is the guy Kawasaki wants to work on my machine.

 

Amazing ain't it? I see their training certificates from Kawi (up to date) or I take my marbles and leave.

Haven't had to do that lately as I found an honest and competent dealer. Just about have to go to a smaller town to find that. Same with car dealers.

 

I listened to a salesman tell a customer that the Yamaha ATVs were more reliable than the kawasaki ones. Now that is a joke.

 

I bought the K&N Air Filter for my 04 P700. I asked the service guy if he was sure it was the right one and he said he swears it is. Got home, tried it and it would not fit. Went to the K&N site, looked up the number and here it was the filter for the 02 P650. I had to tell him what the part number was.

 

I had a dealer try to convince me the 360 was liquid cooled... the dealer even ran a radio ad saying it was liquid cooled... now I look back and I guess some dealers must think oil is a liquid and it has a oil cooler so maybe he was right LOL. I also took a part owner of a local ATV shop on a run, never left a dirt road where you couldn't take a truck and he thought it was too rough for an atv. My dealer now is right into bikin more motorcross than ATVing but he drives everything he sells. They are very good too because he doesn't try to BS me like others try to do because my experience with atv is so high. I also had a past dealer try to tell me my 650 needed a power clean up which included decarbing my engine etc, and Kawi Canada tried the same BS on me and it turns out you couldn't even do half of what they wanted to. Typically dealers know more therory than what is required and don't have the experience of the machine. A Polaris dealer also tried to convince me polaris is build 100% better than any other machine and absolutely everyone is selling their bikes for Polaris. LOL I just went home to make sure it didn't say "I'm a sucker" on my forehead or something!

 

Some dealers and sales staff specialize in one thing more than others sometimes. One dealer may know is atv stuff, another may know street bikes and so on.

 

Stan I had the Parts manager also try to tell me TwinAir discontinued the P650 air filter and took it off the market, came on here found out otherwise went else where had it 2 days and installed it and went back to the dealer and he confessed that he had an other brand that he wanted to sell me over the one I wanted and came up with that explanition. It's nice I don't have to deal with than anymore.

 

Forget about knowing their product. How about knowing their customers.

I was standing at the back entrance to the service department with my Prairie 700. Several of the sales people were out there talking to me. One guy, who I had not met before, went off ridiculing anyone who would buy a Polaris. Now, for one thing, he sells Polaris himself, and for another, I just bought a Sportsman there the previous month. What a jackass.

 

Dealers are no fun. I've purchased quads at two different dealers and both knew nothing other than what was on the spec sheet. Getting my p700 jetted right for altitude was a huge pain and I ended up going to another dealer who actually dyno tested at altitude. So have found a good dealer now and they seem to now thier stuff. Its a small family run shop. That is the kind of place i'll go from now on as they provide service. The wal-mart style places are great for getting the best price but I don't expect them to really care about me...