don't pull any thing over 120lbs with KQ
Jan 21, 2005 | 12:02 PM
#22
Range Rover
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 140
Likes: 0
don't pull any thing over 120lbs with KQ
Originally posted by: cabletech
yea the belt alone is 177.00 +tax and installing it and he said i glazed my pulleys that the belt ride on that will cost 750.00 appx he said he was
going to try clean them or something it was at kens cycle center in highland springs va the mach name chad dont take your atv or street bike
big rip off
yea the belt alone is 177.00 +tax and installing it and he said i glazed my pulleys that the belt ride on that will cost 750.00 appx he said he was
going to try clean them or something it was at kens cycle center in highland springs va the mach name chad dont take your atv or street bike
big rip off
Jan 21, 2005 | 03:27 PM
#24
Thread Starter
|
Trailblazer
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 42
Likes: 0
don't pull any thing over 120lbs with KQ
i was pulling in low range i beleve it was a problem with the bike from day 1 the dealer at kens cycle in highland springs va said i need to ride it on flat ground in low range which is crap
Jan 21, 2005 | 04:09 PM
#26
Pro Rider
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 1,873
Likes: 0
don't pull any thing over 120lbs with KQ
doesn't sound right, but then again it matters how heavy the tree was and how much drag your were getting....I pull alot of trees, trailers, etc. with my '05 700 EFI polaris with no problems....I move my 6.6'x16' trailer around with it...i can smell the belt heating up, then again I can smell it when i'm riding hard also, but still is good....
I would guess an adjustment is needed in your clutch setup on the KG.....the KG is a pretty good machine, get a new belt and have them check the clutch setup....
I would guess an adjustment is needed in your clutch setup on the KG.....the KG is a pretty good machine, get a new belt and have them check the clutch setup....
Jan 21, 2005 | 07:04 PM
#28
Weekend Warrior
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 5
Likes: 0
don't pull any thing over 120lbs with KQ
Well I wasn't going to post because I felt as if it might be crossing some kind of professional border, but now that names have been named I feel I must. I am the parts manager at the dealership, and anything I say is my opinion based on what I saw/heard, I wasn't in any way involved with the service or warranty of the unit so if I'm innaccurate in anything I say I apologize ahead of time, and anything I do say is just my opinion and not that of anyone else at the dealership, in fact they have no idea I'm posting this so I'm not a spokesman. With that disclaimer out of the way let me say a few things, oh and just so no one thinks we are somehow spying on him, he dropped off a copy of this thread and said he wanted "tweedle dumb"(as he refered to the mechanic, very mature) and the owner to read it, so thats even more reason I feel I have a right to post here.
First things first let me get one fact straight, the belt does not cost $30, if my memory serves correct it is Suzuki part # 27601-31G00, but I might be off by a number or two as I'm not at my work computer right now, anyways retail on this belt is as he said in the range of $200 not counting labor to install it, after all the mechanics do need to get paid for the work they do. So to say we are ripping him off by charging standard retail and paying our mechanic is ludicrous. Whether or not you or I think a belt is worth 200 dollars is irrelevant, that is the price Suzuki has come up with and there for the price we have to charge, compared to some other manufactors I've worked for, Suzuki's pricing is generally lower than most, so if they for what ever reason say the materials or manufactoring process for this belt make it worth 200 bucks then it probably really does cost more than the one on my lawn mower, but again that is irrelevant.
I was not there the day he brought his unit in, but from all accounts he was immediatly very loud, confrontational, and pissed off with us before he ever even pulled into our parking lot, making demands of what was and wasn't going happen, the said mechanic had at this point not even seen the vehicle yet and told him repeatedly he would do what he could. I was privy to the phone conversation he and the mechanic had yesterday, not because I was trying to eve's drop, but because while I was trying to sit at my computer and place parts orders I couldn't help but hear every word screaming out of the reciever. Chad gave him options as to what he might be able to do to get him riding again, and was literally pleading with the customer to relax and let him have a turn to speak and explain things. He would demand answers from Chad, then the moment Chad would speak to answer him he would start screaming at him again, Chad would calmly ask him if he could please have his turn to speak and never ONCE even slightly raised his voice at the customer, most people would have hung up after that kind of treatment but he spent a good 20 minutes atleast on the phone with him taking this abuse and hardly getting to say a word, all the time this is costing him money. The accusation was made that since he did not purchase the four wheeler from us we are all "out to get him" which I have a feeling is a recurring theme in this customer's life, the world is against him. It makes no difference to us where he purchased it, why would we turn away work in the dead of winter over something like that, after all Suzuki makes hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year so how can we expect that every single one ever built be purchased from us? Also it is not us that has the final say in whether it falls under warranty or not, thats up to Suzuki and when you make a warranty claim they want to know if anything has been changed or modified such as tires, and its our job to accurately report what we find and I don't know if the tires were the determining factor or not.
Again since I was not directly in on this I could be wrong, but I believe part of the problem was the pulleys were glazed over, much like how you could burn up a clutch or a brake disc, Chad offered to roughen up the surface of the pulleys to possibly help his problem with out making him spend $750 on all new stuff, but he also told the customer he would not be willing to help someone who is going to sit there and verbally attack him like that after he kindly asked him to stop, when the customer refused he told him he was sorry they could not come to an understanding, said he would put the atv back together like it was when he brought it in and asked him to come pick it up. When he arrived to pick it up he inquired as to whether or not Chad had attempted to fix the pulleys as he had offered, obviously Chad had not as he gave the customer the option to either calm down, act civil, and he would do anything possible to help him, or keep acting like he was and pick up the atv with no further help, the customer chose the later. So he jumped on his unit, revved it to the moon and went skidding across the parking lot nearly striking Chad, if someone treats their new atv like that it makes you wonder if it wasn't more than a 120 log that caused the problem, or maybe it gets such abuse regularly and that led to the failure. Reminds me of when I was 6 years old and my mom would send me to my room and I'd break my toys to get her back.
I've worked at a number of dealerships, and before that I was a customer at just about all of them, so I know the good from the bad. I've never seen a dealership with more repeat customers than this one, hell half of them end up close friends with us or spend half of their free time hanging out in the shop. Ken has been in business nearly thirty years as I understand, thats longer than I am old, you don't stay in business that long treating people wrong, and prior to my employement here I cannot in all honesty remember talking to anyone that had anything bad to say. Sure if you have ten thousand people walk through your front door a year its probably innevitable that atleast one of them will have a problem arrise and be unhappy, but if it does happen we try our hardest to strike a compromise with the customer and make them leave feeling like they were treated fair, unfortunetly try as we might this was just not a possibility for this customer.
With all of the above said I would like to say one thing on your behalf, even though you were obviously quite upset over the situation you were not rude to me at all when you came to the counter to pay your bill, regardless of whether or not I believe or agree with any of what you have said, I atleast appreciate that you didn't chew me out for no reason as I was honestly anticipating you would.
I think its unfortunate that the word dealership automatically conjurs imagines of sleazy used car salesmen and the idea of being ripped off, and I mean its unfortunate because alot of the times its probably true, but that doesn't mean we are all out to get you. I think peole are automatically put on the defensive when they bring in a vehicle for service, I believe this customer had decided he was going to have a bad experience befor he ever even set foot in our door and I think its unfortunate we weren't given a fair chance to give him a better experience. If I didn't believe everything I was saying I would not have the nerve to post here.
I understand you are emotional right now and probably not thinking all of what you are saying through, but do you realize when you say something like "do not ever take your stuff to ken's cycle they will rip you off", that you are taking away from our income? We aren't some mega giant corporation that can afford to lose a few customers, we are a smaller shop which is dependent on repeat business and word of mouth, so when you say something like that based on a single experience(which was your fault) its extremely reckless. Just like you and anyone else this is our 9 to 5, by taking away customers and slandering us your taking away our ability to make money to feed our families, provide them with a nice home, pay for them to go to college and buy the toys that we are so passionate about. So I hope next time you think about making an unwarranted claim against someone you'll think twice about how it might effect them, it has very real repercusions to us whether it matters to you or not.
I hope all of you take the time to read my long winded post and weigh that along with his account before you judge us.
And just so you know Mark, I'm sure you left thinking we were all standing around talking bad about you, well after we closed me and Chad were standing around and I complimented him on how I had never seen someone handle such a situation that well and he said with a kind of sad desperation in his eyes how after all that went on he really just wished he could have been able to help you and was personally kind of hurt that you would resort to calling him names behind his back. I'm also a little confused as to why you seem to be so upset with us directly as a dealership, the problem seems to be one better aimed directly at Suzuki as a manufactorer, who I also believe make great products, but as I heard Chad attempt to explain to you, we aren't the ones that built your four wheeler so I don't see why you are so angry with us about it breaking. Also if you aren't able to tell the truth about what happened to "friends" on a internet forum, then how can we as a evil money sucking dealership expect you to tell us the truth about what you were pulling, again this is just my opinion, but I think there is more to this story than a "120 lbs log", and the fact that everyone on here agrees it should be able to pull that just fine makes me believe so even more.
If anyone has any questions feel free to ask and maybe I can help shed some light for the rest of you as to how things really happened. And I'm not being sarcastic when I say I wish you the best of luck when you take it to the next dealership, hopefully you can get it fixed in time to play in some of this snow.
-Bret Schardein
First things first let me get one fact straight, the belt does not cost $30, if my memory serves correct it is Suzuki part # 27601-31G00, but I might be off by a number or two as I'm not at my work computer right now, anyways retail on this belt is as he said in the range of $200 not counting labor to install it, after all the mechanics do need to get paid for the work they do. So to say we are ripping him off by charging standard retail and paying our mechanic is ludicrous. Whether or not you or I think a belt is worth 200 dollars is irrelevant, that is the price Suzuki has come up with and there for the price we have to charge, compared to some other manufactors I've worked for, Suzuki's pricing is generally lower than most, so if they for what ever reason say the materials or manufactoring process for this belt make it worth 200 bucks then it probably really does cost more than the one on my lawn mower, but again that is irrelevant.
I was not there the day he brought his unit in, but from all accounts he was immediatly very loud, confrontational, and pissed off with us before he ever even pulled into our parking lot, making demands of what was and wasn't going happen, the said mechanic had at this point not even seen the vehicle yet and told him repeatedly he would do what he could. I was privy to the phone conversation he and the mechanic had yesterday, not because I was trying to eve's drop, but because while I was trying to sit at my computer and place parts orders I couldn't help but hear every word screaming out of the reciever. Chad gave him options as to what he might be able to do to get him riding again, and was literally pleading with the customer to relax and let him have a turn to speak and explain things. He would demand answers from Chad, then the moment Chad would speak to answer him he would start screaming at him again, Chad would calmly ask him if he could please have his turn to speak and never ONCE even slightly raised his voice at the customer, most people would have hung up after that kind of treatment but he spent a good 20 minutes atleast on the phone with him taking this abuse and hardly getting to say a word, all the time this is costing him money. The accusation was made that since he did not purchase the four wheeler from us we are all "out to get him" which I have a feeling is a recurring theme in this customer's life, the world is against him. It makes no difference to us where he purchased it, why would we turn away work in the dead of winter over something like that, after all Suzuki makes hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year so how can we expect that every single one ever built be purchased from us? Also it is not us that has the final say in whether it falls under warranty or not, thats up to Suzuki and when you make a warranty claim they want to know if anything has been changed or modified such as tires, and its our job to accurately report what we find and I don't know if the tires were the determining factor or not.
Again since I was not directly in on this I could be wrong, but I believe part of the problem was the pulleys were glazed over, much like how you could burn up a clutch or a brake disc, Chad offered to roughen up the surface of the pulleys to possibly help his problem with out making him spend $750 on all new stuff, but he also told the customer he would not be willing to help someone who is going to sit there and verbally attack him like that after he kindly asked him to stop, when the customer refused he told him he was sorry they could not come to an understanding, said he would put the atv back together like it was when he brought it in and asked him to come pick it up. When he arrived to pick it up he inquired as to whether or not Chad had attempted to fix the pulleys as he had offered, obviously Chad had not as he gave the customer the option to either calm down, act civil, and he would do anything possible to help him, or keep acting like he was and pick up the atv with no further help, the customer chose the later. So he jumped on his unit, revved it to the moon and went skidding across the parking lot nearly striking Chad, if someone treats their new atv like that it makes you wonder if it wasn't more than a 120 log that caused the problem, or maybe it gets such abuse regularly and that led to the failure. Reminds me of when I was 6 years old and my mom would send me to my room and I'd break my toys to get her back.
I've worked at a number of dealerships, and before that I was a customer at just about all of them, so I know the good from the bad. I've never seen a dealership with more repeat customers than this one, hell half of them end up close friends with us or spend half of their free time hanging out in the shop. Ken has been in business nearly thirty years as I understand, thats longer than I am old, you don't stay in business that long treating people wrong, and prior to my employement here I cannot in all honesty remember talking to anyone that had anything bad to say. Sure if you have ten thousand people walk through your front door a year its probably innevitable that atleast one of them will have a problem arrise and be unhappy, but if it does happen we try our hardest to strike a compromise with the customer and make them leave feeling like they were treated fair, unfortunetly try as we might this was just not a possibility for this customer.
With all of the above said I would like to say one thing on your behalf, even though you were obviously quite upset over the situation you were not rude to me at all when you came to the counter to pay your bill, regardless of whether or not I believe or agree with any of what you have said, I atleast appreciate that you didn't chew me out for no reason as I was honestly anticipating you would.
I think its unfortunate that the word dealership automatically conjurs imagines of sleazy used car salesmen and the idea of being ripped off, and I mean its unfortunate because alot of the times its probably true, but that doesn't mean we are all out to get you. I think peole are automatically put on the defensive when they bring in a vehicle for service, I believe this customer had decided he was going to have a bad experience befor he ever even set foot in our door and I think its unfortunate we weren't given a fair chance to give him a better experience. If I didn't believe everything I was saying I would not have the nerve to post here.
I understand you are emotional right now and probably not thinking all of what you are saying through, but do you realize when you say something like "do not ever take your stuff to ken's cycle they will rip you off", that you are taking away from our income? We aren't some mega giant corporation that can afford to lose a few customers, we are a smaller shop which is dependent on repeat business and word of mouth, so when you say something like that based on a single experience(which was your fault) its extremely reckless. Just like you and anyone else this is our 9 to 5, by taking away customers and slandering us your taking away our ability to make money to feed our families, provide them with a nice home, pay for them to go to college and buy the toys that we are so passionate about. So I hope next time you think about making an unwarranted claim against someone you'll think twice about how it might effect them, it has very real repercusions to us whether it matters to you or not.
I hope all of you take the time to read my long winded post and weigh that along with his account before you judge us.
And just so you know Mark, I'm sure you left thinking we were all standing around talking bad about you, well after we closed me and Chad were standing around and I complimented him on how I had never seen someone handle such a situation that well and he said with a kind of sad desperation in his eyes how after all that went on he really just wished he could have been able to help you and was personally kind of hurt that you would resort to calling him names behind his back. I'm also a little confused as to why you seem to be so upset with us directly as a dealership, the problem seems to be one better aimed directly at Suzuki as a manufactorer, who I also believe make great products, but as I heard Chad attempt to explain to you, we aren't the ones that built your four wheeler so I don't see why you are so angry with us about it breaking. Also if you aren't able to tell the truth about what happened to "friends" on a internet forum, then how can we as a evil money sucking dealership expect you to tell us the truth about what you were pulling, again this is just my opinion, but I think there is more to this story than a "120 lbs log", and the fact that everyone on here agrees it should be able to pull that just fine makes me believe so even more.
If anyone has any questions feel free to ask and maybe I can help shed some light for the rest of you as to how things really happened. And I'm not being sarcastic when I say I wish you the best of luck when you take it to the next dealership, hopefully you can get it fixed in time to play in some of this snow.
-Bret Schardein
Jan 21, 2005 | 09:27 PM
#30
Range Rover
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 105
Likes: 0
don't pull any thing over 120lbs with KQ
bret i am a service manager for a suzuki dealer..i hear where you are coming from..i get my but chewed up sometimes for nothing..and people think because thay bought a machine from you they can talk to you like your a piece crap..i hate that..i am human too..thank you very much for posting something like that,,maybe everyone can understand whats up..