"Mind ya damn b'ness."

[adri]

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Why dont YOU take it to the same shop and see how it compares. If the diagnosis is the same then they either remember the bike and are smart enough to have it documented or its what they believe. If not, she was right. Then you can decide how to proceed

Because this isn't a place I want to give even a single penny too, let alone pay them for diagnosis.

Depends on what bike it is, what's on the list, and where you are

Mid 90s Honda Rebel.

From the shop:

• The front forks are not providing proper damping, which affects both stability and safety at speed.
• Your tires are well past their safe lifespan and need to be replaced.
• Grinding noise during start up (points toward a potential starter or flywheel issue).
• The rear brake light switch has failed and requires replacement.
• The chain needs a full cleaning before we can continue any diagnostic work or confirm whether there is further wear or damage.

As someone who previously owned and put 7,000 km on it, and has moved a handful of them around, the forks seems fine/equally ****** as every other Honda Rebel 250 on the road.

The owner put on new tires the year before, which is got her suspicious of the shop. The tires don't use a standard four digit date code on the tire from what I remember when I looked around.... Maybe I'll post some pics of the tire sidewalls on here for y'all to look at.

Couldn't tell you about a grinding noise during startup because I got the bike from them with THE MAIN FUSE IS BLOWN - it also had a pair of jumper cables connected to the battery when I got there... I'm assuming someone shorted something. The place looked like the average employee age was early mid twenties... Not to be agist but, as someone who worked at a dealership in his early twenties, I was pretty fuckin green.

Rear brake like switch, again, considering I got the bike from them with a main fuse that seems to be blown, yeah, not sure how they would've noticed that if they weren't the ones who blew the main fuse... They might not even have known they did...

Chain needing a full cleaning to know if the chain is ****? Is that a real thing?

 

[adri]

I think if they low balled and scared her with wrong info you should name the shop.
On the other hand if you got a deal and the bike is fixed with way less cost in parts amd time, I assume you are going to sell it, do you share this extra profit with her?

As mentioned, thinking of offering it as a freebie to the neighbours/neighbour's kid. I never got a hand-me-down vehicle growing up, while my best friend got his mom and dad's BMW and Mercedes... so, I like the idea of being able to give a vehicle to a teenager, it kind of fulfills something I didn't get to experience myself?

There's something to it that I think would be nice not just for helping someone else, but also selfishly for me being able to give a kid something I didn't have. If any psychiatrists want to chime in with what's wrong with me I'm all ears lol

 

[adri]

Keep in mind.. you’ll be naming and slagging a shop based on hearsay. Unless she provides you with something showing what the shop said.. how do you know really know?

Yeah totally a consideration.

The format I was thinking of is:

"The seller says the shop told her (problem #1) - let's go take a look at that" (show the part, let the viewer decide)

"The seller says the shop told her (problem #2) - let's go take a look at that" (show the part, let the viewer decide)

"The seller says the shop told her (problem #3) - let's go take a look at that" (show the part, let the viewer decide)

etc.

Not sure if the "the seller told me they said" is a get out of jail free card or a cop out. Anyone know?

 

[adri]

We have no idea how the conversation went at the shop , was it make this new again or make it rideable ? The shop may have felt compelled to repair a lot of stuff that many may ignore, since people want to get on the interweb if everything isn't perfect.
I'd leave the shop name out of the conversation , your a third party in this .

Yep. I might email her up and ask her if the list she got from them was via email and if she could forward it to me.

But anyway, to answer your question... all she asked for was *drum roll*

WINTER STORAGE

Instead she got a list of things that apparently needed to be done, and she/I got a motorcycle that hadn't been charged the whole time it was in storage, battery totally pooched, and when I put a new battery in I got no lights or anything, so I suspect they shorted out the main fuse because they had jumper cables on it and either put them on wrong or touched the frame.

 

[adri]

You guys have given me a lot to consider, thank you! Please feel free to keep it coming.

Going to try to talk to my neighbours if I see them today and will report back.

 

[nobbie48]

As mentioned, thinking of offering it as a freebie to the neighbours/neighbour's kid. I never got a hand-me-down vehicle growing up, while my best friend got his mom and dad's BMW and Mercedes... so, I like the idea of being able to give a vehicle to a teenager, it kind of fulfills something I didn't get to experience myself?

There's something to it that I think would be nice not just for helping someone else, but also selfishly for me being able to give a kid something I didn't have. If any psychiatrists want to chime in with what's wrong with me I'm all ears lol

Free things trigger nanny state IMO. If you have a kid in mind, 1) make sure it's OK with his parents and, 2) he gets it after he helps get it on the road.

Can the kid afford insurance and gear?

 

[adri]

I like this idea, and maybe even be upfront and say you bought it from her and want to understand how all the costs add up to decide if it's worth it to have them do it for you. That gives them a fair chance of explaining, and if it's all BS, I'd name the shop.

I was actually thinking about going a different route and paying a different shop to just "assess" the bike and see what they come up with, and compare that to the original list and reporting back on that.

 

[hdsomeday]

So many questions.....

How did the bike get to the shop?
Why was it taken there? Just for winter storage?
Was it 'ok' when it got there?
Did she go to get it out of storage?
Was it 'not ok' when she got there?
Were they trying to make it 'ok' and came up with the list?
Was it a list of 'mandatory' fixes or recommendations?
Going back to the first question, should it not come out in the same condition it went in if its only there for storage?
Why did she just leave it there?

I will stop there...I think there is way more going on

 

[adri]

Free things trigger nanny state IMO. If you have a kid in mind, 1) make sure it's OK with his parents and, 2) he gets it after he helps get it on the road.

Can the kid afford insurance and gear?

Don't know, but I figured I would talk to her dad first. He was a rider in his young days, still has his old japanese bike in the garage. I'm assuming they would probably put insurance in his name for the first year. We're getting ahead of ourselves though, I don't even know if this thing will fire up yet lol

 

[adri]

So many questions.....

How did the bike get to the shop?
Why was it taken there? Just for winter storage?
Was it 'ok' when it got there?
Did she go to get it out of storage?
Was it 'not ok' when she got there?
Were they trying to make it 'ok' and came up with the list?
Was it a list of 'mandatory' fixes or recommendations?
Going back to the first question, should it not come out in the same condition it went in if its only there for storage?
Why did she just leave it there?

I will stop there...I think there is way more going on

Yes, just winter storage.

Ironically, the one issue she said she had with the bike was the carb being a PITA...

The carb being the one thing the shop didn't mention lol

She didn't pick it up from there, I did. Got it sight unseen and told her I would bring it from them myself because it sounded like she was really over them.

When I arrived I was told "We don't know where the battery box cover is but we think it wasn't on it when we got here."

I was so unimpressed with them I just wanted to gtfo of there because they seemed like children trying to run a bike shop. For example, they told me they'd need my email address to pick up the bike. Lol, wtf? I asked why. "How will we know you're the right Adrian?" ...Motherfucker, how many Adrians are going to show up at a specific time, on a specific date, to pick up that specific worthless bike? And if some would-be thief really knows my schedule that intimately, and really wants it, aren't they likely to know my email address anyway?

No common sense allowed.

Maybe I'll post a video just for GTAM eyes later today.

 

[TwistedKestrel]

The owner put on new tires the year before, which is got her suspicious of the shop. The tires don't use a standard four digit date code on the tire from what I remember when I looked around.... Maybe I'll post some pics of the tire sidewalls on here for y'all to look at.

I would like to see those... but that sounds very off to me

 

[adri]

I would like to see those... but that sounds very off to me

THANK YOU!! You just saved me so much trouble.

I was going to eventually get to the tires but I figured I would start with just writing an intro, outlining a video, setting up camera shots etc while I try to get it started, etc, and then I would go through the items on the list...

But I saw your message and thought "Ah, let's just take some pics for @TwistedKestrel before the game starts."



So while I'm out there I notice the date stamps in circle say (5151) - Were these in the future? lol

Kept looking and I see this mish-mash of letters and numbers:



wtf is that? so I gave AI the pic and it said:

"
Here is the breakdown of the code EU7JNA7M3406:

• EU (Plant Code): The first two characters identify the specific manufacturing plant and the company that produced the tire.
• 7J (Size Code): A manufacturer-specific code that indicates the physical dimensions and size of the tire.
• NA7M (Manufacturer Code): An optional sequence used internally by the manufacturer to track specific characteristics, such as the rubber compound, tread pattern, or construction type.
• 3406 (Date Code):This indicates the exact age of the tire.
  • 34: The tire was manufactured during the 34th week of the year.
  • 06: The tire was manufactured in the year 2006.

"

Holy ****. EU7JNA7M3406. That is the date code!

But the girl I bought the bike from told me the tires were replaced a year ago. Wtf! haha

First I had zero faith in the shop based on the impression I got from them and the red flags I saw (not sure what parts did or didn't come with the bike, the place looking like summer camp, the winter storage bike being on booster plugs because no one had charged it, needing my email address for me to pick up a bike lol)...

... but now, this kind of knocks her credibility down a peg...

As a result, as much as I'll still be checking out everything else the shop said needed fixing (including a chain cleaning to see whether or not the chain needs service - lol, seriously?)... I don't think I'll bother wasting my time with making a video about it... I think my whole "story" just got shot dead.

Silver lining: TK just made this a lot easier for me.

Thanks all! Very glad I took this to the GTAM committee.

 

[ToSlow]

Sounds to me the girl was quite a sales lady

 

[TwistedKestrel]

I had a feeling it was something like that! Not impossible they were non-DOT tires or they had 3 digit date codes (or no date codes)... but those are all still serious problems

 

[adri]

New fuse, booster pack, she runs!!!

 

[oioioi]

Glad you got it running and saved yourself the hassle of meaning a video.
I don't think it was a good idea from the beginning.

Ask yourself this,.
If you not a YouTuber, would you have bothered to investigate this to such extent and possibly make a video about it?
Probably not.

 

[mimico_polak]

there’s a ‘reality’ show in Poland where the mechanic messes something up, then they send the girl to multiple car shops to see how honest those shops are.

They blur out the names of the shops, and the faces so they don’t get in trouble.

And that’s when they openly lie to the client.

Mind you it’s reality tv so….maybe 5% is factual (if that).

 

[adri]

Ask yourself this,.
If you not a YouTuber, would you have bothered to investigate this to such extent and possibly make a video about it?
Probably not.

Enough to make a video about it? No.
Enough to leave a review? Yes.

Gotta stand up for the little guys (or girls).

But in this case it seems like no one knew what the **** was going on with this bike, myself included, so I'm just going to drop it.

 

[MCT]

I brought the bike home from the shop and honestly, I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as they told her it was. I reached out to her to tell her that and she says she feels like they were just blowing smoke up her ass because she is a woman and they probably thought they could get away with it.

And that is EXACTLY why I do not take any of my 2 and 4 wheeled vehicles to a dealer or independent shop. Mind you, I do not need to as I am fully equipped. Plus it is done right.

Same for a safety. When you tell them "I'll be doing what it needs myself" isn't it strange that they find less wrong with it. No money in it for them.

Sure name them and if not here on Google reviews.

 

[raginduck]

Not sure if the "the seller told me they said" is a get out of jail free card or a cop out. Anyone know?

I’m not sure either. How much are you willing to pay to find out??
IMO.. it’s not worth it. You got the bike, it’s your’s.. do what you need to do with it.. and enjoy it. If you do make a documentary of it being brought back to life.. awesome, but I’d keep it to just that.

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