-Ralph-

I've uploaded the maintenance schedule for the pointy in a PDF, you can see most things are marked 'I' for inspect at 4000 miles. But 'I' doesn't just mean look at it and take no further action.

You'll notice that the clutch should be inspected at every service. Soon after my 16000 mile service (I service every 4k, not 3.5k), I ran out of adjustment at the clutch lever, so had to figure out how to adjust my clutch. It was obvious that the clutch cover had never been off and the adjuster screw had never been moved. This bike had just had it's 5th main dealer service and the dealer had never spent more than an hour or two on it, between drop off and collection. This is a main dealer in Edinburgh with an excellent reputation and customer service awards. Needless to say at 20000 I serviced it myself, obviously I'm not a professional, nor is the time costing me money, so I'm slow, but to carry out the service as scheduled takes me most of the day.

My wife's car reached 6 years old last year and I decided for the first time (because it was clear that the Suzuki main dealer service I was getting for the bike was a rip off), that I would service it myself. I checked the book to see what oil to buy, it specifies the VW longlife fully synthetic that is supposed (I know!) to last 20k miles. I was surprised as I had always thought the car needed semi-synthetic, but the car has never needed a top up between services, so I checked all the invoices for the car's full service history. The main dealer had been putting Castrol GTX in it for the last six years. On this car not an issue as it never did more than 10000 miles in a year, but imagine another one of their customers who is doing 20000 miles between services as recommended by the manufacturer, and the dealer is not using a longlife oil, which needs replaced after 12500 miles max. Customers are doing 8000 miles between each service on completely useless oil.

So I'm afraid Spannerman is absolutely right, the main dealers don't service the bikes properly it's all about time taken and how many bikes they can get done in a day, in the workshop, oil changed, rev the engine, out the workshop, next one in.

Get somebody conscientious and reliable like Spannerman to do it, or learn how to do it yourself.

If you decide to learn how to do it yourself, print off this PDF and a copy of the periodic maintenance section of the service manual (can email to anyone that needs it, if it's not still available on here), to use as a check list and set aside a Saturday to go through each bit one by one, ticking off and noting down details (such as 3mm left on front pads, 4mm left on rear tyre, rear brake caliper slightly stuck needed attention, etc). Keep these sheets, along with the invoices for the parts you have bought, and write up your book yourself. If I saw a bike that had been looked after and documented like this by an owner that understood it, I'd much rather buy that bike than one that had only ever been maintained by a FSH with a main dealer, who doesn't give a damn about the bike.