Wyder Honda (why not?)

Ok I have finally got my bike back! It's only taken 9 WEEKS!
This alone should be a joyous occasion but I can’t help feeling like this whole sorry saga has been nothing but a huge practical joke played out by “Wyder Honda” on me.

WARNING – LONG STORY!

WYDER HONDA (WARRINGTON & PRESTON) ARE A PILE OF SH1TE.

I will quantify that statement now.

Firstly, when they (Warrington dealer) sold me the bike back in October last year (on the 29th to be precise). The sales guy told me that the bike would be taxed & tested when I picked it up on the 1st November. It wasn’t, but in my excitement (first bike after passing test), I didn’t check this (my mistake). However, Wyder Honda Warrington allowed me to drive away from their dealership in the full knowledge that the bike was 3 years old on the very day I collected it, and so SHOULD have had an MOT at least

Eventually, after taking the bike to another garage and them failing the bike on the front brake binding (they also issued an advisory note about the head bearings), I took the bike back to Wyder Honda Warrington – not impressed – and they agreed to fix the problems and give the bike back to me WITH AN MOT certificate at no charge. In the meantime (2 days) they lent me a Suzuki DR350 (heap of sh*t which they “claimed” was the only bike in the showroom that had tax on it).

Anyway, got the bike back and was happy that this little saga was over. Went and taxed it immediately, and started to enjoy riding my new toy

Right, fast-forward to 19th July this year. Bike broke down (yeah ok, I’d forgotten to put oil in it - stupid/costly mistake to make and one I will NEVER repeat again after this!).

As luck would have it though, I was only about a mile or two from Wyder Honda Warrington when it happened, so limped the bike there.

To their credit, they gave me a CBF1000 “demonstrator” which I was told I could keep hold of until my bike was fixed. However seeing as it has taken Wyder Honda Preston 9 weeks to carry out this work, the CBF1000 ran out of tax, and so Wyder Honda Warrington loaned me their brand new “Hornet” (about 3 weeks ago).

Now, Wyder Honda Warrington didn’t have any technicians available to work on my bike (mid-July, so people taking holidays – fair enough), so “to speed up the process” my bike was shipped up to Wyder Honda Preston (within a few days).

Fast-forward to yesterday (20th September) for a second … I get my bike back and am told that it will cost me £940

Basically, bottom end of engine was rebuilt (replacement crank-shaft, con-rods and shelves from “a breaker”, new bearings, etc, etc.). They also informed me that my front brake pads were wearing a little thin and so they asked if I wanted them to do those whilst they were working on the bike. Told them “yes please”.

Now, for the past 2 months I have been TRYING to get a more definitive price out of them … and have been constantly told any of the following …

“Sorry, but until we dismantle the engine and find out EXACTLY what is wrong/broken, we can’t really give you a definite price.”

“Can guarantee you it won’t be more than a grand though m8”

“Until we get the parts, we won’t know how much it is”

“Well it’ll be roughly £700 - £800”

Finally, 3 weeks ago I was told “£705, but there’s still a few bits that we MAY need, but it certainly won’t be any more than £800”. I asked if this included all labour costs, and if it also included VAT. I was told “yes that’s everything all-in … with the exception of a few bits we may need, but it STILL won’t come to more than £800”.

So when I was told over the phone yesterday that the bill was £940 … I was just a little bit MORE THAN PI$$ED OFF. Even more so because the tw*t on the other end of the phone chuckled to himself as he said, “are you sitting down?”

So I phoned consumer-direct and asked for advice.

This left me feeling even more infuriated …

Firstly, because all I had was a “verbal agreement” on the cost, which although is “legally binding”, is down to me to prove … unless I was ultra-paranoid/suspicious enough to record my telephone conversations with the dealer I don’t have a leg to stand on basically – it’s their word against mine

Secondly, they said that 2 months is “an unreasonable length of time to carry out repair work”, and that they considered a reasonable length of time to be 28 days. However, get this … the dealers have now remedied this problem by actually having repaired my bike and so their actions are now not considered unreasonable (at least not enough for trading standards to take it up with them!?!?). So when exactly IS IT unreasonable?? This means that a garage could keep your car/bike for 6 months or a year, and if you complain to trading standards, and the garage then delivers your car/bike to you repaired, you have no come back on them … at least not by what consumer-direct told me – which I feel is total and utter BS

Oh and just to really cap things … their electronic chip n pin thingy decided to hang mid-transaction … so the dealer cancelled the transaction by unplugging the phone line! This resulted in the funds being removed from my account but not being credited to the dealership … so several phone calls (and about 45 minutes later!) and I’m still sat there seething at the fat thief behind the counter … my bank says, sorry but you have insufficient funds … as “their merchant” has the funds now. To which I tell them that I have a receipt in front of me that says “NOT AUTHORISED” and ask them if the transaction failed to authorise why they allowed funds to be released from my account!! Bank tells me that dealer has to phone his merchant to ask them to kindly reverse the transaction and replace the funds in my account before they can re-issue the funds … no mention of how long that could take! FFS could this day get any worse?!?

Eventually, merchant tells dealer that they have the funds so “it’s ok – customer has nothing to worry about”. Nothing to worry about except for **** Turpin working at a motorbike dealership in Preston perhaps?! So dealer confirms that transaction is ok (merchant will request a new authorisation code from my bank or something like that), and I’m “good to go”.

If I had the benefit of hindsight here’s what I would have done …

Told Wyder Honda (Warrington & Preston) to go f*ck themselves.
Bought a replacement engine and had a local garage drop it in.
Engine off eBay = £400 (approx).
Labour to remove old engine, and drop new one in … shouldn’t have amounted to no more than a day (in my somewhat limited experience – but someone correct me if I’m wrong – I was told by Wyder Honda Preston that they could dismantle and rebuild an engine “in a day”, so I’m basing my assumption on that, and I think that’s a fairly generous assumption), so labour would be no more than say £300? Add to that, the cost of recovering the bike – say £50, and I could have had this all sorted within a week, and at a cost of £750 (with a generous margin for error!)

Instead, it’s taken 9 WEEKS and cost me £200 more than that!

So if anyone is thinking of using Wyder Honda … DON’T!

I’m not the only one either … when I was told to bring the CBF1000 back in and they would loan me “something else”, I asked for a CBR600RR only to be told “sorry but that one’s out and strange thing is, they guy who has it, has also had it for 2 months as we currently still have his Aprilia in here for service/repair” … so Wyder Honda seem to be making a habit of taking excessively long to carry out maintenance work.

Annoyingly, I’ve also not had my bike for my NDIS course (which just happened to be the day and a half immediately following the bike breaking down), 3 bike meets of the Border Patrol and the North Wales rideout I’m sure those of you that have met me have probably wondered if I actually DO own an SV at all LMAO – once I’ve cleaned her up (not quite up to kwak-style, although I have purchased a tub of “blue job” off t’internet), I’ll post some pics of me and my bike in the Photos section, and I’m hoping to be at The Bridge (Llangollen) for the next Border Patrol meet

The only ray of light from yesterday was hearing my Micron exhaust as I fired the bike up to ride it away from Wyder Honda Preston – sounds even better than I remembered

Oh and I’m also told that I have to “run the engine in” again now … no more than 6,000rpm for the next 600 miles. After which **** Turpin tells me he will get Wyder Honda Warrington to replace the oil & filter for “just the cost of the parts – we won’t charge you any labour”.

Now forgive my scepticism here, but I’m fully expecting to take the bike in and then be told, “yeah well we did fit the gold-plated, titanium filter, so that part costs £200, and then we didn’t have any oil (strange huh?) so we managed to get some of that super-duper-mobil-stuff as used by the race teams, and that’s £50 per 10ml, so all-in that’s £900 again please mister gullible customer … oh and as you can see from the bill, we’ve not charged you any labour”.

I’m tempted to tell them to “get lost, I’ll do it myself” … but have never done this before … so maybe now’s the time to start learning, because I can do without having any dealers/garages rip me off for any more of my “hard-earned”.

Oh and finally, to all those people that complain about the cramped riding style of the SV … you may have a point … having spent 2 months riding a CBF1000 and the Hornet, I can quite agree, it does feel a little cramped … however, I think I just got used to it before, and I WILL get used to it again.

Cheers, and sorry for the long rant

Pete (back on his SV at long long last!!)

Glad to hear you've eventually got your SV back, not so glad about Wyder Honda's performance though. Was he wearing a mask when he relieved you of your cash? I'd have been embarrassed to take your money after that performance. Shocking.

EDIT: Oh, and you need to update your sig.

so you will be going back there for your next bike then?? LOL

Sorry to hear about that farce mate.

Originally Posted by glsuk1970

Glad to hear you've eventually got your SV back, not so glad about Wyder Honda's performance though. Was he wearing a mask when he relieved you of your cash? I'd have been embarrassed to take your money after that performance. Shocking.

EDIT: Oh, and you need to update your sig.

Sig updated now cheers Gaz. I think had the mask fitted the fat f****r he'd have defo been wearing it!

Originally Posted by neio79

so you will be going back there for your next bike then?? LOL

Sorry to hear about that farce mate.

neio I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole m8

I've little chance of getting any recompense from Wyder Honda in any way/shape/form, however I will be writing a very strongly worded letter of complaint. I'll also be placing similar posts on MCN website and on any Honda forum I can find ... if they won't compensate me I'll make damn sure that as many people as possible know what a bunch of crooks these people are.

Nice of them to get my bike back to me just in time for this winter weather

good idea, as well as the post on MCN website what about a letter to them as well? I am sure they might take notice to some bad press?

send this link to their customer services!

Originally Posted by neio79

good idea, as well as the post on MCN website what about a letter to them as well? I am sure they might take notice to some bad press?

send this link to their customer services!

Cheers ... I think I may just do that also

Customer Service? What customer service?? LMAO

[21QUEST]

Have they given you an itemised(fully) bill and offered you the chance to come and view/collect the damaged/replaced bits?


Ben

Ben, they have provided me with a fully itemised bill, but there was no mention of viewing/collecting the damaged/replaced parts.

I think I've been guilty of being too patient with them, accepting excuses like "well the breakers are short-staffed so haven't got anyone to strip that engine, and until we can get the parts from the breaker, we can't continue" and "we are waiting for parts from Suzuki, but Suzuki have said they've sent them so we are just waiting" (which I did blow my top over - I asked if they were just "blindly waiting and hoping?" and why hadn't they contacted the courier to see where the parts were!).

It just feels like mine has been a re-build for some young apprentice to "cut his teeth on" - being done only when supervised, or just in their "spare time".

But waiting 9 weeks was really taking the P.

I suppose my argument with Wyder Honda comes down to 2 things:

1. They would/could not give me a price on how much it would cost and when they did I was told that the price was INCLUSIVE of VAT when apparently that wasn't the case.
2. They took longer than acceptable to carry out the repairs.

I have no doubt that the itemised bill is correct, with perhaps the exception of the labour (although I can see that they may want to be charging additional labour for having to chase parts/orders). Mr **** Turpin also informed me that they hadn't even charged me for the oil & filter they put on, and they had also "knocked some of the labour off". Well whooop-dee-dooo ... after taking 9 weeks, I should bloody well think so! But to me, their attitude and service has been totally unacceptable.

Originally Posted by neio79

send this link to their customer services!

Don't. Ask a mod before you do it.

Originally Posted by Filipe M.

Don't. Ask a mod before you do it.

Well it would probably do me no favours by referring to their staff as "D1ck Turpin", so I would probably actually just send them a "sanitised version" of the above - in writing, rather than sending them links to websites.

Cheers,
Pete