..... You don't get the same personal attention or expertise you'd get with a good private guy, that you can deal with directly. And they're a lot more expensive. That being said, warranty must be handled by a dealer. That should be with someone you can work with as well. Minor failures on the road would be handled locally. But I won't leave any of my bikes anywhere out of town. If it can't be fixed, timely, on the road, I'll take it home. hopefully the dealer will fix it right. But if you get a major failure, you got the factory involved now. I don't want there to be a reason to fight with the factory about warranty, when I haven't caused the problem. Look what Mike's going through. I guess it's not fail-safe, but I feel pretty good about it.
Hoist! 8-)
Maybe that's where we differ I do get the same guy to work on my bike when it goes to the shop (by my request). I go back to his workstation while he's working on my bike, talk to him, ask him questions, and watch him work on my bike. He knows how much I care about and take care of my bike. Yes it may be a little more expensive, but until I find an "indy" that I trust w/my bike, I’m stuck with taking it to the dealer.
In regards to the warranty claim unless it's something like what the MoCo is experiencing now w/the motors in the 110's (think they are wanting to motors back to do some more R&D) usually the factory doesn't get involved w/warranty. The dealer calls for authorization, it's granted, dealer is given an authorization number and work is done. Depending on dealer a lot of times things that may not have been covered can get covered depending on how dealer writes it up.
The mods I did to my bike (cam, oil pump, etc) were done only to get rid of a potential problem that existed in the motor. Granted when I did them I got better performance, but initial reason was for protection/reliability of the motor. I would much rather fix a known potential problem then waiting on problem to happen just to say the MoCo is going to pay for it.
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Ride Safe,
Fired00d
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