Grrr... CBF600 in bike hospital... The AA are s**T!

Motorcycling
1

I’m going mad!

The bike stopped working on Wednesday morning after the horrendous down-pour on the Tuesday night journey home - bike put in the garage soaking wet… Wednesday morning no ignition - well to be exact - alarm and emergency indicators where working - but the ignition would not turn on - no power to the head unit at all.

So… are you ready for this…

Called the AA at 19:30 Wednesday night and was told that they where quite busy and no-one would be with me for 90 mins - not a problem I was tucked up in the warm at home - I told them I suspected that I either had a flat battery or that either the ignition or alarm had malfunctioned and that I needed to diagnose what the problem was so we could make a decision on if I needed a tow to the local dealer.

So I waited… and waited… and waited… at 9pm I got a call to say someone is on the way they’ll be there in within 45 mins.

An hour later I got a call from the chap on the way out… now I live in St Albans… he says… ‘I’m in Elstree… where are you?’ so I explain I’m in St Albans (i’ve only just moved there so I don’t know anything about the roads or routes apart from my work route.) The guy doesn’t have GPS or even a map. I suggest he buys one from a garage - he says he’s not allowed. In any case I finally manage to direct him to me and he arrives at 11:30pm.

The time / directions aside it turns out he’s not the AA - he’s a private company that owns a tow truck. He has no tools, no battery booster, and no mechanical training - he’s there to give me a tow. I ask him where he’d like to tow me at 11:30pm? He agrees he can’t do anything and leaves.

So I call the AA - who apologise and agree to send out an AA engineer between 6am and 7am the following morning.

Next morning comes and the AA chap does turn up - he’s trained - intelligent - has a tool set and we manage to work out that power isn’t going to the ignition - the battery and fuses are fine - so we down to the alarm or ignition. Great - exactly what I needed - diagnosis. He heads off whilst I get the alarm company on the phone.

Alarm company and I work out the problem is not the alarm with much fiddling with wires via the phone with an engineer - gave me great confidence that a thief couldn’t nick my bike easily!

So now we know it’s the ignition I get onto Honda (yeap warranty should cover this) and AA are on their way to give me a tow. 1 hour later they turn up… or to be more specific a private company turns up with a car tow truck. My bike is put on the back and held in place with tie ropes… this is not the best way to transport a bike and I cringed every step of the way to Chiswick Honda.

So to cut a long story short.

STAY AWAY FROM THE AA

And now I have no bike whilst it sits in the dealership waiting to be fixed :frowning: Anyone got any experience of a bike being fixed under warranty and if I’m entitled to a hire bike in the mean time?

m

2

Blimey what a carry-on!!!

The AA are usually pretty effective, prob no worse than any other really. But that was a howler. Perhaps a stroppy letter is in order?

good luck on getting the 'ped fixed.

3

Really sorry to hear about your problems Matt! Soudns more like a reaql nightmare! Hope you get your bike back on the road ASAP! I would be fuming on that situation…

4

Chiswick Honda sorted me out a loan bike when I got a service, and again when I had a battery problem in November. was a scooter each time, but it done the job…

I have to get mine in to chiswick too…

Gear lever Spring decided to not work last night… I wahsed the bike this morning and it kinda works, but I still get it stuck.

5

Never had a problem with the AA, every time I’ve called them a yellow van with the bike trailor has turned up, was handy the day I filled up with diesel instead of unleaded

H

6

I’ve never really had a problem with the AA before - but then again I’ve been away from biking for a couple of years and haven’t needed to call them out for any reason since… but… to put my anger in context… last year (November) they left me on the side of the M1 at Northampton for 2.5 hours in sub zero conditions… I was on the phone every half and hour pointing out I was getting very very cold… in the end I threatened to call an ambulance because I couldn’t feel my legs any more… at which point they sent out a third party company who towed me to the services and fixed my broken gear lever with a simple allen key!

Stroppy letter sent and to be fair I received a full apology and a letter explaining they where going to have a ‘full internal investigation’ - I think I got a response because I copied the letter to Honda - who replied within 2 days to say how sorry they where that I’d had bad service from the AA and that they would also investigate on my behalf.

So… I’ll try again!

Bike still hasn’t been looked at by Chiswick… to be fair they have to slot it in between booked in bikes… so I’ll see if they manage to get onto it today.

ahhhh the agony of a daily train journey - I think I remember why I ditched public transport in the first place!

m

7

It’s all character-building LOL

Good luck mate.

8

Ha ha ha! Riding 400 miles in snow, sleet and rain is character building… going on the train to London everyday is just sh*t!

Thanks Andrew.

m

9

Chiswick Honda??

Lloyd Cooper in Watford is MUCH nearer (for future reference! )

Where abouts did you move to mate?

10

The AA used to be great, because it was owned by its members and run by its members. Every member got a windfall payment when the company got privatised (See Asset stripping in dictionary).

All rescue services in my view now fall short of the mark. When my clutch cable went last year Green Flag took 3 hours to get from St Albans to Watford, a journey I have done in around five minutes (Late at night with no police around). Only bonus, is I don’t pay for my rescue service, its free with my bank account.

11

I moved to St Albans from Muswell Hill - but here’s the complicated part - I also ‘live’ in Nottingham - and that’s where I bought the bike and my ‘local’ dealer is Pidcocks in Nottingham.

They do my servicing on the whole as that’s where I tend to be on the weekends - but if this has tought me anything it’s that I needed a dealer down here to… problem is Watford is in the wrong direction when it comes to work - I work top end of Edgeware Road just round from the tube station so I needed something near there really.

God it’s complicated sometimes…

Sometimes I think we should start our own rescue service - just for bikers - run by bikers.

m

12

Ah yes, but Lloyd Cooper often give a courtesy bike which is…wait for it…a CBF600!