2 vastly contrasting experiences with these businesses over the last couple of days. Firstly, Bill Bunn Motorcycles. I bought my CBR there less than 3 months ago, and have been back there a couple of times to get problems fixed that had not been identified when the bike was sold. The first one was a worn neutral switch which needed replacing (the day after purchase) and the second was to replace the seat lock, which was completely absent. In fairness, their service was initially good, polite, and fast, but I did worry that the service carried out on the bike prior to its sale probably wasn’t great if both of these issues had been missed.
Anyway, when attending the basic maintenance course at OMC on Tuesday (more on that in a bit), the guys diagnosed a knocking sound in the suspension as a very slack headrace bearing. They tightened it up, which revealed another problem - the steering was snatchy when moved lock-to-lock. Worn headrace bearing - really should have been caught in any service of the bike before it was sold. The knocking sound from the suspension has been there since I got the bike (less than 600 miles ago) and had been left undiagnosed until now. Matt also pointed out that the split link in my chain was unsuitable for a sporty 600. I called Bill Bunn’s yesterday, figuring they’d rush to apologise for missing this and offering to rectify the issues under warranty. No such luck, my warranty has apparently expired, “I have to understand that headrace bearings are a wearable item” and a rivet links are “only really needed for a bike over 900cc”. They quoted around £220-250 to fix the headrace bearing if required. Well f*ck you very much guys, I’ll take it to OMC and do it myself…
Fortunately, my experience with OMC was much, much better, and I have nothing but good things to say about them. The basic maintenance course was pitched at a level that even a super noob like me (yeah, you see what I did there) could find it accessible, but there was enough covered in a couple of hours to make me feel confidence in being able to spot the kind of things that were wrong with my CBR. If only I’d known before buying! Should also point out that all of the OMC guys hung around for over an hour after the session ended (until nearly midnight) to help out with a couple of issues that had been identified with punters’ bikes (such as my own) during the course of the session. If you could use a brush-up on the basics of bike maintenance, or are an utter novice like myself, get yourself down there!
Sorry for the long post.
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