Their Yamaha dealer in the City of London was pretty good. However, when I tried to test ride a used bike at Swindon, I was told that test rides on used machinery was impossible. I am surprised that anyone would buy a used bike without a test ride... I was also surprised by the rudeness of the sales staff.

I hope Grainger comes through, and saves it.

horobags wrote:I hope Grainger comes through, and saves it.

I doubt that will be financially viable.

Just returned from the trade Expo show at the NEC. The George White situation is the talk of the show. Piaggio it seems is owed £300k... Gonna be a tough year for some...

the talk down here is he is only interested in the two plymouth showrooms he still owns the free hold on
not in george white as a whole

jamie wrote:the talk down here is he is only interested in the two plymouth showrooms he still owns the free hold on
not in george white as a whole

Never for one moment thought Mike would be interested in the outfit. I visited him during my stint with Piaggio. Top fella, hope he can negotiate a deal for the Plymouth locations... the future lies with small, customer focused dealerships with a diverse range of product.

Look what happened to Motorcycle Shitty and who was at the helm of that sinking ship?

when he sold out to george white the atmosphere in the torbay branch went tits up over night
prices went through the roof for even basic consumables .. still its a shame the lads in the workshop were a great bunch

just hope they find work quickly

We have a family run dealer over here, Crescents. They used to do just Suzuki but now have taken on Kawasaki, Yamaha, KTM and the whole Piaggio group too. So far, all seems good still so maybe these smaller dealers will work as oppose to big franchises....?

barryG wrote:We have a family run dealer over here, Crescents. They used to do just Suzuki but now have taken on Kawasaki, Yamaha, KTM and the whole Piaggio group too. So far, all seems good still so maybe these smaller dealers will work as oppose to big franchises....?

I was chatting to a few Piaggio dealers... it seems nothing has changed. The sales figures back that up...

I was in George White in Bolton last week. The girl had to open the door for me as it was locked, at 12.30. Nobody in till i got there i asked if they had any RST Jackets. Her exact words to me were" no, we only sell cheap stuff". With staff like that not surprised they,ve gone out of business

It seems other companies are owed big money by GW. Their financial 'situation' was common knowledge in the industry since 2010 which begs the question why many extended more than generous credit terms and then ramped up their credit lines to the limit?

Greed in a word and its now blown up in everyone's faces...