Went into dealers to get cost for first service on my 11 plate Tmax, its done 5100 miles and had oil changed by me at 3000....

£240 quid to change the oil and do a few checks......... I nearly fell over.....

can you not go to a place that will still stamp your service book...therefore keeping the warranty valid...and wont tear the ass out of your wallet..?
chek the pads before you take bike in coz dealers change em and charge you even if they are half worn with loads left on em.... a good check over shouldnt take more than 10 minutes....

I had the same experience in January. My Burgman 650 needed it's 600 mile first service so I emailed my local Suzuki dealer to get a quote. £286 !!
Several emails were exchanged and according to them it was a 4 hour service! They extracted this from the 'live' Suzuki dealer website.
I called another Suzuki dealer 25 miles away that I purchased my Intruder and had serviced from and they quoted 'no more than 2 hours' at £60 per hour plus oils etc. A local Piaggio scooter dealer also confirmed the 'no more than 2 hours'.
I got back to the first Suzuki dealer with this information and they asked their technicians and they returned with it 'should' not take more than 2 hours.

Eventually I took it to the Suzuki dealer 25 miles away and they charged only £132 at about 1½ hours labour plus parts.

With a new purchase Suzuki Customer services send you a questionnaire about your first service. I sent this back with the above comments and how can a dealer get 4 hours for a 2 hours job?

After several letters and emails to Suzuki I was astonished to read that they indeed allow 4 hours for the Burgman 650 first 600 mile service, WHY? To take into account the different experience or knowledge between dealers!!!! I thought they advertised 'fully trained Suzuki technicians' to be a Service Dealer? So we are expected to pay £100s extra because a technician has never serviced a Burgman scooter before. They even stated that I question the dealer that did my service as they may have not completed it fully! I intend to take that letter to the service technician that serviced my scooter and I now what his reaction will be.

Like I have done, even if you have to travel, find a dealer that is fair with you and they will always get my services

Whatever happened to the 'free' first service? Well, free labour anyway. Why did that change??

Well if I were a dealer who had a customer came in that had spent the amount of money it takes to get onto an 11 plate Tmax, I'd also make up a random stupidly high figure for any work that supposedly needed doing.

Piaggio recommended services for the Nexus are £299 for a main and £165 for intermediate though if I had a MKII the intermediate would be something like £70 or atleast it was a couple of years ago.

The last time i had a bike serviced by a dealer was in 1982.I bought a new Superdream250 and took it for its first "free" service. I dont recall how much they charged for this "Free" service but i know i questioned a charge of £2 for Ancillaries. They said this was for things like, topping up the brake fluid and oiling the cables. After 500mls i very much doubt the brake fluid needed topping up. I never again let anyone "service" my bikes or cars. Common sense is all that is needed to keep any machine running well.Doing the oil and filter changes at the recommended intervals,and changing spark plugs, the same, are the most important things to keeping your machine performing as it should. You also get the satisfaction of knowing that nothing has been missed or left loose. I now run a Silverwing 600.

My 6 week service was free from Kymco, the second at 6 months paid for by the UK importer because of a small problem at the beginning, the third at 12 months was only £60, and forth just over a ton. It's just coming up for the 18 month one which I am expecting to be around the same. After that the next will be at two years and it'll be out of warrenty and I'll do my own. That'll mean that the total cost of servicing for 2 years would be around £260, which I don't think is bad. Mind you, I still haven't done 2000 miles!

STOP PRESS
Just picked it up from the latest service - £60. So that's £220 for the first two years.
And it always come back smoother, faster and cleaner....
RoadRunner Stroud - Now looking at the Kymco Zing for the memsahib! Take look - pretty! http://www.kymco.co.uk/zing_125_motorbike

SpikeOne wrote:My 6 week service was free from Kymco, the second at 6 months paid for by the UK importer because of a small problem at the beginning, the third at 12 months was only £60, and forth just over a ton. It's just coming up for the 18 month one which I am expecting to be around the same. After that the next will be at two years and it'll be out of warrenty and I'll do my own. That'll mean that the total cost of servicing for 2 years would be around £260, which I don't think is bad. Mind you, I still haven't done 2000 miles!

5 services in under 2000 miles

SpikeOne wrote:That'll mean that the total cost of servicing for 2 years would be around £260, which I don't think is bad. Mind you, I still haven't done 2000 miles!

When I bought a second hand car recently I took a £260 two year service and first MoT deal that's good for 24,000 miles.
That's more than ten times better than your Kymco...
Main dealer bike servicing prices are a joke.