THE BEST
THE BEST is usually the dealer...without them we have no support for the things that we can't do ourselves. IF you are a valued customer you will find that dealers will knock off things for you and give you discounts depending upon how much busines that you are giving them. I know that 3 times the price for a bulb is a little (LOT) steep, but they have an overhead, insurance, employees...lots of things to pay for just to be there for us. I'm a poor, really poor (financially) and can't even afford to buy another bike right now. But think about the situation IF you were the shop person paying the bills, instead of being the customer. I prefer my military boots over the plastic and metal ones that they sell and I prefer helmets that are better than you will find in most bike shops. IF they don't have it then I'll get it someplace else...but I have always used the thought process mentioned above.
I once bought a Kawasaki 175 Dirt bike and the Air Force guy only used it to ride to and from work and home all on the base. The tire was worn like a slick, in the middle, and because he kept fouling plugs (2-stroke) he finally found a hot plug that didn't foul. I bought new tires but the shop didn't catch the plug. I was in Hawaii, Oahu, and on H-1 (Intra-State 1) I melted a hole in the piston. It had no compression when I kicked it over. We pulled the plug and it was like aluminum metalflake all over the plug...we hauled it into the shop and within 4 hours, and all the other bikes in there I was back on the road! New piston rings, cylinder honed, new gaskets tuned up and even had the right plug in it when I left...the cost was NOMINAL and i continued to shop there for everything that they had...that I wanted. I'm not sorry for being long winded on this one. The dealers would vanish and we would be stuck shipping things or going to machine shops, or group garages, not the experts that specialize in our product. I hope that Kawasaki continues to Race in ALL areas of motorcycle racing and put their technology back into our street bikes. Now if we could only get them to compete with Aprilia in the 250 class with the NINJA 250R!
THE BEST is usually the dealer...without them we have no support for the things that we can't do ourselves. IF you are a valued customer you will find that dealers will knock off things for you and give you discounts depending upon how much busines that you are giving them. I know that 3 times the price for a bulb is a little (LOT) steep, but they have an overhead, insurance, employees...lots of things to pay for just to be there for us. I'm a poor, really poor (financially) and can't even afford to buy another bike right now. But think about the situation IF you were the shop person paying the bills, instead of being the customer. I prefer my military boots over the plastic and metal ones that they sell and I prefer helmets that are better than you will find in most bike shops. IF they don't have it then I'll get it someplace else...but I have always used the thought process mentioned above.
I once bought a Kawasaki 175 Dirt bike and the Air Force guy only used it to ride to and from work and home all on the base. The tire was worn like a slick, in the middle, and because he kept fouling plugs (2-stroke) he finally found a hot plug that didn't foul. I bought new tires but the shop didn't catch the plug. I was in Hawaii, Oahu, and on H-1 (Intra-State 1) I melted a hole in the piston. It had no compression when I kicked it over. We pulled the plug and it was like aluminum metalflake all over the plug...we hauled it into the shop and within 4 hours, and all the other bikes in there I was back on the road! New piston rings, cylinder honed, new gaskets tuned up and even had the right plug in it when I left...the cost was NOMINAL and i continued to shop there for everything that they had...that I wanted. I'm not sorry for being long winded on this one. The dealers would vanish and we would be stuck shipping things or going to machine shops, or group garages, not the experts that specialize in our product. I hope that Kawasaki continues to Race in ALL areas of motorcycle racing and put their technology back into our street bikes. Now if we could only get them to compete with Aprilia in the 250 class with the NINJA 250R!
