This is going to be a really long and very detail oriented post about an ordeal I just went to with the KTM dealer in Santa Monica, California. So please brace yourself if you want to share my pain. Otherwise please move along. No hard feelings.

My KTM 950 Supermoto was coming up to a big 10K mile service also known as the 15K kilometer or every 2 year service according to the owner’s manual. This is a major service that pretty much includes anything and everything. Namely an oil change, new spark plugs, change brake fluid, valve clearance check and adjustment, bleed fork legs and the whole bunch of assorted checks. After conferring with my rider friends we made a collaborative decision that it would be best if an authorized KTM dealer performed this big service. I did not feel like doing all this work in my parking garage with limited to no tools. Neither one of my rider friends is a mechanic skilled enough to perform the valve clearance check and adjustment. Also the owner’s manual suggests that “all service work on your KTM should be performed by a qualified KTM dealer”.

I made some research and found two KTM dealers in my area – KTM of Santa Monica and KTM of Thousand Oaks. After spending some time on the phone with both, getting price quotes for the service and posting on advrider about which of the two my fellow ADV riders would recommend the choice has been made – KTM of Santa Monica.

The person from their service department I was talking to reassured me that everything and anything that the 10K mile service entails would be taken care of. The price quote for this big service was 640 dollars in labor (8 hours of labor at $80/hr) and approximately $100 in parts. I was sort of surprised that the labor part had a fixed price independent of whether the valve clearance should be adjusted or not. Basically if you see that the valves require no adjustment the time spent working on a bike is way less than 8 hours. Oh well … I was told that they do not necessarily need to charge me for all parts as they might use something like brake fluid that they already have in their shop. That later turned out to be an outright lie. By the time I had to drop it off my KTM had developed an acute case of a clutch slave cylinder failure. I had also asked them to take care of that and replace it with the new Evoluzione clutch slave cylinder. That added another half hour of labor ($40) plus the cost of the part itself, roughly $200.

The stage had been set. I dropped the bike off last Saturday, 8 days ago. What happened next was something I would never expect from an authorized KTM dealer performing an almost 1000 dollar service.

I dropped the bike off on Saturday, 8 days ago and got a call the following Sunday. My service adviser told me that the big 10K service had been done. And all they need now is to order the clutch slave cylinder. However they could not proceed until I pay for it. That sounded slightly ridiculous to me. It wasn’t like I randomly called them and asked them to order a part for me. My motorcycle was sitting at their shop already. They just performed an $800 service that I would have to pay for. Yet they wanted me to prepay another 200 something dollars “just to be sure” I won’t back out of this deal. I asked my service adviser if it was absolutely necessary for me to come in person and pay for it. He promised to talk to his service manager and call me back. Never happened.

After waiting the rest of Sunday, Monday and half of Tuesday I decided to take matters into my own hands and called them. As before it had been confirmed now by the service manager that I did need to come in and pay. I promptly showed up at their front gate with my Visa out of its holster. I got presented with two invoices totaling almost $1100 – one for the 10K service, another for the clutch slave cylinder and half an hour of labor to get it installed. I paid everything in full and took off.

When I got home and looked at the invoices things stopped making any sense to me. First of all despite the fact that there is no sales tax on labor in the state of California the invoice for the clutch slave cylinder had sales tax added on labor as well as on the cost of the part. “Honest mistake”, - I thought. And then I looked closely at the 10K mile invoice and noticed something strange. The invoice listed oil, oil filter, some small items like 2 o-rings for like a dollar each. However some items that should have been present like a new air filter or brake fluid were missing. And I had a charge for … 8 spark plugs in there. Also there was no reference to whether shims were used or not to adjust the valve clearance. I became really suspicious. Just by looking at the invoice it pretty much seemed like I got a $640 dollar oil change. I refused to believe what I saw.

I was back at the dealership the next (Wednesday) morning. I wanted clarification of what had been done to my motorcycle under the 10K mile service as well as understanding why my bike needed 8 spark plugs. After a very few apologies I had received a $62 refund (6 spark plugs plus tax on labor). Then I got a chance to talk to the mechanic that worked on my bike. He told me that he had looked at the air filter and it looked clean enough. So no replacement was needed. Pretty strange given that my motorcycle endured a 1K mile trip to Baja and a 1K mile trip to Death Valley. He also told me that he looked at the brake fluid and it looked alright to him. Therefore he did not feel it had to be changed. Well, the KTM owner’s manual begs to differ. It clearly states that the brake fluid needs to be changed during this service. Both the mechanic and the service manager reluctantly agreed with my previous statement and told me that they’d do that as well if I WANTED TO.

I left the dealership that morning with mixed feelings. On one hand it seemed like things that happened were just honest mistakes. On the other hand they looked like a complete lack of professionalism. I was inclined to think it was the latter. If it’s in the book it has to be done. If you call yourself an authorized KTM dealer first thing you do is look in the book to see what is it you have to do in a given maintenance procedure.

I got a call few days later. Everything was completed and the bike was ready for me. I went to pick it up yesterday, Saturday morning. Upon my arrival I was presented with yet another invoice. This time it was for the brake fluid. I can’t say I was pleased. Just a few days ago I was essentially schooling these very employees of this very KTM dealer about the ways of the 10K mile maintenance and what that maintenance includes. I was expecting that I would not have to be charged for something they had forgotten to do. Especially in light of the mistakes they made the other day. Well, I was wrong. I began to slowly boil up. The tipping point came when I went to pay the invoice. The cashier told me that the service manager made a mistake yet again. The total for the brake fluid should have been slightly less than what the invoice showed. That was the precise moment I decided I was going to be very meticulous and pedantic with them.

My motorcycle was already rolled out of the service area when I got back with the paid invoice. My service adviser causally handed me the keys and began to wander off. As previously stated I had just turned into a meticulous and pedantic bastard. So I began checking every little bit of the motorcycle. What I noticed immediately was that both of the front orange fairings were really dirty. Also I spotted a scratch a few inches long on the rear orange fairing. And to top things off the tire pressure in the rear tire was 7 psi under what it should have been. That’s despite them telling me prior that they had checked everything and anything INCLUDING the tire pressure.

I kept my cool on the outside. However on the inside I was fuming. I brought all these three things to their attention. The mechanic rolled my bike back into the service area. Some 10 minutes later he had told me and shown me that I had a tiny cut on a rear tire. I could not legitimately say that the cut wasn’t originally there when I brought the bike in a week ago. So I decided to let that go. However I was not going to do the same with the scratch situation. We went back to the service manager. A few vague statements later I had him say that they will replace the part. He just had to look into the cost and availability. I am unsure why at that point he would want to look into anything other than making me happy. Whatever the cost is they have to be ordering it pronto and keep apologizing profusely for their terrible service. The service manager promised to call me as soon as he had any information. As of today, Sunday’s morning I haven’t received a call.

I am not going to let it slide though. I am really pissed off. And will keep the pressure on. Almost forgot one detail. As I was walking out the service manager said this: “Of course we are going to replace the scratched part. We are not a pop-and-mom shop; we are an authorized KTM dealer”. I did not feel like starting a pissing match. However the irony of the situation was that they did everything that would qualify them as nothing but a pop-and-mom shop.

Here is the bottom line to this story. I am utterly shocked that something like that could happen at an authorized KTM dealer. The whole reason I decided to to go to a dealer was to make sure all the little things and tweaks that this service entails would be properly done. I paid $680 in labor and my total was well over $1000 including parts. It is a lot of money to pay for a service. And when you pay that much money for a service you are not expected to double check what the dealer is doing to your vehicle. At this point I am absolutely unsure of what exactly was done to my motorcycle. Probably what they did do was just the oil change, the valve clearance check with no adjustment (the mechanic said I did not need one, however understandably I have to take anything those guys say with a grain of salt), clutch slave cylinder, clutch and brake fluid change and chain maintenance. The last two items though got included in the service only because I had explicitly requested them. And all of these things do not require 8,5 hours of labor.

At this point I am contemplating contacting KTM of North America and filing a complaint. This was a terrible brand representation on the KTM of Santa Monica’s behalf. This would not reflect on my love for the brand though. I still love my KTM Supermoto and still think KTM makes terrific motorcycles.

Fellow riders be warned – stay away from Honda, Kawasaki and KTM of Santa Monica.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at 9:56 am and is filed under Motorcycles, Street, Offroad, Riding, Gear, Life, Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.