I needed a part for my GS500 so I went to the dealership near my work and ordered it.

2.5 weeks go by and my supposed "special order" still hasn't arrived.  They told me to "just go to bikebandit since they have parts for older bikes" (this particular part is common to EVERY GS500 AFAIK).

Dissatisfied, I call a dealer about 30 mins from my house (1.25 hours from work) and after doing a quick check they call me back and say they can have it in 3 days.  I place the order late Thursday night and get a call Tuesday night on my work voicemail saying its there and come pick it up.

I guess my question is:  how can one dealer have such a hard time getting a simple part and another one can get it there in 3 days?


edit - Yes, I called about a week after I ordered it, then 10 days after I ordered it, and finally 2 weeks later I called the other dealership.

The first dealership didn't have trouble getting the part, they just don't give a damn about parts sales. Some places are only interested in bike sales and/or service. If they can't charge you $75/hr for labor, they don't care if you get the part. Send an email to Suzuki telling them about it, and don't do business with the idjits. For years, I wouldn't use the dealer closest to my house because the owner was an a$$hole. About all you can do is vote with your wallet.

I work at a Suzuki dealer  and I hear the same stories all the time...

REASON:

Sometimes the dealer is small. Suzuki and all other parts co's require a minimum order of say $600 or so so that shipping is free. If your order is not $600 then shipping eats up a good portion of the dealers proffit. So some small dealers have to wait a week or more sometimes until they get enough orders to meet the $600 limit. Also like JP said, some just dont care about parts sales.

our dealership takes orders from other dealers/MC shops in order to meet our (free ship limit) faster, pretty much we order every part everyday and Suzuki sends them the next day, we get them in 2-3 days.

I agree about sending Suzuki an email. but only if you plan to never go to that dealer again because Suzuki will contact them and correct the problem. Suzuki America has GREAT service and takes care of customer complaints FAST!Of course the dealer will then hate you 

$600.00 in parts to get free shipping?  That explains things... they appear to be a smallish dealer (not the smallest I've seen, though) and when they said they finally got parts in that were ordered a month ago its probably because they were being cheap and wanted free shipping.

Still, when parts on average have 50% markup, how much can shipping really eat into things if they place a parts order?

as for what JP said, that was pretty much what I figured.  I bet if I walked in and said I wanted to finance 85% of MSRP on a busa they would be breaking out the kneepads.

They had no problem scheduling me in to have $117.00 in labor done, though.

The funny thing is their shop rate is lower than every other dealer in an area id be willing to drive, which baffles me why they wouldnt want to make some extra coin on the side getting parts.  I mean how hard is it?  someone walks in and says "I want blahblahblah for my blahblahblah", they take 5 minutes to look on a fische to get a part number, and they place the order.  Its all of what, 5 minutes of their time to sell something that on average probably has 50% margin?

The first place never ordered it. I would call the store and ask for the general manager, and then tell him how you will never do business with that store based on your experience.

heh all of this also explains why the jet needles for the carbs were discontinued, even though (IIRC) its the same part for every GS500 ever made in north america.

its a cheap part and doesn't really help them toward their $600.00 order so its easier to say its discontinued.

I've experienced the same thing with a local dealer... Was waiting 3+ weeks for a gasket. "Limit" or not their service sucked --bad attitudes and laziness came before any limit with this place -- they'll never see another penny from me again.

I've stuck with the other dealer since then...Rarely do I have to wait more than 3 days for anything I buy there... (And I get 10% off because I'm a frequent flyer..). Find a good place and stick with them...if you're in there enough they'll probably get to know you a little and you might even get  better service than usual...

Good Luck.

Quote from: CanukGS500 on September 25, 2008, 11:17:56 AM
heh all of this also explains why the jet needles for the carbs were discontinued, even though (IIRC) its the same part for every GS500 ever made in north america.

its a cheap part and doesn't really help them toward their $600.00 order so its easier to say its discontinued.

I believe its $9 each ... I can get em.
Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: scottpA_GS on September 25, 2008, 07:13:01 AM

I work at a Suzuki dealer  and I hear the same stories all the time...

REASON:

Sometimes the dealer is small. Suzuki and all other parts co's require a minimum order of say $600 or so so that shipping is free. If your order is not $600 then shipping eats up a good portion of the dealers proffit. So some small dealers have to wait a week or more sometimes until they get enough orders to meet the $600 limit. Also like JP said, some just dont care about parts sales.

our dealership takes orders from other dealers/MC shops in order to meet our (free ship limit) faster, pretty much we order every part everyday and Suzuki sends them the next day, we get them in 2-3 days.

I agree about sending Suzuki an email. but only if you plan to never go to that dealer again because Suzuki will contact them and correct the problem. Suzuki America has GREAT service and takes care of customer complaints FAST!Of course the dealer will then hate you 

Yep, I used to work at a suzuki / honda dealer -- a small one -- and you hit the nail on the head here.  Yes, the shipping charges add up fast and yes it really does eat into margin.  And no, the margin isn't 50% (well, ok, maybe on some pieces) but on plenty of kinds of pieces it can be a pretty small margin.  So bottom line, yes, we always held orders but our shop was pretty good, never held an order more than a couple of days. Would send it out even if we didn't have the minimum so as not to keep the customer waiting too long.

But you know what happened before long?  Even that short delay was enough to piss off customers (who'd a thunk?) and this place lost both franchises -- honda and suzuki.

  Still in business selling honda power equipment (talk about mark-up!) and Toro, Troy-bilt, Ariens, Bolens, White, MTD, other lawn and garden stuff.

buddha, they came in from bike bandit the day after your jet kit arrived.  Thanks though.

5th Ave - yes its a shame that some people get upset that they cant have it tomorrow, but at the same time for the part I wanted I think its very unfair of them to keep dragging it along for over two weeks just to say in the end "You can order it from bike bandit since they buy up parts for older bikes" even though this part is EXACTLY THE SAME on EVERY YEAR BIKE AFAIK (at least up to 2002 anyway).  The part in question, though not keeping my bike from being operational, make riding far less enjoyable since it was a part related to giving me accurate speed monitoring.  It has me depressed that they treated me the way they did.

I found out something after the fact though that shouldnt have suprised me.  Turns out the owner of this place owns a car dealership that I took my car to once because I had a short which caused a ground fault and one of my wires melted apart to save my car.  $200.00 in a tow bill and repairs later, I come to find that their idea of fixing the ground wire is cleaning the ends up that melted, holding them in place so that the ends overlapped by about 1cm, and wrapping the whole wire end-to-end in electrical tape.

I found this out because when the weather got really hot this summer, the electrical tape failed and I started having ground fault issues again.

Now that I know the same person owns both that car dealership and this bike place, anything this bike place does no longer suprises me, and I wont be going there for anything again.

I needed a clutch lever after I let my bike fall (don't ask).  I called Bike Bandit to see if they could do anything to get me one fast and was told that they ordered everything from Suzuki.  So, it sounds like whether you use Bike Bandit or the local dealer, their ordering process is basically the same (although it's easy to see how Bike Bandit might have no problem meeting the $600 min. every day with a high internet volume).  Anyway, this just seems to confirm that your local dealer was totally full of it, because it doesn't sound like Bike Bandit "buys up parts."

Sasha

Just tell the manager of the first dealership,that you will not be buying the 1300 Hayabusa that you looked at last month! Tell him you have cash in hand but you didn't like being jerked around on such a small matter and that you doubt that you could trust his dealership to do a simple oil change on a new Busa! Bring that up at the next sells meeting....Mr. Manager.

i use a small dealer in vallejo for my parts.  it is also where i bought the bike new.  thay have always been great.  they do want to sell a more complete service than the bike recommends but they have a great reputation as far as i know.

d