First 16000 miles service costs!

[DB1965 224]

               

[roddy 845]

My 16000 mile service is around the corner , to save a little bit of money I am going to ask them to just do the necessaries  just to cut down on the cost as I am not selling the bike now is it important to have things done such as valve clearances?

[matt28 401]

I was really shocked when I asked Honda dealer for price for 2 rear suspension link stabilizers for my wife car - £73 each plus £65 labur, while bought them online for £27 both and fitted myself.

Same is with NC - warranty is running out on September 2016, no chance to reach 8000 miles, as I'm doing approx 3000 miles per year. Probably will change oil and filters myself.

Edited April 27, 2015 by matt28

[TheEnglishman 401]

My 16000 mile service is around the corner , to save a little bit of money I am going to ask them to just do the necessaries  just to cut down on the cost as I am not selling the bike now is it important to have things done such as valve clearances?

 

 

'little bit of money'??? 

[Guest bonekicker]

While still in warranty we are obliged to have these services done--so look around and pay what you believe is right--most of the servicing bits like oiling cables and checking chain should be done every week by yourself anyway---and check over your bike every time before you go out--to just double check nothing as come loose--give the tyres a kick make sure they are not flat at the bottom(strange they are never flat at the top) learn about your bike don't just polish it and think you are maintaining it by washing alone--learn from forum members here--having these extra skills and knowledge pays dividends--and stop's any bullshit you are given from garages--- Knowledge Is Power.  

[glencoeman 129]

I have to agree that it is in everybody's interest to use their local dealers. In Stoke on Trent, which with Newcastle under Lyme, has a population of about 400k people. The only new Japanese bike dealer is DK Motorcycles which sells Kawasaki. There are no Honda, Yamaha or Suzuki dealerships anymore. However there is a very successful Triumph dealer. If you don't use them, you lose them.

[Guest Alfie434]

on my 2014 NC700s thus far on servicing -

 

1st service £127.18

8000 £298.20

16000 £302.88

24000 £199.98

 

all the items you paid for on your 16000 were far more expoensive than mine, the garage is over charging you, ask what that unknown charge is, you have a right to know, if it is not needed then ask for a refund.

 

I am just going to complain about all my costs and service actions as there is no parity across the board, things are being missed on the services. It seems to me they just want to get the bike in and out as quick as possible and then charge for work and time that did not get done. How can they inspect the condition of my pads when they did not even take them out ?? How can they inspect the brake caliper when it is full of crud and the pads are still instal;led, how did they check the tension springs or if one of the pots was stuck etc etc !!! I can do everything myself but have not got the time!

 Where was my air filter change at 24000 ??

I was told that the MC700s on a 14 plate only needed the tappets checking and adjusting every 16000 as I kincked off about ripping the top off every 8000 and finding that the clearances had not changed, plus they did wrtite them down for me to scrutinise or indeed send them to Honda to allow them to ascertain if the checking periodidcy can be amnended on accord that hardly any were off spec !!! Plus where is my refund for the 8000 mile tappet check that was not required.

The Honds Jazz car gets it tappets checked every 24000 miles. Isnt the NC engine half a Jazz engine, therefore a 24000 mile tappet check should map across, 4000RPM at 80MPH is not a high revving engine so why the increased periodicy.

Brake fluid, change every 2 years !! REALLY. How about 2 years or 24000 whichever comes first. They argued that maybe the DOT4 fluid is better and does not need changing, total rubbish, mine was like coka cola after 24000 miles of use, i had them change it.

 

Even my Honda CBF1000 2008 from new was cheaper to run than this monkey bike.

 

It seems like they write what they like on the service sheets and try and bluff you on the desk.

 

I will post my complaint and answers once complete.

 

Is the Honda warrenty that good to keep paying these horendous dealer service costs ?? Are the honda warrenty componants that poor that they reqquire a warranty, the things that wear are not covered, the only things that are covered from my point of view are the engine, engine management and subsystems, HISS unit, the rest of it is all basic and can be replaced with not much fuss from aftermarket items or crashed bike spares.

[Rocker66 34,374]

 

Is the Honda warrenty that good to keep paying these horendous dealer service costs ?? Are the honda warrenty componants that poor that they reqquire a warranty, the things that wear are not covered, the only things that are covered from my point of view are the engine, engine management and subsystems, HISS unit, the rest of it is all basic and can be replaced with not much fuss from aftermarket items or crashed bike spares.

 

From my experience the bits that wear AKA consumables such as chains brake pads and so on are not covered by any bike manufactures warranty. I doubt whether car warranty covers consumables either

[roddy 845]

Mine is going in tomorrow will let folk know what was done and how much.

[roddy 845]

£298.48 4hours labour and done a deal to pay in instalments,two valves needed adjusting apart from that it's running like new

[Guest Jim Simon]

Is there a forum list of dealers who play it straight? I'm in Sussex in UK if anyone has experience local to me.

[Guest phantom309]

had my 8000 mile service two weeks ago at bransons ( now Thunder Road ) gloucester. 

oil filter             £6.50

oil filter cartri*A £9.58

plug washer     £0.59

oil                     £31.64

disposal of oil   £2.50

coolant             £6.75

 total parts       £57.56

 

labour £50 x 3hrs..=£150

 this included valves as they said needed doing ...

grand total        £249.07 inc.vat

[roddy 845]

Andy, I think that was a bit expensive for an 8000 miles service? Valves do not need doing until 16000 miles. That is according to my Honda dealer?

[trisaki 2,029]

My dealer said (nc700) if its a ac model ie nc700xac valves need checking at 8000 if its a nc700xad then its 16000 same applies to the S model

[Guest Southerner]

My dealer said (nc700) if its a ac model ie nc700xac valves need checking at 8000 if its a nc700xad then its 16000 same applies to the S model

Cobblers....

 

Only the 750 is at 16k.

[Guest dentonlad]

According to the maintenance schedule in the Owners Manual for my NC700XA-D the valve clearances should be inspected every 8,000 miles..

 

I had mine done at the annual service last year when the bike had done 7,260 miles. One of the inlet valves on pot 2 was .229 rather than .178

 

All the others and the outlet valves were spot on.

 

It's due it's annual service next week but as I'll only have done about 3,500 since the last service they have been told not to do the valves.

[trisaki 2,029]

Language timothy ! Shoe repairers to you as well southerner ! Only saying what a dealer told me my book says 8000 as well but it is an AC

Edited May 6, 2015 by trisaki

[enquisiter 2]

Only one way to go outside warranty that is.. do it yourself. The NC is such an easy bike to work with poss exception of getting to air filter.

[Bart Stilgo 428]

Over servicing is a worldwide problem.  All manufacturers put in place service intervals far shorter than necessary.  Its a way of generating revenue and making the most of peoples general lack of understanding of engines.  There are so many factors influencing when parts need changing the manufacturer has to pick a point in time to cover most of the issues that 'could' interrupt the bike running efficiently.  There have been many threads on the forum about how the NC wears over the miles.  With some riders needing to change parts much sooner than others.  In my business of Technical Support we use a figure of 5% of purchase price to represent the amount of money you should spend each year to keep the equipment reliable.  It seems to work well.  And it seems to stay constant if you choose to ignore it for a year or two.  The costs just build up over the years until you have a massive bill rather than a much smaller bill each year.

Labour is the killer.  The parts don't seem to be overly expensive on the NC.  Today I quoted a customer a filter element for a keg cleaning machine at £665+VAT.   It needs three of these.

I've done the 8000 mile service myself.  With genuine parts and recommended oil.  And I refuse to service early.  So when 16000 arrives the next service will be done, not before.  But my engineering background helps me to identify issues and problems early.  If there was an issue I would deal with it.  Thankfully there has been none.

Servicing is important.  The worse the environment the more it needs to happen.  The less you know the more you are reliant on a third parties knowledge.  It's a game of risk.  Put it off if you dare.  Mr Honda has been very good at producing reliability.  The trouble is, he's wrapped it up in a whole load of plastic and fittings that take time to uncover.

Its a two edged sword.

When we own the bike we dont want to pay for service

When we buy it we sure want that little stamp in the book to reassure ourselves.

 

 

[Andy m 23,472]

The Americans find it much easier to get oil analysis done, their economy has fewer examples of needing credit accounts to buy such services. The results are typically that even in dusty states like Arizona and Cities like San Francisco, you can safely double the oil change intervals Honda prescribe. You will only get close to an 8000 mile life if you ride exclusively in Baja. I very much doubt Luton or Leuchars are tougher. 

 

Loonies changing at 1500 miles on the Mumsnet principle (OMG, will somebody do something, anything, will no one think of the children.....) are achieving only the following:

 

1. Making the suppliers of oil richer (and we know how much those lovely oligarchs and sheikhs need and deserve that). 

2. Damaging the environment to no purpose. 

3. Wearing out a drain plug and running with low oil pressure longer than the engine designer envisaged. There is no benefit to the vehicle owner except the feeling their hypercondria has been settled for a while. 

 

Andy

 

 

[The Possum 33]

Probably like pouring petrol on the fire but seriously paying £67 to fit a set of rear brake pads!  It's not even a 10 minute job.  Everything on this list is really easy and cheap to do yourself except the air filter, which is admittedly a bit of a pain...can't you lot just down load the servicing manual and learn to love your bikes? You'll save a fortune and gain the confidence of what's what when something doesn't quite feel right to boot.

 

On the dealer front, I had to have my NC restricted to an A2.  This had to be done by the dealer to get the certificate for insurance (you can imagine what I thought about that) but interestingly got emailed an in depth video of what they thought of the bike and the work they were doing.  Quite expensive  at £120 but it did reassure me that the mechanic at least really did know his stuff and wasn't doing anything to rip me off.  If you have to use  a dealer that's fine, all I'm saying is sometimes just take a bit of time out, pick up the tools and get stuck in ~ you never know you might enjoy it.

 

 

 

[Rocker66 34,374]

Just now, The Possum said:

Probably like pouring petrol on the fire but seriously paying £67 to fit a set of rear brake pads!  It's not even a 10 minute job.  Everything on this list is really easy and cheap to do yourself except the air filter, which is admittedly a bit of a pain...can't you lot just down load the servicing manual and learn to love your bikes? You'll save a fortune and gain the confidence of what's what when something doesn't quite feel right to boot.

 

On the dealer front, I had to have my NC restricted to an A2.  This had to be done by the dealer to get the certificate for insurance (you can imagine what I thought about that) but interestingly got emailed an in depth video of what they thought of the bike and the work they were doing.  Quite expensive  at £120 but it did reassure me that the mechanic at least really did know his stuff and wasn't doing anything to rip me off.  If you have to use  a dealer that's fine, all I'm saying is sometimes just take a bit of time out, pick up the tools and get stuck in ~ you never know you might enjoy it.

 

 

 

Tried it due to necessity back in the 60s and didn’t enjoy it one bit.  I appreciate that some people enjoy working on their bikes but to me they are for riding not tinkering with other than the usual chain tyre and oil checks. I’m lucky in that I have a really good dealer whose staff I trust.

[Andy m 23,472]

My only comment on the above except to agree, is that costs and prices are unrelated. 

 

I once charged £666.75 to change a fuse on a bus. The depot manager was a screaming black-box-be-full-o-demons, it's not my fault, you must be punished for this happening, action right now, proactive clown. He was told it was the fuse but continued to wail like a toddler. I drove to London, changed the fuse, came home and billed him. 

 

This is fair price because it is what he wanted at the time he placed the order and what he was quoted. The fact he was too stupid to even listen to advice, or get someone closer to take a look is why he paid this sum.

 

Andy

[davebike 943]

Commenting on the pad change price ax a pro I could see it

Bike comes in "just swap the rear pads"   up on bench go to back off first a minor clean so no dirt into seals then  real stiff to back off no slide caliper sized go yo remove main slide pin totally sized! Takes an hour to free off strip caliper de rust pins regrease re assemble and fit pads   with me pads £30 1hour bench time£50 oh there is £80  of course I could just force it all back with new pads and just let it go but I don't and will not do a poor job for me doing it right matters  Consequenses of not we saw a VFR1200 pads fitted by local tyre place calipers filthy and outer pistons sticky by the time it came to us for dragging brakes the disks were so bent they had worn into the calipers result new disks and pads + major clean up on calipers 100miles or less after pads fitted without cleaning callipers 

Pad change can take 10mins or an hour depanding on condition of callipers!  short cuts are not exatable with brakes!

[Empty_Ten 441]

Cor, if I was paying under £400 for a major check with valve clearances I’d be well happy 

 

I had a 48,000 mile service with valve clearance this year for my MT10 which was just shy of £700 from an independent shop in London. The first valve clearance at 24k cost me just shy of £900 at the original main dealer and they charged me 8hrs of Labour.  I had other stuff done too but I think they quoted 6hrs of Labour for the servicing side etc.

 

My blade had its 16k valve check service as well  this year.  £654, this was done with an independent guy (not the one who did the MT) who was one of the mechanics in Metropolis Motorcycles Barnet and has set up his own shop now.  the spark plugs are shown as inspect on the service manual bit I opted to replace.  And that’s £120 odd in itself so could’ve been £530 ish if I followed the service manual instructions.

He charges £90 an hour labour but only charged 3 hours labour.  I will happily use him again and probably for subsequent servicing on the NC.  Very honest guy, took pictures of the bike in pieces and during the service.  When I collected the bike, he showed me the old spark plugs and also gave me the leftover engine oil and brake fluid. 

Main dealer is just pricing themselves out of the market in my opinion.  The dealer I’m getting my NC quoted me £200 for the 600 mile service (in reality I know it’ll be less) but he was using it as a bargaining chip when negotiating the bike sale.  I’d really expect to pay no more than £100-£120 from a main dealer for that.

 

Its always a gamble but I now tend to look for independent shops to do my work rather than main dealers.  And I am completely ham fisted and have done enough bodge jobs to know that I’m not mechanically minded.  As my bikes are commuters, it’s important that they run well consistently hence why I leave it to the pros