[bc1540]

Long story short , I visit California for official BRP unveiling last winter , roadtest...meet Jay Leno the whole nine yards awesome trip.... As one of my dealers top customers (number one in units sold to be exact) he invited me to attend with another good customer. The other customer ordered one yellow and I Immediately placed orders for two silver spyders. So we were one two and three....
fast forward....I get a call from the other customer 2 weeks ago saying he is getting his spyder the next day...... the dealer called him.....2 silvers came in and one yellow.....it was a very busy time for me at work traveling but I know my dealer will call me and give me a pick up date so I waited to here........no call comes.

I get another call from my new friend (haha) telling me the bike is awesome but..... while he was there picking up his spyder another customer took delivery of "my" silver unit and the other one was a demo .... from what he got out of it , it appears an out of state buyer came to a demo ride this summer and bought one on the spot ....months after we did...paid a premium and was a total pest to the dealer calling everyday etc etc.. so apparently he is now driving his (my) spyder....
So here I sit in December with no Spyder(s), wearing my spyder jackets I've had for months.... watching them appear on ebay , reading the forums about everyone who has got them.... I thought I was being fair...I had told my dealer I would only take one this fall, allowing him to sell any others he got knowing there was high demand. We would take my wifes next spring... guess not....
We had hoped to trailer south for a winter get-away ... not.....had I not heard from the customer I met in California I'd never even know my spyder dissapperared...I've been too upset to call my dealer, its not like he can do anything now anyways, I understand the demo must stay on premises until the next alottment arrives... I'm not posting the dealer because I'm not like that... I think he probably got pestered by a buyer wiling to pay a large premium and probably rightfully made the money.....
The biggest kick? Everyone at work is waiting to see my SPyder , knows its ordered since last winter..... and someone I work with goes to another local dealer , buys one right off the floor because that dealer got 4 and had only sold 2.....and brings it to work to show everyone, talk about getting looked at funny....
BRP should NEVER have set this up this way.......Factory order should have been mandatory for the premium edition ...the vin #'s were VERY low on the 3 that came in now I will be receiving one in the thousands for doing what I thought was right and ordering first.... ugh...By March I should cool down....

 

[John Galt]

Man, I can sure understand your frustration.

At least you can post the name of the dealer that screwed you, So I never end up ordering ANYTHING from them.

 

[HigginsPowersports]

Thats sure bad for business

we tracked all of our customers, and delivered them in the order they were ordered, and we're not charging any extra over retail.

 

[Spyderman]

Sorry to hear that

Hard to believe they would pull that after inviting you to the Introduction!

Sadly I have seen this sort of thing happen often (in cars).

As a result, I recommend that when a deposit is placed for any sort of "in demand" vehicle, to get in writing the number of the delivered vehicle ordered that your deposit is placed. i.e. "We XXXX dealer agree to take this XXXXX deposit and guaranty the delivery to YYYYYY the first Silver Spyder we receive". It must be signed by the dealers GM (not only the sales manager). Only time it is not legally binding that I know of is if the dealer is sold (yep, that happened to me on a Viper ).

This is a good idea be it a Spyder, a Mini Cooper, a Solstice or whatever is new and hot.

By the way, you wrote:

"Factory order should have been mandatory for the premium edition"

It was! unsold allotments WHERE reallotted to dealers with sold orders.

 

[bc1540]

but...

what I meant by factory order is like they do with automobiles, place my order , get issued a vin build number and thats the machine I get, not the lottery.

 

[Spyderman]

what I meant by factory order is like they do with automobiles, place my order , get issued a vin build number and thats the machine I get, not the lottery.

I actually asked BRP about this a while back. The way things are set up, the dealers really do nearly all the things "car guys" expect of the factory. As the complaints add up, maybe it will be reviewed. The factory not assigning VIN's is certainly the lean way to do things as it removes a lot of record keeping and communication requirements. If buyers are educated that VIN's are not assigned to buyers at the factory level for Spyders, more will do contracts which are more specific as to which Spyder the dealer receives will be theirs. With some dealers (see above), this is no issue.

After I typed my last reply I pondered the situation a bit more, I do agree with your comment about not complaining about what happened as it is water under the bridge and it would not change anything. You are obviously a very good customer of the dealership as you were invited to a very special event....

I'm wondering if a very carefully worded "I was very disappointed to hear...." might be in order though. Maybe even not directly from you, but subtly delivered to the dealer from let's say.... the owner that got the first yellow one? .... the dealers other "good customer", or maybe another back channel. It might result in an apology, or at least make them think twice about how they treat their long term customers.

Sometimes knowing you got caught in something you thought you got away with can be very affective at adjusting your behavior.... my father was an expert at doing this. I remember how he off handedly mentioned at dinner one Sunday night, "... that the Honda Civic rode a little funny today." Well the night before, my brother and I had managed to stuff, um, well eight friends in the civic with us (this was a '78 2 door, when Honda's were LITTLE) .... it rode on the suspension hard stops most of the night.... it took weeks for the springs to "get there spring back" . It was the last time we did that! I still marvel at how good dad was at this.

Just thinking out loud.

 

[bc1540]

I agree

Heres how I handled it..... called dealer had to leave vmail as he was at lunch until 1pm yesterday...Was really up-beat and just asked if there had been any updates on delivery since he told me in October that brp said it would be mid November....told him wasnt worried about both as previously discussed just wanted wifes for xmas.


As of this morning no return call..........

 

[fivemilesniper]

I would ask BRP to recommend another dealer and cc this dealer as well as motorcycle clubs and associations in your area, these vehicles are more than just recreational vehicles for weekend warriors, if this guy treats a VIP customer like this what's his servicing going to be like, will he cut corners to make a buck?

 

[mediaspiderbill]

I think you need to get Mad!

I dont understand why you would leave the guy a message. I would hound him until he had an answer. Get your deposit back and scout ebay or something.

I know EVERY time I made a mistake with one of my clients I get the consequences. It is for that reason that I feel the right to express my discontentment in any financial situation if I do not get what I felt I was due.


mediaspiderbill