Disappointed in Honda...

I bought my first ever Honda back on May 31st. I'd owned Suzuki, Yamaha, and BMW prior to this. The red 2007 VFR800A seemed the perfect bike for what I wanted. Then the disappointments started.

I ordered the factory hard bags from the dealership (Honda of St. Johns in Portland, Oregon) on the day I bought the bike. They told me they'd be in by the end of the following week. I picked the bike up on Wednesday and the salesman said he'd checked with parts, the bags weren't in yet, but they expected them by Friday. End of day Friday I called and was told the bags were on back order with no delivery date indicated.

So I started calling the on-line places. All of them were able to tell me on the phone that the bags were back ordered. Hmm, if four other places can tell me the status on the phone, methinks the dealer tried to keep that information from me so it wouldn't put the kibosh on his bike sale. Not Honda's fault, per se, but their corporate web site still shows the bags as available to order (might be nice if they updated it to say "Unavailable until August 2008 at the earliest), and they control who can sell their stuff so they might want to encourage more open and honest communication with customers.

Next step, call Honda customer service.

Honda: "Sorry, bags are on back order until August and there's nothing we can do."
Me: "But that's pretty much the end of the touring season."
Honda: You should have made availability of the bags a condition of the deal you made with the dealer. Bye."

Hmm, real helpful. I know the CSR can't make the bags appear out of thin air, but I'm getting a little tired of the platitudes that CSRs (at all companies) dish out these days. "Gee, I'm real sorry" when they don't really give a crap, because if they gave a crap they'd say, "Let's get creative and see what we can do to help you out." But I understand their performance is based on how many calls they take, not whether they actually help the person or not.

Okay, do some digging and find the name of American Honda's Senior VP (probably the toughest time I've ever had finding the name and address of a company executive). Write a letter to his office asking what they might be able to do to help me out. Today I get a call back from the same guy I talked to when I called the customer service line.

Honda: "Just wanted to let you know we got your letter. They gave it to me. There's nothing we can do. Bye."

Great, I take the time to bring my concerns to the executive level of the organization and their response is to hand the letter to the guy who couldn't help me in the first place.

This experience has made me wish I'd bought another FJR or the Sprint ST (both of which I was considering). Honda may build good quality stuff, but their customer service needs a lot of work in my opinion.

Anyway, just wanted to get that off my chest and share the experience so anyone who might be considering a Honda knows what to expect.

Anyone want to buy a 2007 Red Interceptor with < 300 miles?

P.S. I know the Givi V35s are a pretty close match to the factory bags, but they don't tuck in as close to the bike as the factory bags and they aren't color-matched. If I'd wanted to go the Givi route the list of bikes I was looking at would have been much longer. I narrowed my list to those bikes that had color-matched factory bags available.

 

I understand your frustration.. But are you really going to dump the bike because the bags ar back ordered for a couple months?

 

The bags are just that, bags. I wouldn't let all this chaos make you regret your decision in the bike. The FJR is a completely different bike and ST is just plain different. I hope that you got the VFR cause you wanted the "bike". After all, a bike with bags that you don't like won't be much fun.

That being said, there is always an option. Like here...

Interceptor Hard Saddlebags RED '07 - 08L52MCW1G0 by: Honda -

 

If it means I can't use the bike this summer the way I intended, I don't see I've got a lot of choice. I either go with aftermarket bags, get a set in a non-matching color, or I don't tour. With the first two options I end up with a second set of bags that I'm going to lose money on when I try to sell them.

They are on nationwide backorder. Honda doesn't have any. I've tried a half dozen sites (including the one you linked to) and they've all told me the same thing. Unless I can find someone with a set in their warehouse I'm out of luck.

I agree with you in general that once they've got your money they couldn't give a hoot about you. But I have had a recent success as well.

I had an issue with Verizon over something I was promised when I signed up for FiOS. After getting nowhere with billing, customer service, etc. I wrote to their executive office. A representative called me about four days after I mailed the letter and she resolved the issue by giving me a one-time bill credit.

I guess I hoped that when a consumer goes through the trouble of writing to the executive office they might take it a little more seriously than just passing it back down to the first-line support guy who has no power to do anything anyway. Heck, if they'd said, "We'll sell you a set of black bags for $600, would that help?" or "How about we sell you a set of non-color-matched bags so you can use them until the new ones become available, at which time we'll swap them for the color-matched ones?" Instead, the answer was, "Nope, you're screwed. Bye."

 

So, how do you handle REAL disappointments? Seriously, I'll loan you a spare tankbag if that will help.

 

I ordered a set of factory hard bags (red) through my dealer on June 7th, and they were in on June 12th. I'm not sure why they were able to get them if the bags were on national back order. There is another source for the OEM bags that sells them for 768 (I think) plus shipping. It's listed on a recent post (in the last couple of weeks), I'll see if I can dig it up. Sorry you've had such a hassle.

 

This should be it...

factorydirectmotorsportsaccessories.com

 

This might work better...

FactoryDirectMotorsportsAccessories.com - Motorcycle, ATV, Scooter, &

 

Did you see the post by "jasonsmith"? That ad has them in stock for way less than the MSRP from Honda. I'd just get them insted. It sounds like you don't like the bike, so the bag issues just add to your frustration. Have you seen an FJR up close? The VFR kicks it's a$$!!! The FJR looks like a kid built it out of tinker toys when beside a VFR. It just looks so cheap to me. I had issues with Honda when buying a new frame. It was not easy dealing with all the red tape, but was worth it in the end. And, do you think you'd get better service from another company? I kinda doubt it. Not to say that Honda is right in their actions, but they all seem to be too busy to give 1 on 1 customer service. Just hang in there. Honda will straighten it all out if your dealer will keep on it. Besides, you have the best bike in the world, so why be upset over a set of bags? Just strap on an old milk crate and hit the road until your bags come in.

 

Wow.. How sad, yes customer service sucks big time this days WTH did it go anyway? know what you mean about Verizon all to well, shessh if I acted that way, I'd be out of business. sorry to hear this, the sales dude should have made an attempt at the start to make this right. if it was me I'd be all over their ass.

 

Your bio says you have an '04. I have an '07. The red is completely different, not even close. If your bio is wrong and you did indeed get the '07 red bags, please give me your dealer's contact info.

No, it doesn't have them in stock. They, just like RonAyers.com and a half dozen others, list all the catalog part numbers, but none of them have them in stock.

I'm not sure where you got that. I don't like Honda very much right now, but I never said I didn't like the bike. I bought the bike for touring. I can't tour with just a tank bag, so the bike is kind of useless to me. Kind of like if you bought a camera for sports photography and then found out you couldn't get a 400mm lens until after football season ended.

You might say that, I owned one for two years.

That's why they make chocolate and vanilla. I think they're both very pretty bikes.

I got better service from Verizon (a company long known for it's anti-customer attitudes) and just today I got outstanding service from newenough.com. One is a huge company, the other quite small. The size of the company has nothing to do with it. If they honestly care about their customers, they'll act like it.

 

I work for a large consumer goods company that uses thousands of customer service reps, and the way Honda handled this doesn't sound out of the ordinary. They pay good money to have professional customer service reps handle consumer interactions, so it only makes sense that the exec would pass your letter on to a CSR.


I don't know what you said in your letter, but I can say with certainty that you're more likely to get the action you want if you spell out the action you'd like them to take to make you feel whole again than if you simply ask, "What are you going to do to make this right?"


Your best bet is still to work with the dealer. Next would be to call back Honda customer service and talk to a Supervisor. Finally you could write the same executive and explain that customer service has been no help. In each case, have a reasonable course of action that you're asking them to take. If they say they can't do that for you, ask to speak to someone higher up. So at the dealer, if the salesman can't help you, ask for a manager. If the manager can't help you, ask to speak to the owner. If the owner can't help you, ask if there is a regional Honda rep that you can speak with. So long as your request is truly reasonable, someone will eventually step in and approve it.


As always, the key is to find a reasonable compromise. It appears that they can't get you the color-matched bags when you need them. Would a certain discount on non color-matched bags be enough? Would "loaner" bags work for you? Surely the warehouse must have some damaged bags that they have taken as returns that they could "loan" you.


Others have noted that you don't seem real enthusiastic about the VFR itself. This probably isn't helping your cause when you talk to Honda. As much as possible, you should really lead them to believe that you really love the motorcycle and there's just this one small thing that would make everything perfect.


And you probably already know this, but perseverance is the key to ultimately getting what you want. Hang in there. Good luck.

 

Did i just read this same complaint on the other forum???

 

What about getting a set of [cheaper] soft bags for now and using those? Then you won't have to buy a set of expensive hard bags til next year.
Is there something else about the bike that you don't like? It just seems like you must be disappointed with the bike itself if you're willing to get rid of the whole thing so easily....

 

Lean on the dealer to sell you some soft bags "at his dealer cost". Then unload them when your hard bags come in. You can probably sell them for what they will cost you if he truly sells them to you at dealer cost; there's a lot of mark up on accessories.

 

word.

Your issue is with the dealership, plain and simple. They lied to you about the availability of the bags, and that was (obviously) a major factor in your decision. It's clearly no secret that the color you want is not available, no amount of complaining will make them appear.

I just bought my '07 RWB. Blue bags are no long available from Honda. I bought some silver ones (took 4 days for the order to be filled) and had them beautifully painted by an auto body shop for an extra $200.

Done. Get the dealer to find you some OEM bags, any color. They should cover the painting expense, since they lied in the 1st place.

I sincerely hope I never have to deal with you as a customer.

 

I agee with most everyone else sounds like you bought the VFR because of its touring capabilities. But, as you can see, we who love the VFR, because of all it's little quirks, know that this bike isn't perfect(did I say that?) in any one respect but it is the best all around bike in the world. and $10500.00 MSRP seems like a lot of money to spend on something you are not completely thrilled about. Two of the best days of my life were the two days when I picked up ny two brand new VFR's. although it was 20 yrs apart. I still get thrilled every time I saddle up and head out for some fun

 

I made a couple of suggestions as to what would be acceptable. Their response was a curt, "There's nothing we can do." Now you can I both know that that isn't true, there are any number of things they could do, including:

• Buy the bike back
• Sell me a different set of bags at a steep discount
• Loan me a set of bags

Again, not sure where this idea comes from. I bought something for a specific purpose. It cannot be used for that purpose, so I'm considering my options, one of which is to get rid of the thing and get something else. If you bought an electric car for your 30 miles commute and the sales person told you it would go 50 miles on a charge, then you found out it would only go 20, wouldn't one of the options you consider be to replace it with something that would do the job?

I hardly think the last sentence is necessary. You don't know a darn thing about me. I'm pretty darn reasonable until I start to get jerked around. Treat me right, like newenough.com just did, and I'll sing your praises. I ordered something from them, there was a manufacturing defect, I wrote and asked if I should deal with them or the manufacturer, offered to send them a picture of the blemish if they wanted/needed it to make a decision. They responded that a picture was not necessary, they'd ship me out a new one and I should return the blem when I got the new one. That's how to treat a customer.

Treat me like the stuff on the bottom of your shoe and I'll do just the opposite. Any retailer who says, "That customer complained about something so I don't want to deal with them", won't be in business very long.

I've enjoyed every vehicle I've ever owned, but I just don't get that excited or attached to any material thing. I buy something, enjoy it and then eventually get tired of it and decide to move on. I've only owned one car for more than three years (my '89 Supra Turbo) and one bike for more than two (my '97 YZF600R). Other than those two I've gotten tired/bored/pick-a-word and moved on to something else. It wasn't because I didn't like the vehicle any more, it's because I wanted to try something different, and with limited funds I have to divest myself of one thing to fund the purchase of another. That's why the Corvette is gone (after 2.5 years of owning it).