Modern Vespa

SSR in the sense of.... no scooters were involved but this is still a case of a dealership being shady to a rider, so it's good to be aware of these things.

Long story short:
- The Missenden Flyer (TMF for short, a youtuber) buys a Royal Enfield Interceptor for around $6k
- Hires the dealership to do about $5k of customization to it
- Pays dealership the initial agreed upon amount
- Dealership does work and charges him an additional $6.2k
- Dealership closes shop, reports of them ripping off others online

Long story long:

I made this video to share the story while at the same time informing motorcyclists of their rights that protect them from crooked shops and dealers.

In addition to my experience from working at a dealership as well as for some of the OEMs here, for this video I went researched:

- UK's Consumer Rights Act and Consumer Credit Act
- USA's Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices Statutes
- Canada's Consumer Protection Act
- Regional laws from Ontario, Illinois, and Texas

This video will apply to riders in the USA, UK, and Canada.

Take-aways:
- Always get a written estimate
- In most of North America, the final invoice cannot be more than 10% of the estimate
- In most of North America, you can set a maximum agreed upon price, anything more than that you do not need to pay
- Some states, like Texas, do not have these automotive-specific rules to protect consumers, but many do
- Motorcycle parts and motorcycle service comes with a warranty even if a dealer says it doesn't
- In Canada, labor on your motorcycle has a warranty for up to 5,000 km or 90 days, whichever comes first

There's a bunch more information in the video, I'm working on the article now but it might be a day or two because I'm sore from riding on snow-covered trails yesterday

Please have a look and don't get ripped off. If you have any questions just let me know!

Get the title BEFORE you start customising.

He did. That was never the issue.

It's £'s not $'s

No, those numbers were already converted. It's $.

I had to go to the TMF video to try to find this out.
I am still confused.
Is his gripe with the FIRST custom shop... or the SECOND who 'rescued' the bike from the first and re-did work on the bike?

Here's the original He paid an initial £4000 ( $5450 ) for work uncompleted and then paid another £4588 ( $6239) making a total of £8588 ( $11,679)

This is using today's exchange rate of £1.00 to $1.36

The second shop did the work for free which is very commendable.

If I got the story right, the "second shop" was the subcontractor on the original job. So he had already made money off this project. Still, it was decent of him to make repairs/corrections right and only charge the cost of additional parts, after the first shop had overcharged TMF and left him in the lurch.

Now I'm undecided between getting a youtube law degree or a facebook medical degree.

It sounds like the business went bankrupt. A lot of small businesses do fail. That is unfortunate, but it's not likely that the owner's masterplan was to go broke in order to scam this guy. The ghost of Bernie Madoff isn't customizing Royal Enfields in the UK.
The video looks and feels like it was edited by a golden retriever with one eye on the ball machine at the local batting cages. There might be a minute's worth of information there, but it's rambling, disjointed, and doesn't seem like anyone knows what the point of the story is supposed to be. There is a lot to be said for linear story telling, and the old who, what, where, when, why, and how.

are you talking about mine or the original?

Are you offering legal advice in two countries and a kingdom?

it's all about semantics...

*some*
most
"many"

declaration, per se...

Yep you got it. Although I do give a lot of specifics and mention acts and statutes that I reference. In some cases I get into more regional differences and mention which countries have similarities and which do not, likewise what provinces and states are alike or different.

For example, I mentioned Illinois is more similar
to Ontario than to Texas for offering protections for consumers, and also give examples of where to get support if you are in Texas.

Not sure whether that qualifies as legal advice or not, even less sure why that would matter. I make content designed to help motorcyclists who don't have people in their lives to help them. The rest is, like greasy said, semantics.

Can we get Trip in to do a Vid explaining the Vid that explains the Vid that covers the bike customiser that customised the bike that the other bike customiser had already customised?

The best thing that you can do with a Royal Enfield is to just leave it alone.

It's for the best.

I'm waiting for the sequel where they guy who thought he had some vague idea of what it should like and failed to adequately convey that to the guy formally known as a bike customiser, or even to the guy currently known as a bike customiser, decides that it was better stock, and throws another pile of money at it thats large enough to enrage a Canadian. And we all know how hard that is (assuming he isn't a truck driver).

Every bit of customising I have ever done to my bikes has been 100% reversible.
If I intend to cut a subframe, seat etc, I first get a donor part from a breakers yard and modify that one.
The orginal is safely covered in bubblewrap for resale.

I have seen too many people take a $5000 bike and spend $10000 customising it and try to sell it for $15000 - only to actually get $2000.
Everyone's taste vary - vive la difference - but if you want to sell, it is the buyer's taste that determines the sale price.

Rarely do you see a motorcycle or a scooter that looks sooooo much better than the original version that leaves the factory.

This is the reason that designers get paid to design.

Unless you're prepared to spend stupid amounts or money to change it beyond recognition (as the previous poster has mentioned ) you're probably going to lose your investment when you've had enough of it.

Many Cafe Racer builds currently on Ebay are way over priced for that very reason.

As you say, you have to find another idiot with deep pockets and no taste.

That's a lot to drop on decorations. Andy sure.talks fast.

As in not even buy it. I agree

Says the man with the MP3.

Yes and no. The full story is:

Designers get paid to design... to legal specification.

That's why we have huge mufflers on stock bikes (sound and emission specifications), weird after-thought turn signals on our vespas (vehicle importation specifications), and some of the ugliest license plate mounts in the history of motorcycling (more bureaucratic specs.)

I don't like supersports, not my style, but I can't admit that money spent on an exhaust, some less space-ship looking signals, and a tail-tidy can really make one a lot more sexy.

Does it make the motorcycle any more practical? Nope. Worth more on resale? But I wouldn't say that aesthetics are a designer's only consideration... There is plenty you can do to make many bikes look a lot better... Just not what this guy did to his lol

Lol. I don't get it? I loved that thing. I've been riding through 14 canadian winters on a variety of machines. That was easily the best winter beater bike I've had. Absolute hoot to ride on snow too.

I did have one wire fail, a common issue I discovered, but considering the abuse and salty roads I put it through, what a tank of a machine!

I have a friend who's a mechanic at a Royal Enfield dealer. He told me not to get one unless I "like pain"

+1 for the (250) MP3