[TrentMember]

I was thinking the same lines as Hatto but figured you guys would be on the ball since there’s a fair bit of constant monitoring and fining up in that part. I’d love to learn the area because my brother (the one that drowned the bike) lives at Sandon point.

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Fossil wrote:

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I do want to defend all bike shops, but i have managed a couple of dealerships and believe me making ends meet can be hard at best. Bike shop insurance is horific paying public liabilty for a mechanic to be able to do rego checks can be around $30K not to mention all the other insurance you must have. The other thing customers often fail to see is you may be charged 2-3 hours for a particular job but it may have taken the mechanic 4-5 hours to actually do it,this is called effiency in the trade and mechanics that are 100% effecient are as rare as rocking horse shit. Apprentices are normaly about 20-30% effecient.

Firstly, I don’t think you’ve directed your rant at me but let me be clear and say I have no problem with shops charging that much because there’s a lot more behind the scenes that we don’t consider and the convenience of having a good mechanic on hand is worth $$$.

That said I can’t stand the attitude that customers should pay to cover incompetent mechanic’s inefficiencies. We go to a shop to use the services of a professional mechanic because they should be able to deliver a professional service. The one thing I like about car dealerships is that they’ll have a book that says it should take 2 hours to do an oil change so that’s what we charge. If it takes us longer and uses twice the oil because we left the copper washer out and had to dump it again then that’s our fault but if you give it to me with a half stripped bolt and I can’t get it off without a lot of extra cost then I’ll give you a call and tell you but its at the bike owner’s cost.

My ute just spent a month at two different dealerships to replace the MAP sensor. Granted they didn’t know up front that that’s what the problem was but any competent mechanic should be able to diagnose that relatively quickly. Should I pay for a month of farting around if the car’s not covered by warranty or should the dealer cop it on the chin then fire the bludging dolt after a week of not getting the job done?

[TrentMember]

I’ve worked for a couple of larger engineering/EPCM companies and its still the same percentage markup only the mark up went up when we’d do shut downs or night shift because we were on salary! Friends of mine work for Price Waterhouse Coopers and get charged out at $300/hr and would be lucky to see $48/hr when you figure out their hours of work since they’re on salary also. I figure the end user is paying for the assurance and depending on the product there can be a lot of overheads that we don’t see but the supplier relies on. Training, sick pay, tools etc. add up quickly.

The way I see it is if I have the time and the tools I’ll usually try and do it. If I don’t have one of those I’ll weigh it up and see if its worth waiting for the time or buying the tools. Putting a helicoil in isn’t something I anticipate having to do again so I wouldn’t go out and buy the tap and dies etc. Plus since I haven’t done any fab/engineering works I wouldn’t want to risk the casing for the sake of $100.

Normally if my bike needs work I pay a mate who is an ex KTM and current Yamaha race team mechanic and he does it for cost but I insist on giving him grog. When I bought my 250f my brother took it to camden bike and power and they estimated that they’d need to rebuild and replace the bore and I’d be looking at $1500 in parts alone. Danny did it for me for about $600 and no time at all and I struggled to convince him to take a bottle of top vodka. Unfortunately he’s busy with meets right now so I had to ask him to recommend someone.

[TrentMember]

Shame to hear that hope Stu’s feeling all better!

Did you guys have a ride on the sherco?

[TrentMember]

Yeah my bike is getting taken to someone recommended so hopefully they’ll get it sorted. I might have to give them a call and see if they need the motor out so I can just do that myself rather than pay them $100/hr.

I took the drowned bike for a run from Buttai barn/sugarloaf for an hour this morning and its purring. It was a hell of a lot muddier than I would’ve liked for a short run though! It looked like a good spot to set out from there with a few little hills and nice burmed corners. The oil looked pretty good but its still got a few grains in it i think so it’ll be right to go and I’ve just told him to change the oil every ride for a while.

I took it the the car wash and had to peel the 4″ layer of mud off it and then spent about $20 just getting all the shit off it :S If it had’ve been a full day run it’d have been well worth the fun but sheez what a pita!

As I got back to the car at buttai I drained the hot oil and this bloody redneck pulled up in an older model silver skyline with a blue big wing on the back and blue guards hanging off it and a trailer with three pit bikes on it :unsure: He had 2 young girls and a young fella maybe 14 y.o and I could hear them unloading and the feral was saying stuff like “come on d*ckheads get them off” then he just said ok see you in an hour and took off! Not wanting to let the image down the young fella jumped on his bike and starts doing laps up and down the street with no helmet and locking the back up everytime he went past :dry:

I said g’day when he stopped and suggested he put his lid on and he just sort of shrugged at it :blink:

Glad I got out of there when I did!

[TrentMember]

So if you have NSW rego and crash in victoria say, surely you are covered by CTP right?

[TrentMember]

Michelle Marsh :kiss: If one were to know where to look there’s some pics of her and her well endowed friends laying around on a boat some place

[TrentMember]

I think it is a dummy spit but I can’t blame them after the way its been handled. Anyone one here ridden the big twins that could comment on how much change/re-learning would be required to drop down to a 450?

[TrentMember]

I’m with HCF and ride a rego’d bike but to be honest I’m quite ignorant about what HCF provide me. Thanks for the info Aidan and even though its excellent info I’d suggest everyone checks what they’re covered for. Of course I need to follow my own advice which is the hard part :p

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Of course he won’t he’s my brother! I like to learn and to help out so if he appreciates it its just a bonus. If he pays for all the oil it’s a bigger bonus!

Oh that and I’d prefer to sit on my little bucket working on the bike with a beer than to sit on the couch with the outlaws!

I work a desk job right now so when I get home doing some physical work on the bike is therapeudic. I’d probably say that working on the bike only comes second to riding it :silly:

[TrentMember]

OUCH! I spoke to a bloke up the pines and he said that puddle was half that size in the morning but a bunch of jap bike riders pulled up along side of it for a chat and between all the dribble from their mouths and bikes it was filled!

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Mine too, but I still see the banner on this page

[TrentMember]

haha yeah ta is trade assistant

Cheers for the karma/commiserations guys

[TrentMember]

Anyone wanna come over and by my TA? I reckon all you’d manage to do would be to stand outside and drink my beer haha

[TrentMember]

Austblue wrote:

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The good fellas at KTM Newcastle were kind enough to lend me a spark plug tool since they didn’t have one they could sell to me so I went at it tonight. If you guys got to see my current work shed you’d laugh your arses off but its what I’ve got at the moment so I have to laugh. Its wide enough to get the bike in and just close the door but you couldn’t switch sides then and theres enough room to squat down on either side of the bike but that’s really tight.

Here’s what I’m whinging about
http://www.obtrailriders.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=56&func=view&catid=31&id=35695

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