Post by halosfan06 on Aug 20, 2008 13:19:20 GMT -5
Almost daily, there are threads posted on this forum where welcomed newcomers (noob's or newbies) look to find the best place to purchase their first scoot or what type of scoot to buy. After their first experience, most owners find they would have done a few things differently. This post is designed to be a good starting point where some of that experience is shared. I hope to write this as objectively as possible, so that future newcomers will benefit from the experiences of others. If you are unsure about any terms or definitions, refer to the Scootdawg Dawgctionary.
Also, a separate page has been created to offer a brief glimpse of many purchase experiences. It can be seen here Scooter Purchase Experiences
1. First and foremost, know yourself. Ask yourself every one of these questions. There is no right, wrong, or better answer to any of these questions. You MUST understand how you operate, before you make your decision on a scoot or a dealer. Additionally, not all of the things that sound bad happen on every purchase through a B&M dealer or online dealer, but you must be prepared for them in case they do.
-Mechanical: Do you like to tinker with mechanical things and fix what ails the scoot or would you rather call a truck and have someone pick it up and fix it for you?
-Dirty: Would you rather pay someone $20 to change your motor oil and gear oil or get dirty yourself and save the $?
-Time: Do you plan to spend a few hours a month doing minor adjustments and repairs or would you rather the scoot ran for 30,000 miles before you touched anything but the key and the throttle?
-Wait: Are you willing to wait a few weeks or months for your bike to arrive or do you want it now?
-Registration: Are you willing to spend several months and many phone calls trying to hunt down your scoot's paperwork and hassling with registration or would you like to have someone else register it for you hassle free and start driving the scoot today?
-Touch: Are you willing to not sit and feel the bike before you purchase or would you rather see everything before you buy it?
-Cost: Would you rather save several hundred $ or pay someone else to take care of some of these aforementioned things?
-Warranty: Even if something breaks that's under warranty, are you willing to put on the parts yourself or would you prefer someone else do this for you?
2. Pros and Cons: In general, these are the outlines of pro's and con's for each method:
Online:
*Generally MUCH cheaper than buying through a B&M
*Can be very relaxed as there is less sales pressure
*Can have a greater selection of scooters
*Can have difficulty registering scoot since it comes from out of state...sometimes up to 6 months of waiting, although frequently less...there really isn't an average. Paperwork is often shipped separately than the scoot.
*Can have shipping delays or never be shipped at all
*Companies can feel very different after the purchase has been made...who seems nice today, may seem rather sharp tomorrow
*Promises, even in writing, can be broken because lawsuits over boundaries are so difficult
*Most warranty work must be done yourself and parts can be difficult to get...what you think is warrantable, may not be to the company
*A THOROUGH PDI, or Post Delivery Inspection is absolutely necessary before riding it for the first time. This can be very entailed for those who are not mechanically inclined.
*You may not have any person to person ability to ask mechanical questions. Although many on this site are more than willing to help wherever they can, often, you need someone in person to ask a question to.
*If you prefer to touch the bike first to see if you fit, you can usually find a local dealer that will allow you to look/feel/touch their bike. Then leave without purchasing and purchase the same model online.
*Occasionally, companies go out of business and never notify their customers. Trying to locate a non-existent business can be nearly impossible. Little recourse can be found for this.
Local Dealer (B&M for Brick and Mortar Building)
*Almost painless registration process as you are registering in the same state and the bike comes with the proper paperwork
*Unless you purchase an out of stock scoot, the bike does not require shipping
*You can see/touch/feel the actual scoot you will be purchasing
*At some dealers, you can test drive the scoot. This is not the case for many dealers.
*Often, if there are problems, it is easier to make demands in person than over the phone or computer.
*Often, these businesses have been around the area for many years and have developed reputations (good and bad).
*Repairs can be done at the dealer by licensed professionals
*Warranty items can physically be seen by the dealer that sold it to you. It is generally much easier than explaining via email or phone.
*Often is more expensive (can be by several hundred $) than buying online
*Can have significant sales pressure to purchase a certain type of bike or to buy today
*Can be limited in selection or very biased on a specific type that earns greater commission for them
*Can give advice that is in their best interest and not yours
*Can give false promises that are never given in writing
*Companies can feel very different after the purchase has been made...who seems nice today, may seem rather sharp tomorrow
*While service can be done by a dealer, often, these dealers work on recreational vehicles and have large backlogs of work and awkward working schedules (Tue-Sat from 6am to 3pm, etc)
*Warranty work may still take several weeks if parts are unavailable.
*Dealers that just began a relationship with a manufacturer may not have their warranty parts channels set up yet.
3. Make a choice: Once you understand all of the pros AND the cons of both alternatives, a proper choice can be made. While this site is full-to-the-brim of opinions on whether you should purchase online or through a dealer, there are many very happy customers of both and many very unhappy customers of both. Your best bet is to truly understand yourself, to truly understand the two different alternatives, and make your best decision, based on which you believe meets more of your desires. Neither option will be free from problems.
4. Reviews: Look at online reviews of your choice. Check out your local Better Business Bureau (BBB). Try to find other people who have purchased from them before. After your decision is made, accept both the pros and the possible cons. If you chose to buy from a dealer, don't feel remorseful later that you paid extra for the "same" scoot. You paid someone else to take the pain for you. If you chose to buy online, don't be angry when the paperwork never shows up and your phone calls and emails continually go unanswered for weeks at a time. This is the pain you agreed to take to save the money. If you choose to order online, do not expect much dealer support from a B&M as you did not support your B&M dealer. Pretty simple, although many frustrated buyers forget this.
5. Final Thoughts: Most importantly, once the whole buying mess is done, get out and enjoy the ride! Take an Motorcycle Safety Foundation training course to learn how to ride safely. Courses can be found at MSF Rider Course. Visit this site often and share your story and experiences with others.
Making your decision is tough, but once you understand all the sides, you can be confident that, given whatever problems come your way, you made the best possible choice at the time.
Remember, it's all about the ride!
* Below are some quotes that may interest you. The first is a quote Jacine posted regarding a b&m employee/owner and his experience with chinese scooter shoppers. While this is obviously a heavily biased opinion by the owner, it points out some common mistakes new owners make when purchasing their scoot online: expecting to walk back into the b&m and get great service. As with the above information, don't let the rant change your mind, just be aware of how we are perceived when we are out there. The 2nd is by Orson Reedy on his decision-making process.
-----------------------------------------
"I am complaining about chinese scooter customers.
They will come in, look at chinese scooters at our dealership, then go and buy a lesser online sale, then when it immediately needs service or something, which they nearly almost always do, then they come back to us, and expect to get premium service for it. Also they expect us to drop everything and do their bike since its new and in their mind should be easy and CHEAP to fix, when a lot of the time, it is neither.
Then if we actually have to spend real time making their pile run, then they bitch and say "its brand new" and if it costs more than $75 to fix, they bitch that that is 10% of the price of it new or something else equally stupid.
What adds extra irony to the case, is that they then try as hard as they can to find someone else to do it, which means they go to guys working out of their car, or to mainstream dealers that tell them that BAM is the only shop that can actually solve their problem, then they come BACK to us, and cry asking for some kind of deal which I cannot afford, nor am inclined to give them.
So they want to have dealer support, but they dont want to support the dealer.
They also then almost always then try and get us to tell them how to fix their bike and want us to sell them parts which are pretty much reserved for our service customers and they get hyper indignant when we wont tell them how to repair their stuff as we are too busy actually repairing our customer's bikes.
So then they go BACK to the guy working out of his car, who robs them,(one guy actually took off to mexico with about 10 customer bikes) and then they bring the bike BACK to US where we see that the guy who robbed them also stole parts off their bike, or or didnt actually fix anything, or more commonly, made the problems worse, then scream and yell when we tell them it will now cost more to undo what they paid the shadetree guy to "fix" and even though they have absolutely zero technical knowledge, they insist its brand new so why can it have so many problems. THEN to our total amazement yell that the bike has a warranty and we need to honor it even though they bought it online from some guy in kansas and the warranty on the website says that pretty much nothing is covered and what little IS covered must be fixed back in Kansas by the original online seller.
At this point about 15% simply walk away from the bike and we strip it for parts. Another 15% buy a supported bike from us and become good customers. THAT is why we put up with them just so you know."
-As quoted on Jacine's thread Seller's Rant
----------------------------------------------
"When I decided I was going to purchase a Chinese scooter, I made a list of things I could and could not do for the price I wanted to pay. I picked out an Aeolus 300. Best price I found on the Internet? $2700, including shipping. Is that a bargain? That gets me a crate with a bike in it in the same condition it was in when it was taken off the container ship from China. Assembly is my responsibility. Getting it running, whatever that takes, is my responsibility, and getting it registered is my responsibility, assuming the carrier can get it to my house in one piece, which is far from a given. If you have a scooter-sized shipping crate sent to your house, the carrier must put it on a lift gate equipped truck, which means an extra fork lift transfer, an extra and very real chance for damage. Carriers will often do even stranger things if no lift gate truck is available, like loading the crate into a driver's own personal pickup truck for residential delivery. This is incredibly risky and almost guarantees damage to both the truck and the crate. There is a thread on this board detailing one person's experience with exactly this scenario, with photos. I read it today.
I briefly entertained the idea of having a scoot shipped to my business, where we have freight docks and can accept shipments directly from carrier terminals on large trucks. This minimized the chances of damage, but still left me with the time-consuming and uncertain task of getting the scoot prepped and on the road. I don't have a garage at home where I can work on it, and assembling and prepping it at work (which I've seen other people do) is out of the question for me. This is all assuming I don't need any parts after delivery, which could delay things even further.
Finally I found a dealer within driving distance of my home who would sell me the Aeolus 300 for $3500. That's $800 more than the best Internet price I found, but what does that get me? That gets me a scooter that has all fluids changed, is fully assembled and road tested with any defective parts already replaced. It gets me a one-year warranty on labor as well as parts. It gets me a ready source of parts in any case, and it gets me a prime spot in line in the service department should I need it because I bought the scooter there. I also have the MCO and bill of sale in my hand along with the keys to the scooter, so I can register it and ride it legally immediately. It eliminates a vast amount of uncertainty, but most of all it puts me and the B&M dealer in a mutually beneficial relationship with each other, as it is in both our interests that I have a scooter that works.
Not everyone can find a dealer like that within driving distance. But if you can, it is worth the extra money, in my opinion. No matter how you buy a scoot, the important thing is that you know what you are getting for what you pay, and from whom.
-As posted by Orson Reedy on Seller's Rant
Also, a separate page has been created to offer a brief glimpse of many purchase experiences. It can be seen here Scooter Purchase Experiences
1. First and foremost, know yourself. Ask yourself every one of these questions. There is no right, wrong, or better answer to any of these questions. You MUST understand how you operate, before you make your decision on a scoot or a dealer. Additionally, not all of the things that sound bad happen on every purchase through a B&M dealer or online dealer, but you must be prepared for them in case they do.
-Mechanical: Do you like to tinker with mechanical things and fix what ails the scoot or would you rather call a truck and have someone pick it up and fix it for you?
-Dirty: Would you rather pay someone $20 to change your motor oil and gear oil or get dirty yourself and save the $?
-Time: Do you plan to spend a few hours a month doing minor adjustments and repairs or would you rather the scoot ran for 30,000 miles before you touched anything but the key and the throttle?
-Wait: Are you willing to wait a few weeks or months for your bike to arrive or do you want it now?
-Registration: Are you willing to spend several months and many phone calls trying to hunt down your scoot's paperwork and hassling with registration or would you like to have someone else register it for you hassle free and start driving the scoot today?
-Touch: Are you willing to not sit and feel the bike before you purchase or would you rather see everything before you buy it?
-Cost: Would you rather save several hundred $ or pay someone else to take care of some of these aforementioned things?
-Warranty: Even if something breaks that's under warranty, are you willing to put on the parts yourself or would you prefer someone else do this for you?
2. Pros and Cons: In general, these are the outlines of pro's and con's for each method:
Online:
*Generally MUCH cheaper than buying through a B&M
*Can be very relaxed as there is less sales pressure
*Can have a greater selection of scooters
*Can have difficulty registering scoot since it comes from out of state...sometimes up to 6 months of waiting, although frequently less...there really isn't an average. Paperwork is often shipped separately than the scoot.
*Can have shipping delays or never be shipped at all
*Companies can feel very different after the purchase has been made...who seems nice today, may seem rather sharp tomorrow
*Promises, even in writing, can be broken because lawsuits over boundaries are so difficult
*Most warranty work must be done yourself and parts can be difficult to get...what you think is warrantable, may not be to the company
*A THOROUGH PDI, or Post Delivery Inspection is absolutely necessary before riding it for the first time. This can be very entailed for those who are not mechanically inclined.
*You may not have any person to person ability to ask mechanical questions. Although many on this site are more than willing to help wherever they can, often, you need someone in person to ask a question to.
*If you prefer to touch the bike first to see if you fit, you can usually find a local dealer that will allow you to look/feel/touch their bike. Then leave without purchasing and purchase the same model online.
*Occasionally, companies go out of business and never notify their customers. Trying to locate a non-existent business can be nearly impossible. Little recourse can be found for this.
Local Dealer (B&M for Brick and Mortar Building)
*Almost painless registration process as you are registering in the same state and the bike comes with the proper paperwork
*Unless you purchase an out of stock scoot, the bike does not require shipping
*You can see/touch/feel the actual scoot you will be purchasing
*At some dealers, you can test drive the scoot. This is not the case for many dealers.
*Often, if there are problems, it is easier to make demands in person than over the phone or computer.
*Often, these businesses have been around the area for many years and have developed reputations (good and bad).
*Repairs can be done at the dealer by licensed professionals
*Warranty items can physically be seen by the dealer that sold it to you. It is generally much easier than explaining via email or phone.
*Often is more expensive (can be by several hundred $) than buying online
*Can have significant sales pressure to purchase a certain type of bike or to buy today
*Can be limited in selection or very biased on a specific type that earns greater commission for them
*Can give advice that is in their best interest and not yours
*Can give false promises that are never given in writing
*Companies can feel very different after the purchase has been made...who seems nice today, may seem rather sharp tomorrow
*While service can be done by a dealer, often, these dealers work on recreational vehicles and have large backlogs of work and awkward working schedules (Tue-Sat from 6am to 3pm, etc)
*Warranty work may still take several weeks if parts are unavailable.
*Dealers that just began a relationship with a manufacturer may not have their warranty parts channels set up yet.
3. Make a choice: Once you understand all of the pros AND the cons of both alternatives, a proper choice can be made. While this site is full-to-the-brim of opinions on whether you should purchase online or through a dealer, there are many very happy customers of both and many very unhappy customers of both. Your best bet is to truly understand yourself, to truly understand the two different alternatives, and make your best decision, based on which you believe meets more of your desires. Neither option will be free from problems.
4. Reviews: Look at online reviews of your choice. Check out your local Better Business Bureau (BBB). Try to find other people who have purchased from them before. After your decision is made, accept both the pros and the possible cons. If you chose to buy from a dealer, don't feel remorseful later that you paid extra for the "same" scoot. You paid someone else to take the pain for you. If you chose to buy online, don't be angry when the paperwork never shows up and your phone calls and emails continually go unanswered for weeks at a time. This is the pain you agreed to take to save the money. If you choose to order online, do not expect much dealer support from a B&M as you did not support your B&M dealer. Pretty simple, although many frustrated buyers forget this.
5. Final Thoughts: Most importantly, once the whole buying mess is done, get out and enjoy the ride! Take an Motorcycle Safety Foundation training course to learn how to ride safely. Courses can be found at MSF Rider Course. Visit this site often and share your story and experiences with others.
Making your decision is tough, but once you understand all the sides, you can be confident that, given whatever problems come your way, you made the best possible choice at the time.
Remember, it's all about the ride!
* Below are some quotes that may interest you. The first is a quote Jacine posted regarding a b&m employee/owner and his experience with chinese scooter shoppers. While this is obviously a heavily biased opinion by the owner, it points out some common mistakes new owners make when purchasing their scoot online: expecting to walk back into the b&m and get great service. As with the above information, don't let the rant change your mind, just be aware of how we are perceived when we are out there. The 2nd is by Orson Reedy on his decision-making process.
-----------------------------------------
"I am complaining about chinese scooter customers.
They will come in, look at chinese scooters at our dealership, then go and buy a lesser online sale, then when it immediately needs service or something, which they nearly almost always do, then they come back to us, and expect to get premium service for it. Also they expect us to drop everything and do their bike since its new and in their mind should be easy and CHEAP to fix, when a lot of the time, it is neither.
Then if we actually have to spend real time making their pile run, then they bitch and say "its brand new" and if it costs more than $75 to fix, they bitch that that is 10% of the price of it new or something else equally stupid.
What adds extra irony to the case, is that they then try as hard as they can to find someone else to do it, which means they go to guys working out of their car, or to mainstream dealers that tell them that BAM is the only shop that can actually solve their problem, then they come BACK to us, and cry asking for some kind of deal which I cannot afford, nor am inclined to give them.
So they want to have dealer support, but they dont want to support the dealer.
They also then almost always then try and get us to tell them how to fix their bike and want us to sell them parts which are pretty much reserved for our service customers and they get hyper indignant when we wont tell them how to repair their stuff as we are too busy actually repairing our customer's bikes.
So then they go BACK to the guy working out of his car, who robs them,(one guy actually took off to mexico with about 10 customer bikes) and then they bring the bike BACK to US where we see that the guy who robbed them also stole parts off their bike, or or didnt actually fix anything, or more commonly, made the problems worse, then scream and yell when we tell them it will now cost more to undo what they paid the shadetree guy to "fix" and even though they have absolutely zero technical knowledge, they insist its brand new so why can it have so many problems. THEN to our total amazement yell that the bike has a warranty and we need to honor it even though they bought it online from some guy in kansas and the warranty on the website says that pretty much nothing is covered and what little IS covered must be fixed back in Kansas by the original online seller.
At this point about 15% simply walk away from the bike and we strip it for parts. Another 15% buy a supported bike from us and become good customers. THAT is why we put up with them just so you know."
-As quoted on Jacine's thread Seller's Rant
----------------------------------------------
"When I decided I was going to purchase a Chinese scooter, I made a list of things I could and could not do for the price I wanted to pay. I picked out an Aeolus 300. Best price I found on the Internet? $2700, including shipping. Is that a bargain? That gets me a crate with a bike in it in the same condition it was in when it was taken off the container ship from China. Assembly is my responsibility. Getting it running, whatever that takes, is my responsibility, and getting it registered is my responsibility, assuming the carrier can get it to my house in one piece, which is far from a given. If you have a scooter-sized shipping crate sent to your house, the carrier must put it on a lift gate equipped truck, which means an extra fork lift transfer, an extra and very real chance for damage. Carriers will often do even stranger things if no lift gate truck is available, like loading the crate into a driver's own personal pickup truck for residential delivery. This is incredibly risky and almost guarantees damage to both the truck and the crate. There is a thread on this board detailing one person's experience with exactly this scenario, with photos. I read it today.
I briefly entertained the idea of having a scoot shipped to my business, where we have freight docks and can accept shipments directly from carrier terminals on large trucks. This minimized the chances of damage, but still left me with the time-consuming and uncertain task of getting the scoot prepped and on the road. I don't have a garage at home where I can work on it, and assembling and prepping it at work (which I've seen other people do) is out of the question for me. This is all assuming I don't need any parts after delivery, which could delay things even further.
Finally I found a dealer within driving distance of my home who would sell me the Aeolus 300 for $3500. That's $800 more than the best Internet price I found, but what does that get me? That gets me a scooter that has all fluids changed, is fully assembled and road tested with any defective parts already replaced. It gets me a one-year warranty on labor as well as parts. It gets me a ready source of parts in any case, and it gets me a prime spot in line in the service department should I need it because I bought the scooter there. I also have the MCO and bill of sale in my hand along with the keys to the scooter, so I can register it and ride it legally immediately. It eliminates a vast amount of uncertainty, but most of all it puts me and the B&M dealer in a mutually beneficial relationship with each other, as it is in both our interests that I have a scooter that works.
Not everyone can find a dealer like that within driving distance. But if you can, it is worth the extra money, in my opinion. No matter how you buy a scoot, the important thing is that you know what you are getting for what you pay, and from whom.
-As posted by Orson Reedy on Seller's Rant
Undecided about buying on line vs brick and morter? This might sum it up. Wanna and can work on it yourself (and have some fun and pride) then purchase on line and Chinese may be OK..OR... If not too sure about doing things yourself and want some support then go to a dealer. AND, remember certain brands like KYMCO and SYM and others will not deal on line. The 2nd approach describes me so I just purchased a SYM RV 250 from PACIFIC RIDES IN CHATSWORTH CALIF (North of LA about 20 miles) and so far the extra expense and quality feels pretty good.....FOR ME....Not necessarily for YOU.....Good luck in your decision.