motorcycle mart

[mbelan]

Just dropping a line,to let you guys know of an onging,bad experience.After looking for a V&H Megaphone ,I find one online at motorcycle mart for what I thought was a good deal $260.00 plus shipping.Little did I know,I should've paid 40.00 extra anywhere else,to have in less than a month.After talking to the guy who runs this joke of a business,every week for a month,it's clear that they don't have a clue.It's a online store run out of Good Times Kawasaki in Sacramento,Ca.I don't think the V&H warehouse is more than 250 miles from them,but here I sit and wait.Every phone call to them is a sad story,or a backorder.It took 15 minutes to draw the 300.00 out of my account,but it takes Visa 30 days to allow a claim to get my money back,and buy my pipe from someone decent.If my pipe isn't here by Thursday ,I guess I can get paid back.Anyone know of some good guys?

[Jontheguru]

Motorcycle Mart

I had the exact problem with them several months ago on the exact same product. 15 minutes to debit my account and no product. Months later, I canceled the order and recieved my refund. What a mess!!! If I had to do it again I would order through dennis Kirk and get it for $1 cheaper, just referance the website and they will beat it by a buck.

[cloudbreakmd]

I agree with the above in that they are terrible to buy from. I ordered and paid for a set of Jardine pipes for a Suzuki of mine and I spent a week playing phone tag with them to find out that they would not honor their internet posted price... and yes they said it would be a couple of weeks to order the parts from Jardine...Needless to say I was miffed... Don't bother with them.

[bwringer]

There are zillions of these little store front web sites out there that are just some schlub in his Mom's basement with a couple of catalogs. Use your Mom's credit card to place a cheap ad in the back of Cycle World, and suddenly you're a motorcycle millionaire!

For aftermarket stuff, I try to order only from vendors who actually have the goods physically in stock, or whom I know I can trust to get the order right and to stand behind it.

Thanks for the heads-up on this outfit.

[J_C]

V&H is actually on backorder, because I'm going through the same thing to get a V&H pipe. So it may not be the vendor at all. V&H said availability the 5th, then the 12th, then the 19th. I hope it hasn't been pushed back any farther.

For those that remember my "V&H Recall?" thread, Dennis Kirk said a specific model is on recall. V&H denied it and said they were having a dispute over a bit of product quality. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think they might be retooling their process.

[mbelan]

Late

The biggest problem I have at this point I think is communication.If these guys give me a date,(and JC has hit the dates right on the head ,by the way),then how about a phone call when that date changes.I had to call THEM two weeks after it was supposed to arrive.If I ran my business like this,I wouldn't expect to be working too long.How embarrassing for them...

[J_C]

mbelan, I got pushed back again (This time to the 23rd) I got curious and so I called V&H... they actually have a few available at the factory. It appears that the delays are the result of whoever the catalogue purchaser is (Probably Parts Unlimited, though I'm waiting for confirmation)

[mbelan]

I got the same thing today when I called(fourth time too).Motorcycle Mart they told me Friday.I asked John at M/C Mart ,what his reply to Parts Unlimited was when they give him the answers he's giving me ,and he assures me,theyr'e working on it.I'm sure,his money isn't collecting interest in someone elses bank though.......

[mbelan]

Hey JC ,You're pretty close to V&H aren't you ?How about driving over and picking up a couple pipes for us...COD of course.....

[J_C]

Hehe, probably just a few hours. But My guy is trusted... he's come through for me several times in the past and I trust him. He ALSO uses P.U, as his distributor... when I talked to V&H he said a number of the orders that just went out were PU orders. It may be that PU gets the stuff by friday and turns it around to the seller, who then turns it around to us. If that's the case, then we can expect to receive our stuff Tues/wed of next week. We'll see how close we are to my estimate.

What bike do you have? I assume by the proximity of our situations that you must be ordering the same part # as me...

[mbelan]

82 1100ez. black engine.pods,jetting,V&H pro-pipe,530 conversion,140 speedo,. The pro-pipe does not fit into a stock configuration ,like I'm hoping the megaphone will.I had to turn my right side footpeg upside down,as well as trimming my front fender.What a mistake .It works incredibly well,but I hacked the bike apart to make it happen.I also bought a set of Mikunis (rs36's) and I can't believe it could possibly run better ,but we'll see.I'm also waiting till I can do without it for a while,so I can install a V&H and MTC 1237 kit.It's been sitting on my coffee table for months,I just don't want to be without the bike for that long.......It would be like waiting for an exhaust pipe that never came.......m

[J_C]

Let me know when you get a status update on yours. I think we can safely say this is a Parts Unlimited fiasco and when you get yours I should get mine

[jeff.saunders]

A few points on this. V&H does not warehouse any of their pipes in quantity. They build to order. So more often than not, they will not have a pipe on the shelf.

What this means is they sit on orders from dealers and wholesales (and a few direct customers) until a minimum number of orders come in - usually at least 75-100 pipes are needed before they will do a production run.

ONE STRONG CAUTION - do not believe any dates V&H gives you. Invariably the production date will slip, and slip, and slip...

We've had pipes on order for as long as 11 months before they shipped - everytime we called them for a status, it was "2-3 week out", "at the chromers", "being manufactured"....

V&H has a policy that dealers sign regarding NO advertized discounts from the list price. V&H will terminate dealers if this happens. This is to protect small dealers from the large discount places (Dennis Kirk and the like). Last year Bike Bandit continued to discount and were cutoff by V&H until Bike Bandit changed the prices to list price. If you want to get back at places like the one you tried to buy the pipe from, send V&H a note about them discounting price.

If you find a good deal on the web, look to see if the business lists a phone number - call them and check stock status if you are in doubt. Some companies (we are one) disable products not in stock so customers cannot order them - others choose to take your money, then figure out if they can get the items.

If any company does not ship in a reasonable amount of time (2-3 days for things in stock, or 10-14 days for special order items), file a credit card chargeback through your bank. If enough credit card chargebacks get received by their credit card processor, the 'business' will lose it's ability to take credit card transactions, or will incur higher credit card transaction rates.

If you think of the credit card chargeback as a feedback score against the merchant - that's how the credit card companies perceive it.