Advise on service in Calgary please?

[mrmagoo]

Has anyone had experience with service in Calgary? I phoned both Blackfoot and Anderwerks niether seem too interested in helping me out. Since I live three hours away I asked to have the bike there for shop opening and leave with them for the day to have the work done and then ride home both shops seem to be too busy to make such an arangement. Any advise?

[Dick]

Has anyone had experience with service in Calgary? I phoned both Blackfoot and Anderwerks niether seem too interested in helping me out. Since I live three hours away I asked to have the bike there for shop opening and leave with them for the day to have the work done and then ride home both shops seem to be too busy to make such an arangement. Any advise?
I guess the determining factor that I would put a bet on is the type of service you're looking to have them do. Is it shop manual work, as lined out in a service interval? Or some diagnostic work that they'll have to perform before they even know what procedure to follow and how much time to allocate. My dealer, if I'm fairly in the ballpark of what service is called for, will tell me their best guess for start and completion; pending of course if parts have to be ordered or are in stock; plus their normal daily/weekly anticipated workload.

So, I guess my advice would be tell them the scope of work they can anticipate doing; give them leeway for ordering parts and continuing with existing work on their wall board; and then based on their reply, whether or not I would try for a one-day turnaround, or make arrangements for a multi-day process (either trailer and retrieve, or catch a ride. Do they provide loaners?).

Good luck.

[ronk1200lt]

The only consolation I can give you is that it is even worse in Edmonton. Unless you want to do some of the wrenching yourself. You will have to drop it off and then come back and pick it up as they are just to busy to be able to do it in one day. When I am on the Vancouver Island, I usually drop my bike off at Island BMW in Victoria on the weekend. Take the bus home and then do the reverse on the following Saturday. This gives them a whole week to get parts if they need to and it doesn't leave me pacing around fuming at the end of the day when they tell me that they don't have the parts to complete the job and I am going to have to leave it anyway. Life is to short to put that much pressure on yourself.

[jamesgoodchild]

You should try it from Regina - I've got 8 hrs to get there. What I do is phone them in advance, ask to speak to the service manager, let them know that I am out of town, find a day that they can do the service that I can also meet, confirm that they have BOTH of their BMW service techs on site that day, drive down the day before, drop the bike off way early in the morning (there is a Tim Horton's right across the street - so it is not that bad to wait until the shop opens), and then as soon as the service desk opens, I'm there to make sure my bike is first on the lift. Even with doing all of that, I've had issues....

[DennisS]

Blackfoot has done all of the service on my LT. I think the two BMW techs are both fairly good but find the service desk can be a little difficult to deal with. In June, they did my 40K plus a few extra services. It was ready by noon the second day which is about as good as I could hope for if the hours charged are indicative of the time it takes to do the work.

All I can recommend is you book well ahead rather than being squeezed in and hope the assigned tech does not have any work carry over from the prior day and can start right away. I think you will find they will try to accomodate you the best they can but unfortunately all of the customers are looking for the same timely service.

[2Alpha]

If it makes you feel any better, when I book my Kawasaki in for service at Blackfoot they take just as long as they do for the K1200LT.

[jorawro]

Sorry to be so long getting back to you (been on holidays). I have found the best results with Anderwerks (talk to Dave - the owner). If you haven't had it in yet you may want to borrow my enclosed trailer -- its available.

[dflitton]

I found there is no local dealer or rep in my City so, after phoning to arrange an inspection date, I hauled my damaged K1200 LT up to Calgary, some 240km from home. I needed a repair estimate and "recall letter". Upon arriving at the dealership I was told it would take them 16 weeks to look at it, they had no place to put it, and as far as the recall letter goes, they won't be bothered because it's too much work (by the way I was told it's $500 for the letter - which I was willing to pay).

[mrmagoo]

I found there is no local dealer or rep in my City so, after phoning to arrange an inspection date, I hauled my damaged K1200 LT up to Calgary, some 240km from home. I needed a repair estimate and "recall letter". Upon arriving at the dealership I was told it would take them 16 weeks to look at it, they had no place to put it, and as far as the recall letter goes, they won't be bothered because it's too much work (by the way I was told it's $500 for the letter - which I was willing to pay).

My heart goes out to you there seems to be a big problem with Blackfoot and their service department. The only suggestion I would have is trying anderwerks could be a wait there also. The other would be since your in Lethbridge I have heard good things about Big Sky BMW in Missoula Montana
might be worth a call. As for the recall letter is the bike from out of Canada?
and if so how did you ever get it registered.

[ronk1200lt]

The problem isn't the service department. You brought a bike up from the U.S. which cuts into their sales and margins. As a way to discourage people from doing just that, they are making it as hard as possible to bring a bike in hoping that people will quit doing it. This is not a great way to do business, but the dealers in Canada need to sit down with BMW and get their prices in line with those in the U.S. After all the bikes are made in Germany which is on the Euro, so prices should be alot closer between the two countries than they are.

[mrmagoo]

The problem isn't the service department. You brought a bike up from the U.S. which cuts into their sales and margins. As a way to discourage people from doing just that, they are making it as hard as possible to bring a bike in hoping that people will quit doing it. This is not a great way to do business, but the dealers in Canada need to sit down with BMW and get their prices in line with those in the U.S. After all the bikes are made in Germany which is on the Euro, so prices should be alot closer between the two countries than they are.

Interesting you should mention that since Blacfoot regulary brings in bikes from the US and resells them.
All the profits for the dealer and nothing for the buyer. My bike also came from the US and probley the next one will too.