While my bike was having its 600 mile service today I was speaking to manager about my old HRC bike. He staggered me with the following revelation: We were talking about oil useage and the fact my new bike doesnt appear to have used any so far and did he remember the problem with my old HRC that i traded in? He said "we found out why it was using so much oil". According to them, they found out it was an ex Ron Haslam race school bike! I was staggered! I bought it from a dealer as a 1 previous owner bike "who sold it cause he had a knee operation and couldn't ride it any more". I know the dealer that i bought it off quite well. I will be asking them if they knew this (how could they not) and why i got the "story" about its history. It could of course be that Pidcock Honda are not telling the truth, but i don't know what they would have to gain. I will be very annoyed if I find out they purposely lied to me.
If it's true it wouldn't surprise me. There are some dealers who are very unscrupulous. A guy tried once to sell me a bike with a race can on and told me it was street legal. he even continued after I showed him the 'Not for Road Use' stamp on it. I wanted the bike, an SP1 so said if he changed the cans for road legal ones I would buy it. He agreed, I came back a week later to complete the deal and it had the same cans on, and he was shocked when i didn't complete the deal. Also had previous problems with services that have not been done. There are some good ones but it is sometimes hard to find them.
I have seen a few bikes at Piddocks all around the same prices, with the same miles and all selling at the same time.... job lot no doubt.... no surprise really.
Just to be clear - the HRC "Ron Haslam" bike did not come from Pidcocks. I traded it in there and bought my new one. The HRC came from CMC Clay Cross.
so it was cmc that sold you an ex race school bike? chesterfield? f##k me thats never right i would be so fu~~ing mad that is seriously not on, ,, no way. that is so bang out of order!!!!!
So exactly how does this translate to oil burning? P.S. A Honda dealer sold me a CBR600 once, which had "been owned by a Honda employee as a weekend toy". I then discovered that it was a press bike and found pics of it in Superbike mag being wheelied to death by that American bloke from the Starboyz!
I guess they were meaning it had been thrashed and as such caused excessive wear on the engine. It would explain heavy oil usage whilst being thrashed round a track constantly (maybe) but obviously does not explain the oil usage issue I had. That wasn't my point in the thread - my point was (if its true) that I was sold an ex race school bike whilst being told it was a "one careful" owner bike. Its not really on is it!
It's a tricky one, you might find that the bike was actually really well looked after. My ex-press bike was ultra reliable, apart from the clutch, which I frazzled with a couple of months (was obviously on the way out before I got it).
Agree with this. Those RH bikes are really well looked after, infact better than most normal bikes. As for press bikes. Well they'll be the best of the best, you won't find manufacturers giving out an average bike to the media. It's been known for them even to be tweaked to perform a bit better than your average customer bike. Still doesn't explain you not being told tho. Although maybe the dealer didn't really know.