Tank Slap - Motorcycle Forum

Godzilla wrote:

StMarks wrote:Fwiw I wouldn't consider trying to get my knee down on the road, well not a normal road anyway.
The roads have potholes & lumps everywhere. You can come across spilt diesel, muppets at standstill round a blind bend & cars on your side of the road.
Any of the above can be terminal, so I try to save my enthusiastic riding for the track.

Was this meant to be in a different thread?

Meanwhile back on topic lol

Sorry.

It did make my laugh though

Just been to Triumph and KTM to look at a couple of bikes. However it I want to test ride a bike at either of them they want a returnable deposit of £600 and £500 respectively. I know i would get this back, but why do they have to do it in the first place when neither BMW or Ducati did? Might just tell them to shove their test rides and rule out buying one of their bikes.

Godzilla wrote:Just been to Triumph and KTM to look at a couple of bikes. However it I want to test ride a bike at either of them they want a returnable deposit of £600 and £500 respectively. I know i would get this back, but why do they have to do it in the first place when neither BMW or Ducati did? Might just tell them to shove their test rides and rule out buying one of their bikes.

Whereabouts are you? My ktm dealer in Loughborough (Redline) are fantastic, I doubt they would charge.

Did they give any reason? Seems a bit high handed to start taking deposits. I can only think they've had bikes stolen or bits swapped over, but then someone's only going to turn up with a bent card or a rubber cheque book and pull the same stunt. Good way of driving away business imho.

The dealer I bought the rsv from years ago charged for test rides. The charge was refunded if you bought the bike..

I asked him about it and he simply said it was to reduce the number of test pilots.

Pretty typical in my experience Jon.

I got charged for a £500 insurance excess on all my test rides last year.

If your serious about an adventure bike it would be a shame not to test the KTM IMO.

Deposit rules are generally laid down by their insurance company rather than the dealer themselves.

Yes they did say it was due to insurance, but how come that applies to some companies, not others.

Godzilla wrote:Yes they did say it was due to insurance, but how come that applies to some companies, not others.

I'm going to guess on this one but probably different insurance terms and conditions

I think most dealers have to buy their demo bikes themselves so insurance comes under their own dealership policy and not the manufacturers.

The last two test rides I did (Honda and Kawasaki) didn't ask for a deposit, just the insurance waiver which I think was 500 quid if you dropped it.

I did only get half an hour on the Kwak though. The Honda dealer pretty much told me to be as long as I liked!

How long did Ducati and BMW let you test ride the bikes for Jon ?

Both of them pretty much as long as I wanted. I was out on the Beamer from 8.45 till 10.30 as I had already arranged the second test at Ducati from 12 and I was out till 4:30, but he just said get back before they closed.

Sounds a good service was it BMW Williams and Ducati Manchester ? Think I need to speak with these people.

Blade wrote:Sounds a good service was it BMW Williams and Ducati Manchester ? Think I need to speak with these people.

Yes, have a slight advantage, I know Williams Manchester well as I've been going for 4 years and know one of the salesmen from Ducati, plus 3 of my riding buddies have bikes from there (the ones in the photo at the start of the thread. What were yo thinking of riding? I'm sure we could turn up together at some point.

Same as you tbh.

If I change could very well be a multi or a GS

Blade wrote:Same as you tbh.

If I change could very well be a multi or a GS

Will be very interested in your opinions when you have ridden them.

No problem mate will definitely pass on my comments.

I found your comments both interesting but also surprising tbh so I want to find out for myself as I can genuinely see me considering one of those two models.

Fancy a Trip to Morocco on them