re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

As much as I hate to say this, but dealers of Hero, Maruti etc don't run away with a customer's money. I'm sure these manufacturers keep their authorized dealers on a leash, otherwise we would have heard similar stories from them.
No wonder they sell so much despite (arguably) not making the best products.
On the other hand, look at Skoda. Kawasaki just knocked their doors.
Your products maybe good, but unless you buckle up and provide a good customer experience, you won't stay for long.

re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

Even I too felt the same after reading about their plight as to why they transferred such a huge amount without even looking at their bike in person, as I only had booked mine by paying 10k initially and only when I went to their warehouse and got to check out the bike in person, where I was lucky to be given the choice to pick any one of the 4 in the lot available and also to ride the one I had selected back to the showroom, and then only I transferred the rest of the money to start the registration process. With the Z800 and above, it should have been nothing more than 30 to 50k as the booking amount, but here I wonder how they trusted the dealer in transferring almost the full amount!!..

re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

I don't see how it passes of a disinterested vibe. In fact it's a perfectly drafted response which not only helps the customer but also helps them save some face by saying IKM is in the process of fixing things.

re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

I felt a Disinterested vibe, because the message has no timeline. All it does is promise things "at the earliest".

See, Kawasaki knows the recepits given by the customers can't be fake, specially with verifying their signature. So, why not go ahead and just give a 1 month time to customers within which they will get their bikes, for sure, from the company itself?
1 month is enough to sue the dealer(I know recovery will still take time, but hey, business runs on credit, right?), or get the customer receipts verified. Or a whole lot of other actions that I may not imagine right now.


In short, people trust the (till now) undisputed reputation of Kawasaki, and they should have an assurance that makes them sleep easy at nights.
A written promise by Kawasaki that they shall get their bikes by xyz date, counts as that assurance.
"As early as possible" and "we're TRYING to solve the dispute" are not assurances. They're infact, making them sound helpless in the matter, and thus customers will get scared further.



I have a intution that Kawasaki clearly didn't have a bad intention, but they might have made a mistake towards dealing with the dealer... Maybe a legal mistake, or a business mistake. Again, this is just an intuition I'm sharing as a member.

But I have a feeling that Kawasaki will handle the matter and come out clean... At least, much better than Triumph did.

I sincerely suggest that Kawasaki should compensate the owners with some additional benefit, like some riding gears, some exhaust, some race fairing or something that at least shows that they care.
In the end, the customers should get their bikes, but the tension they've had these past months, Kawasaki must man up and take responsibility for it. Because, its not the customer's mistake for sure.

re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

Something similar happened here in hyderabad a couple of years ago with a ktm/kawasaki dealer. It was and is a reputable dealership (varun motors) and these are also one of the biggest dealers for Maruti in this region. Here a sales guy at showroom collected the money and 'vanished'. After running about for a month or so, the customers filed a police complaint and eventually the issue was sorted out.
From what I've seen/spoken to this same showroom, the way their booking/inventory works is, they pay Bajaj the money and then the bikes are delivered.. The credit line is not huge. So when it comes to more expensive bikes that don't essentially fly of the shelves like splendors (say a n650 n higher) , these dealers do not want to block their cash by keeping idle stock.
Another angle to this is ppl doing money rotation etc..  all together a different game which some regular folks don't know about . This seems to be what has happened here, those dealers probably got the money tied up somewhere or ran into losses in another business.
And since these seem to be dealers and not a direct kawasaki outlet, kawasaki will first try to isolate themselves from legal trouble before giving out a plan of action or respond to customers because I believe even they would have been on the dark about the bookings/payments received by the dealers.
Not a pleasant situation for the customers though, one option is a legal/police complaint will see a quicker resolution to such scams.

re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

+1 to going the extra mile in compensating the irate customers.
And also the dealership must be cancelled after this fiasco. Kawasaki shouldn't let something like this tarnish their image.
I so want them to come out clean, afterall its the only brand which has given us competent machines catering to every segment at acceptable* pricing.. !

re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

Re bikes are readily available in my area. At least 3-5 of them easily. It depends on showroom quality and selling power. Also they aren't cheap either at 1.3-1.6 laks on road, where a R15 is 1.36. and all the cars and bus , bikes are available in kharagpur before Kolkata ( if the brand showroom is here that is) because it is between Mumbai Kolkata road, the pulsar 220 and the Renault kwid was available here before Kolkata got it.😉

re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

How can Kawasaki as a company, run away from being responsible? They had granted the dealership after a lot of verification and paper work and now they have to come up!

re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

Kawasaki Dealer Goes Rogue: Kawasaki India Intervenes and Promises to Sort Out Major Customer Concerns.

Or something on those lines.

Isn't that a more fitting title considering the latest updates???

re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

The original link from team bhp still keeps "Kawasaki un-cooperative" in their title. And it doesn't surprise me at all.

Kawasaki can anyday give customers their bikes, and deal with the dealer later. Let me tell you, there's nothing stopping Kawasaki from doing this. No technical problems, no legal issues to our information, no problem with accounts, nothing. The world runs on credit, at least a part of it. Nothing except risk. Risk that the dealer might not actually give Kawasaki the pending money later on. People were depositing money from as early as March to late June or so... which amounts to a whole lot of money.

But all we see is a weak and vague statement. Check this, "(India Kawasaki Motors Pvt. Ltd.) is doing everything in its power to solve this issue as soon as possible". So, nothing is promised as of now.

I believe that if I change the title, it weakens the customer's interest which is our primary concern here. Let some action be taken and we'll definitely rename.
Of course, if any other moderator or staff believes that a title change is needed, I will not interfere, and I will trust that person's judgment.

----consecutive posts auto-merged-----

UPDATE:http://m.mid-day.com/articles/mumbai...-ride/17527198

--
As far as Team-bhp link is concerned, many have commented there. One person is going the legal way for now.
One person claims that HDFC did get a reply from the dealer regarding this.

re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

Brilliant thinking!!

Bob is an excellent shooter, but certainly not a workaholic, he spends considerable time at office & returns home only by night or late nights. His Wife was too tired of complaining that she's missing him in the evenings which fell on deaf ears. This lead his Wife to seek spicy alternatives thereby stopping her constant bag with Bob.

One day Bob comes home early evening; as his car approached the porch, he saw a man pull blue jeans & jump other side of Window & run away from his house. Bob dashed into his house, pulled up his old Remington & ran towards the same direction where the other man had run.

After frantically running for 15 minutes, he sat on a bench under a shady tree, that is when he heard a noise near by the bush; when he peeped, he saw a man unzipping his blue jeans.

**BAM**

Bob shot him dead in no time!!

The sound must've scared someone in the other side of park, Bob saw a man running frantically away with someone. Bob's eyes were terrified when he had observed it close...he saw the man wearing blue jeans running with his Wife!!

Re: Random News Thread From India!

For all those who are planning to buy a Kawasaki motorcycle from Navi Mumbai, make a note.

The Economic Times, dtd. 02/09/16 had this announcement.

Re: Random News Thread From India!

Good move... At least Kawasaki understands the value of customers and took a strict action against the palm beach showroom.

Re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

Guys, After that Bob story by [MENTION=26407]aargee[/MENTION] , I contacted him over PM to understand the hidden meaning behind it, and he believes that the dealer is to be blamed, and I am wrongly blaming Kawasaki.
Well, he's mostly right, and I do blame the dealer too. But I blame him only, in a "dude, its so obvious!!" way. You can't blame a cheat for being a cheat, can you? You can, but does it make sense?

Let me put it this way:- As a bank customer, will you blame the criminals, if your bank gets looted due to bad security standards?
After this, if the bank manager says, "Criminals are criminals, they took your money from us, and I can't return your deposited money, Sorry". Will you let the bank manager leave with a clean chit?


Systems are in place everywhere, even in Private companies. Even applying for a small company's tractor dealership in my city requires a deposit of a cool Rs. 1 crore. Yes, a tractor company.
My question is, how much did Kawasaki keep as deposit from the rogue dealer? OR, Had Kawasaki kept a (interest payable/not payable) deposit of Rs. 2 crores, would customers have had a problem anyhow?
The bigger question is:- Would the dealer dare a move like this, knowing that the company has his hard(or whatsoever) earned money?

Anyways, forget it. I'm sure Kawasaki, as promised in the advertisement, will surely find a way to compensate the customers.



UPDATE is however that, One of the customers is going to file an FIR now, source of which is the same Team BHP Link:- Paid for Z800, but no bike! Kawasaki uncooperative, says "we haven't received money from our dealer" - Page 8 - Team-BHP

The internet is angry, and at least some blame Kawasaki. One example is Akhil Kalsh, who posted a strong facebook/Blog post (fake.riderzone something) literally blasting the company! I'm not posting it, because its too harsh handed, over the top stuff.


Let's hope the matter ends amicably. I'll still repeat that I'm sure Kawasaki will handle the matter... and the customers should get their bikes or the involved money at least, if not any compensation.

Re: Kawasaki Shuts SNK Mumbai Dealership, new dealership soon!

UPDATE: One customer from Chennai, argues with this dealership and takes from them a display ZX14R, which on the way to Chennai encountered problems on the way:-
After being denied delivery in spite of full payment, frustrated Kawasaki customer takes off with display bike | Motoroids


One guy has some information(we don't know, true or not) and an online petition against Kawasaki here:- This is why I'll never buy a Kawasaki, and neither should you - RiderZone

It is also alleged on the TeamBHP link, that the owner has fled to Baharain, probably due to his Facebook profile info.


Mr. Mandheer, a person who paid SNK must've sent some legal letter to Kawasaki, the situation is getting more scary for owners as he gets a counter letter from Kawasaki's associate:- Paid for Z800, but no bike! Kawasaki uncooperative, says "we haven't received money from our dealer" - Page 9 - Team-BHP

In short, Kawasaki still blames it on SNK in this legal letter, whose scans are linked above.
My thinking is that Kawasaki's lawyers must've thought exactly like a lawyer does- how are we responsible when it SNK who ran with the money (or whatever is the truth)?
It still doesn't make justice though, to the 11 customers who've been made a minority in this development..