Italia Moto Lincoln No Longer Main Dealer

It was hardly going to be liked by the 'Ducati community' that supported and had high regard for this dealer

 

But thanks anyway,
I'll buy you a coffee if your bring @bettes with the cigs

 

No

 

Something like this

 

Aren't you the lucky one!! Italia is my nearest dealer 56 miles away, Ducati Sheffield 70 miles, Ducati "Leeds" (read Shipley) 70 miles. it is the price we pay for riding two wheeled exotica. The Honda Suzuki Yamaha and Kawasaki dealers are 7 miles away.

I have used Italia for over 20 years. They are real enthusiasts. Long may they continue.

 

The guys in Sheffield I would highly recommend. I bought a 748 from them just now and they have been nothing but helpful. I can't imagine they are getting rich on the deal either. As it is a 2654km round trip from me I doubt I will use them much for routine servicing, but the sales team were great!

 

That's commitment, will it being RHD not be a problem?

 

At least it's yellow, that should offset it

 

For service and repair work try Nelly at Cornerspeed, still not "local", but one of the best.

 

Work for the auto industry as a tier 1/2 supplier. It’s very cut throat and the whole concept of “loyalty” has gone out the window. It’s all about what they want from us and how to squeeze us to the bone. Old relations and support offered in hard times no longer matter.

 

Same thing happened to my "local" dealer (50 miles away). They sold Ducatis for 30 years, but couldn't afford the cosmetic changes dictated from Italy and are no longer a dealership. Now the closest dealership is 180 miles away. Two of my friends have sold their Ducatis because they don't want to have a dealership that far away. I don't need a place with x amount of square feet and x amount of fancy signage, I just a want a place with great service and people, which is what I had. Just like when I had a Guzzi, now dealer support is so limited in my area that this may be my last Duc.

 

The dealers that can afford the changes only pass it down to the customer in the end.

 

Yep, Back in 2002 I had a few issues with the Duke when it was brand new, just from memory...Speedo, Taco and LCD went. i was glad of Italia's service. one time they nicked a part of a new bike to get me running

 

I bought my first red heap an 1198 from Italia when deciding to defect from our soul less Japanese corporate brands and have since had a 1299 and V4S all from Italia. Over this period I have had great support from Phil and his team even through the V4S challenges, going forward Ducati/Audi have to be careful they don’t forget that bike riders aren’t the same as car drivers, we are very different. Good luck to Italia for the future.

 

You're totally correct, that's about the sum of it these days. It's all about the privilege of working for them and the indignity when you can't deliver yesterday with a design change. With the world becoming a smaller place, if you won't do it, some goon in china or wherever will - until they piss them off and then its off to find someone else to butter up.
The fact that you shook hands on a gentleman's agreement to bail them out on that last program counts for nothing.

The way the modern dealer network functions is as a sausage machine for the OEM.
The dealer's end of the bargain is that he will kit his showroom out in a certain manner and have the correct brand 'assets'. They will be supplied to him by the OEM, and that will include the tiles so to speak. this cost will be at the dealer expense.
The dealer will buy X approved used and have X of new stock availability - he has monthly targets to achieve both with used/ new / spares and apparel.

The dealer will send his technicians on courses at the prescribed intervals and he will of course foot the bill himself.

To a dealer, ten bikes/cars moved at PCP are worth more than ten cash sales. The PCP is something which the OEM will want sold to incentivise and capture the customer into the brand family loop. A dealer can practically sell a bike at zero margin on PCP as his reward from the OE for meeting volume target is greater than the profit if he had to sell those things individually for traditional finance or a cash sale.

Warranty isn't automatically paid out. The only time a dealer can be sure of an auto win on warranty is when he's had one of those 'tech bulletins' which tells him if a customer comes in with X complaint, just smile and change it without argument.

Dealers with a high volume of warranty claims are generally penalised by the OEM.

OEM's can hamstring dealers who have incurred their ire by not booking techs in on available slots as quickly as possible, delaying spares deliveries, and slowing/ limiting new bike allocations. That hits the dealership in the pocket as he has to keep his customer sweet in the mean time.

Since TPG, Ducati used the Harley Davidson method of selling and qualifying a customer. Humour the 'prospect' but if the prospect is not in the business of buying, discard and move on.

It's the way it is now. The greatest protest a dealer can make is literally to do what Lincoln has done and walk away, or just refuse to take your quarter's allocation as some top marque car dealerships have done in the past.

OEMs want regular money coming in (PCP incentives ensuring monthly revenue) and volume going out ( The seeding the idea at time of purchase that in two or three years you'll be looking to move onto another model).

Your valued customer is the one who you know you can ring up, invite to the closed event show and tell evening and be sure that he will trade in/ put money down for the new model as regular as clockwork.

There isn't a place in the mainstream industry sausage factory for the level of service and attitude that Lincoln and their kind has. It's why Baines turned down being a main dealer when offered. It just wasn't their bag and they didn't want the hassle of it all, and even John Hackett was known to sometime voice a little regret at taking the poison chalice.

Under Audi control, ducaudi will be run like a very efficient teutonic lifestyle meatgrinder, with the full weight and experience of the VAG marketing machine behind them. They realise that like their other top end brands nobody 'needs' a ducati or a porsche or Bugatti unlike skoda/ VW or shitbox gayudi. It's a lifestyle choice and a brand loyalty, and they knew very early on that like Harley, Ducatisti are willing lambs to slaughter, especially if you crank it up to 11.

Harley still do it way better than Ducati, but that's the product of being the motorcycle that everyone who knows nothing about bikes knows about. but they're getting there.

 

I can't understand Ducati, they let a great garage like Moto Lincoln go but still support Ducati Woods of Abergele north wales which in my opinion, and a lot of people I have spoken to is the worst garage in the North West.

 

Ducati isn't probably the villain in this - they've just got a way of doing things now and probably for the right reasons Moto Lincoln decided that the direction they (Ducati) wanted them to go was not in the best interest of the dealership and how it saw itself.

Ducati now have a huge parent and backer, but they'll be expected to do things their way - it's the price they pay in return. VAG stuff pretty much sells itself, that's why VW dealers and Audi dealers for the most part are total bellends. If you've got a problem, there's a herd of sheep behind you that just got of the boat.

Lets face it, with Ducati you've got a reasonably high net worth individual, within a certain demographic. Not for a Ducati dealership some shitty bandit 600 that hasn't been serviced for ten years and the bloke asking if you can put the cheapest filters you can in there and tell him what else needs doing and he'll do it himself (seen that happen). VAG umbrella see those customers as Ducati's client base, Its all to do with market segments, customer profiling and ensuring your prospect spends when you tell him its time to spend. Customers are like cattle, and cattle need to be led. Moto Lincoln probably felt that this way of doing things just wasn't them - and you can only applaud them and support them for that.

As for Ducati Woods, the only way people like that get a kicking is is if Ducati UK start getting lots of customer complaints. OEM's don't like it when customers complain directly about a franchise - brand image and shit sticking and all that.

If they get enough moaning about a place they'll put penalties in place, and start taking a much closer look at the dealership in question - auditing and questioning invoices and warranty claims for instance.

I've seen it done to car dealerships, where a deluge of complaints has caused the UK arm to swoop down in inquisitorial fashion and pick the place clean with a fine tooth comb. One warranty claim out of place and the whole claim book for the year just gets thrown out.

Bad service from a place like that has got the ability to wreck a brand's reputation as the customer associate the brand with that dealership - look at the damage that motorcycle shitty did to Ducati and others when they were throwing them out of the door like they were a put the coolant in and go Fireblade.

If Abergale is that bad, then a couple of concentrated instagram or facepoo / twatter broadsides on it mentioning things like never touch another Ducati with a bargepole etc etc, should see them getting noticed quite quickly for all the wrong reasons.

Do they have any natural predators for their business in the area or do they have you as a captive audience?

Citizen smith would have jizzed himself if social media had been around in his day.

 

reading all your comments, I won't repeat the same rants, but here is something for the 'new modern dealerships' to think.

There are fewer new blood coming in for motorcycles, many reasons, insurance, safety, paranoia, under the partners thumb, lost his cahoonas when one took a sh*t, procreative reasons...etc etc. all valid but comes the rise of the snowflakes.

Phil, you done the right decision, Ducati (or even other brands) wont sell much in a few years time as now electric bikes will replace these brilliant machines and the snowflakes will be the main customer focus. We old school petrolheads are the last of the era maybe one more generation to squeeze through.

Passion has been finally commercialised, I think that was the last thing I hoped wouldnt change. But every passion, enthusiasm or hobby has turned into a capital.

I agree money has to be made but ethically and logically.