Overcharge for fitting of heated grips on 2014 PCX?

[TheMaverick]

Hi Folks,

I purchased a pair of Daytona heated grips online for my 2014 PCX - they came from a Honda dealer in a different part of the country. I probably could have installed them myself but I assumed that an auto electrician would do a better job - so made the booking and then had the work carried out.

I didn't get a quote or estimate first, but when making the booking we agreed it would probably be a "couple of hours" (I was talking about pulling out the iPad and doing some accounts for a couple of hours whilst they did it).

Was kinda shocked to get a bill for 4.25 hours labour (they said it actually took them 4.75) (in NZ Dollars $445 all up) (only paid $130 for the grips!) On top of that, I had to re-glue the throttle grip and take care of having the metal end plugs machines to remove 10mm to account for the extra grip length. I also replaced a plug that was in such a place as it would have eventually got water in it when bike was outside in the rain.

They appear to have wired it correctly - they've got it switched via an ignition source - added an inline fuse from the battery etc.

Any thoughts here on the time it took them to do the work? Quotes from bike dealers have ranged from $80 to $115 ...

[Mel46]

You agreed to use them but your problem was not getting a quote first. On top of that, who told you that an auto mechanic would know more about a motorcycle than a motorcycle mechanic? I am not a mechanic and yet it would take me probably a couple of hours to do the job. An auto mechanic will have a learning curve, which would be a couple of hours. You just got billed for the learning curve, but you agreed in advance so I don't see a way out of this.

[TheMaverick]

You agreed to use them but your problem was not getting a quote first. On top of that, who told you that an auto mechanic would know more about a motorcycle than a motorcycle mechanic? I am not a mechanic and yet it would take me probably a couple of hours to do the job. An auto mechanic will have a learning curve, which would be a couple of hours. You just got billed for the learning curve, but you agreed in advance so I don't see a way out of this.

Thanks for the reply.

Not sure I follow your reasoning; they aren't auto mechanics - they're auto electricians. I'd expect that they work on electrical systems mostly for cars, but also bikes / boats / trucks / trailers etc too. Admittedly there will be types of jobs that they do more of and types that they'll do less of - and fitting hot grips will be in the lesser category, but at the end of the day all that's involved is connecting one wire to an ignition source - another to an earth - mounting a switch with the supplied hardware - removing old grips by taking out 1 screw in each - and gluing new ones in place; not exactly rocket science (I would argue that tapping into an ignition source on a bike is no different to a car - and gluing some rubber on a bike is no different to a car). Perhaps a bit like a vet who has castrated dogs for 40 years being faced with castrating a cat; different animal but essentially same anatomy.

Yep - clearly a learning curve, but 4.75 hours for a job that everyone else is saying shouldn't take more than an hour on that scooter? That's the bit I'm struggling with. My expectation - that they were aware of - was "around 2 hours" (when I suggested that I might wait) - and if they'd billed me for 2 hours I wouldn't have blinked, but I do feel that (a) if it was something that was so far out of their comfort zone then they should have told me or (b) stopped the job when they realised it was going to be difficult for them. I don't think it's reasonable to just dump a big "SURPRISE" on the customer like this. If it's a learning curve then I shouldn't be paying the full hourly rate that one expects to pay for a competent tradesman, in my opinion - they need to reduce that to compensate for the fact that he's not up to speed on this particular job if that's the case.

[Alibally]

It took me about 2 hrs to fit mine. I think about half of that was deciding where to mount the switch.

[DAB]

It's removing the bodywork that would slow them down, bet they haven't done one before.

[Bash On!]

I'd take quotes from other dealers for same job to the one who did your work. Although you didn't get an estimate, that doesn't allow them to charge you an unreasonable amount. Further, good business sense and customer service would mandate that they call you before they get into the territory of installation costs of over 3x the cost of the part itself. Be sure to mention the extensive clean-up work you had to do to complete/correct the work they did. Negotiate with the service manager, then the general manager and owner if need be.

In the US, at least, if you have a dispute with a business and pay by credit card you can dispute the charges with the credit card issuer, once you've tried to work it out with the business. Hope you have that in NZ, too, as it's an effective, low-cost consumer tool. Another way you can proceed is if NZ has the equivalent of a Better Business Bureau (google it to see what it is) or a government consumer affairs office.

Best,
Bash
(who worked his way through law school as a consumer affairs investigator/no legal advice intended/no attorney-client relationship created/consult your own NZ attorney for legal advice/insert other disclaimers I forgot to add here)

P.S. My own horror story: had a local radio shop (mainly commercial vehicles) install a ham radio in my car. Got an estimate of $200 but they wanted to charge $550 when it was ready (the radio was only $400, BTW). Nearly had a cow. Further, they broke $100 in interior trim when mounting the radio. Had to get into full lawyer mode to hold them to the original estimate and pay for the damaged trim.