I am posting for a friend who is not curreently on the web. He just purchased not too long ago a brand new F4 from a dealership in MA, and the engine immediatly starting smoking when he started driving it. He called the dealer up and complained about the smoking and they told him it just needed to be broken in. As he drove it more it kept doing this, and everytime he called the dealer up and talked to anyone he kept getting the run around. 900 miles on the bike later he finally said enough is enough and has driven it back the 500 miles to the MA dealer he bought from. He left it after describing the problem in detail. Now they are arguing with him over the phone about the fact that they are now saying it is his fault, as he didn't break it in right. WHAT? This is not right. He called the other dealer in MA and they won't even talk to him because he didn't buy it from them. He did talk to one dealer in PA who said, "That's just not right. Just bring it in and we will take care of it" but they are a day or more drive away-one way. Too far for him to have to take a brand new $19,000. bike that should be fixed by any dealer without any of this unbelievable hassle. The owners name is Alan and he lives in NH.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

-- Steve Kelley (steve_kelley@hhs.dresden.k12.nh.us), May 10, 2002

Answers

Sorry, I don't know how to help. Which dealer is it in MA? You can email me if you like...

-- ramana (lagemann@bc.edu), May 10, 2002.

I'm curious too. I bought my bike in Massachusetts and my dealer's service has been exemplary. I have a 2000 which has had no problems other than a melted fairing (replaced under warranty).

-- Chris Eden (biospeck@mindspring.com), May 10, 2002.

Sorry about his problems. You may want to give Cagiva USA a call. They're in Willow Grove, PA. Here's a link to their site:

http://www.mvagusta.com/index2.html

Hopefully, Cagiva will excercise some good customer relations and act as a liason to get the bike fix, especially since it's under warranty. Cagiva should realize they are only as strong as their dealer network. Good luck.

-- Allan Gibbs (Agibbs996@aol.com), May 10, 2002.

steve,

We are a new Mv agusta dealership, and two of my techs have just came back from Mv agusta school. Our techs are certified on diagnose,remove and repair any F4 engine. Please give me a call.

Thank you Howie Mansdorf

516-867-6363

-- howie mansdorf (howie@xtrememotorsports.com), May 12, 2002.

Thank you Howie. I will call Alan with this info ASAP, and I am sure he will call you ASAP. It seems bizaar to me that Cagiva would not want someone, anyone who just barely purchased one of their brand new bikes in March that is showing engine trouble immediatly, going thru a hasstle like this?

I hope that with your help Howie, Alan can soon put this all behind him and finally be able to enjoy what he spend his money on. Isn't that the point of buying one of these? To ride it and enjoy it?

I will keep updates on here as to how it is going.

Thanks again to all who have posted so far.

Steve

-- Steve Kelley (steve_kelley@hhs.dresden.k12.nh.us), May 13, 2002.

I can vouch for extreme motorsports, I dealt with them when I had banged my Mille, they took great care of me without price gouging. through my experience I would only go to them with my bike (until it was stolen).

-- Mark (HendriksMark@hotmail.com), May 14, 2002.

Alan wanted me to update everyone on the status of his new F4 and his continuing ewfforts to get it working correctly. The dealer/service center in NY, Extreme Motorsports, picked up the bike from the dealer he had it at in MA awhile ago. This is the same MA dealer that had sold it to him and was basically just sitting on it. Alan only had to pay for the pick up and delivery from the MA dealer to the NY dealer and back. Extreme got everything else covered under the warranty, including a few of the latest updates and other goodies. Alan wanted to say Kudos to those at Extreme for doing such a good job. He said it was refreshing to deal with a place that actually was willing to listen and knew what they were doing. Alan told me the name of the service person who he dealt with the most and worked on his bike, but I forgot his name :o(. Chris maybe? I will double check and post his name later, as Alan said he was very helpfull. They replaced/updated his speed chip and did many other little fixes on it. They also discovered that a few things were done incorrectly on the bike when it was prepped for sale by the MA dealer. Some fluids were overfilled and so on. Some of the smoking was caused by the rings being chromed, and it takes a bit of road time I guess for them to "burn in". This was something that the MA dealer didn't know. Messing up the fluid levels only increased the smoking problem making it worse. Again, Alan wanted to thank everyone, especially the service man at Extreme who worked on his bike, for a job well done. Alan can now ride and enjoy his bike, which was the reason why he purchased it to begin with :o)

Steve

-- Steve Kelley (steve.kelley@dresden.us), June 19, 2002.