Hi guys,
I only started riding motorcycles four years ago, I'm still on my first bike(large metric cruiser) but I'm kind of bored with that type of ride now. I'm starting to get a hankering for a sport-touring bike, I did get a chance to take out a C14 for a short 20-30 minute demo ride two summer's ago and man, it rocked my world!
One thing that has me a bit leery about buying this particular brand though is the fact that we've never had much of a dealer network for Kawasaki where I live.
Kawasaki dropped our original local shop three years ago because the owner didn't have enough floor space and he took out all of the motorcycles during the winter months to display his snowmobiles and ATVs, this apparently didn't work for Kawasaki, so he got dropped. Then another dealer popped out of nowhere and he was a complete sham and went out of business in less then a year. Now a local RV, camper trailer, ATV, chainsaw, etc...place is the Kawasaki dealership. Wheewwwww........
I know that they have one or two mechanics on staff but who knows if they're competent enough to work on a bike such as the Concours 14. I wouldn't bet the farm on that being the case. They probably haven't hardly worked on any motorcycles.
Is this a cause for concern or are these bikes not all that complicated for most mechanics? If all you had for a Kawasaki dealer was this type of operation, would you feel comfortable buying a C14? I suppose that most of the time, there are no problems to deal with anyway.
Maybe getting some of those DIY CDs for the C14 would be all that a guy needs in most cases? I'm no mechanic but could do some basic stuff.
It's too bad that Kawasaki never found themselves a serious dealer in my town, there's a very large multibrand dealerships just up the road but they don't deal in Kawasaki. They do sell BMW, Ducati, etc,,, and their mechanics do have the training to work on the bikes that they sell.
But if a guy prefers a C14 over a BMW, he might have to deal with less then stellar mechanics at the RV dealership.
I'm probably worrying for nothing but would you guys have any reservations buying from a place like this?
Thanks in advance and great site BTW, this is my first post here.