My husband and I bought a 2006 Yamaha V-Star Motorcycle on August 8th from Cycle Sports of Salem Oregon. The day of our 8-year wedding anniversary. We saw this beautiful Black V-Star Yamaha when we walked in and was told the bike was going for $5200.00 when we asked about it. John (my husband) was allowed to test drive it up and down the street. He feel in love with it. We were told it had 400 miles on it and it had had one previous owner briefly. We are not sure of the miles that were on it because the speedometer was not working correctly at the time. John did not really notice it at first when he test-drove it.
We spent a considerable amount of time with the salesman (Trevor) going over the details of the sale. We were told the finance would be 11.9 % because of a Promotional deal and the payments would be around 94.00 a month or so with our good credit. We were encouraged to buy the Gold Maintenance membership because the bike is new and would need often oil changes, spark plugs and tune up maintenance. We agreed to the $899.00 for the 24 Month Gold Maintenance membership for the extra protection a new engine requires. We asked Trevor about an extended warrantee? He said with the Gold Maintenance costing that much we could take our time thinking about getting the extended warrantee because we had up to a year to make up our minds. He said we had the factory warrantee and the Gold maintenance. We need not worry.
We were told the motorcycle did 120 MPH and Trevor said they'd throw in a set of leather travel saddle bags and a windshield into the deal due to the fact my husband lost a finger on his hand and the windshield would help him hold onto the handlebars better. After we had agreed on everything the salesmen went and drew up the paperwork. He came back out with a "contract".
My husband noticed we had been charged for the saddlebags and windshield another $669.89 dollars. He then told the salesmen to forget it; we thought it was part of the deal as discussed prior. Trevor hemmed and hawed about it saying he had no control over the decision of the accessories. I was out front when Trevor and now Justin returned with the "revised" contract and told my husband all he had to do was sign the agreement that followed the guidelines they had verbally agreed upon without the accessories. The contract now said $6100.00. It was because of dealer costs he said. It was normal.
Trevor then stated they could not get the 11.99 % finance rate but got us a pretty low rate anyway. And the payments would be $195.00 instead of $94.00 a month. John said ok, now the price was $6100.00 plus the $899.00 for the Gold Maintenance. It was now $7000.00 without registration of the bike or finance charges. John still wanted the bike so in "good faith" he signed the contract, assuming he was signing what they had agreed upon. "A motorcycle that did 120 miles per hour, $195.00 a month payments and a year factory warrantee with the Gold Maintenance plan added.
We took home one piece of paper stating we owned a motorcycle. We were given a pink piece of paper and their business card and were told to call them if we had questions about the Gold Maintenance plan and it's terms instead of a contract. We did not get a finance contract either. They said they didn't have extra copies of the contracts for us. We did not know any better at the time, we thought they'd mail them later to us or the finance company would send copies.
We took the bike in a couple of days after the sale and they fixed the speedometer. They said a wire must have come lose. So we will never know if it had 400 miles on it already or not. The odometer disclosure says (NE # 45). What does that mean? It is our Space number at home.
When we got our first payment due by the HSBC Bank of Nevada finance company the payment due was $250.00 instead of $195.00 a month like we were told it would be. We were paying 22.99% interest rate.in the meantime my husband still took the bike in for the regular checks and oil changes as advised by Cycle Sports for a "new" bike using the Gold Maintenance card. John had been complaining to Cycle Sports that the bike would not do over 80 MPH on the freeway. The mechanic "fixed" it and returned it to us. It still ran bad so they "fixed" it again. They said it was the flaps on the carburetor. We were charged $ 46.00 to have it cleaned. The bike was returned to us again. The bike started to run even worse then before. This went on 4 or 5 times. It just never ran right for freeway driving.
Now the bike was in the shop again. They had it almost 3 weeks this time and they still can't tell us what's wrong with it. Then they told us it will cost $800.00 for a new carburetor.
I called the Yamaha Corporation in California I spoke to a (Erin) to see what our factory warrantee in-tailed. Trevor had said we had one. (Why should we have to pay for a new carburetor?) The one it came with should have worked right when we bought the bike?) The Yamaha Corporation informed me that they would NOT honor anything because the parts in question were not factory stock anymore. The bike had been "modified". Which by the way are Yamaha approved parts. Trevor neglected to tell us that. We would have gotten the extended warrantee had we known right away or we may have chose another bike perhaps at the time. We thought we were making an informed decision at the time of the sale.
Yamaha said they could do nothing for us and take it up with the dealership. That was not acceptable and so I wanted to speak to a manager about it. He said that would do no good and take it up with the dealership.
As a last resort I read a statement I got from the finance company HSBC Bank of Nevada and saw something I thought might help. I had been meaning to call them anyways to find out why were paying such a high interest rate and did not qualify for a better interest rate with our good credit?
I explained to (Mr. Arto @ HSBC) and I told him that Cycle Sports wanted to charge us $800.00 for a new carburetor because neither Cy cle Sports nor the Yamaha Corporation would honor any warrantees. Could they help us? First they said I should have been given contracts for everything. They also informed we should have been given the 11.9 % promo deal even if it was a "used " bike. 22.99 % interest is a default APR and we had not defaulted.
Trevor did not tell us it was 22.99 % interest he got us since he could not give us the 11.9% when John signed the contract. Trevor just said he got us a good deal. HSBC said they held the title on the bike, neither Cycle Sports nor the previous owner did. I asked if they honored the warrantee under the disclosure HSBC bank card offers? It is called "Special Rule for Credit Card Purchases". I was told yes. It is good for one year from the day the bike was financed not bought by the previous owner. Then Mr Artho said HSBC will issue a dispute for the promo interest rate and the final price we bought the bike at. Unfortunately he said now the dispute will be on our credit reports. If we don't dispute it though, we can't get the 11.9% interest rate or at close to it.
After talking to HSBC bank I went down to Cycle Sports and asked for the General Manager. I asked him what our "year warrantee" in-tailed that came with the sale of the bike and why were we being charged for a new carburetor. He informed me we had no warrantee. Only the " previous owner" did and it was up May 22. They had neglected to tell us the "dealer warrantee" is only good for the previous owner. Why weren't we told anything about the previous owner facts? I also wonder why we paid almost $900 dollars for the Gold Maintenance membership for "new" bikes when they are now saying it is a "used" bike with used bike rules and warrantee for the previous owner? Would the previous owner be liable for any of our actions?
Then I asked him about the HSBC bank one-year guarantee they offer on the credit card. Would that cover a new carburetor or fix the old one? He said there was so such thing as a warrantee / guarantee from the finance company. I showed him there was on my HSBC bank disclosure. He said he did not know about that. But it probably meant if I ordered parts and wanted a refund on them I could petition to have the cost of the parts refunded. I asked him why we did not get the 11.9 % rate at the time of the sale? He said we were being charged more interest now because we added the windshield 10 days after the contracts had been signed? And by adding just one dollar it raised our interest rate APR.
I asked why were not told about the factory warrantee not being honored because of non-factory parts? He said it's like buying a used car. We could not give back a "used " car or ask for it to be fixed for free? It was our fault we have no warrantee and we did not get the extended warrantee. He said he had that in writing. I told him we were not given all the information or facts to make an informed decision about an extended warrantee. We were told we had a year to make our minds up about it. He said it does not matter we had signed the contract. We had bought the bike "used".
I asked about the contract too and he said he would look around and see if he could find a copy. I still don't have one. I was also told then that Justin did the contract not Trevor. Why was not Trevor's name on the contract anymore since it was his sale? After going back and forth about business and sales ethics he finally said, "There will be no charge to fix the bike". I thought to myself, we will see. John got the bike back yesterday (3 weeks this time) "fixed".
The mechanic said the Supercharger carburetor injectors were never even hooked up nor working at all and that's why the bike would not run right on the freeway. They had discovered this after taking the carburetor apart again. The same one that they had charged us to clean previously. The mechanic told John it would be $800.00 and he could have the bike back. John told him there would be no charge. His wife had said so. The mechanic then spoke to the General Manager. We were not charged any money for the work done nor parts if any were used. It turns out, it was just the jets in the carburetor that needed to be adjusted the whole time to accommodate the exhaust pipes that are custom / modified with Yamaha approved parts I might add. Something else we were not told was not considered factory part beside the carburetor.
I felt the Yamaha Corporation could have been more helpful with trying to rectify the problems instead of flat out telling me to take it up the dealership. Unfortunately we will never buy another product from the Yamaha Corporation or Cycle Sports because of their business and sales ethics. I feel we have been defrauded by Cycle Sports in their "Packing", Ethics, and not given all the facts of the sale to make an informed intelligent decision on the sale of the motorcycle.
The Better Business said they can't help since Cycle Sports is not registered with them. The Department of Justice could not do anything because our credit was not that affected by putting our claim in disput. We also can't not use the bike as collateral to apply for a loan with better interest rates because the Bike had only a $4200.00 blue book value. As it stands now we pay $210.00 and $68.00 only goes twords the Bike itself.
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