Nothing to do with a Triumph bike another manufacturer in 2013 ish. I purchased a bike from a main dealer. Only ever used the bike in the dry. One night coming home from work on the motorway the front brake locked up like someone ramming a pole through the front wheel. I went over the handle bars and owing to time of night, a rucksack, no vehicle behind me and not colliding with a crash barrier escaped with minor injury. I paid for a forensic inspection of the bike it unearthed a catalogue of failings that the dealer should have addressed during the immediate service prior to sale. The findings were damning on top of the relevant findings they added additional irrelevant evidence proving the brake fluid was outside minimum safe limits as the boiling point was too low. 3 years later I received a settlement. I always wonder should I have been killed would this have been picked up on or would rider error have been to blame? My point to the story is to highlight that professional witnesses are readily available to assist bikers and that as long as you are 100% satisfied rider error isnt to blame them u stand to win. In the case of this thread a similar approach can be adopted following purchase of a bike
Thanks to @Col_C, @Iceman and @Adie P for your responses to my post. Interesting that Total's 'owner reply' to my Google review is as follows: Just need to provide the actual facts here. You required brake pads at a service, and we managed to squeeze that in for you with a busy working day. Unfortunately due to lack of ever cleaning the bike, really we should have held onto the bike, and charged for a full front brake caliper(s) rebuild too, but went with pads only. The calipers were not free enough, and continued to bind on the new pads, so we have at short notice got it in and stripped and rebuilt the calipers for you and charged you around 1/3 the true charge for this work. We also cleaned all rivets on discs as again lack of cleaning meant they were not floating correctly. You will need to maintain and clean your bike to stop it requiring this again on a yearly basis - this is down to you, preventative cleaning and maintenance will save you a lot in the long run. Patronising or what? Also 1/3 the true charge was still £142, so they are saying £426 to fit pads? If they really were stripped and rebuilt, why did it take the mechanic two hours to fix the binding when I took it back due to the 'being filthy'? So appears it is all my fault for having a Triumph I actually use five days a week for eight months of the year (5000 miles) rather than dry Sunday afternoons and the rest of the week cleaning and looking at it - not that there is anything wrong with that, but I like to actually ride the thing whenever I can, especially as 16 of my daily miles is down the relatively deserted, fast and twisty old South Molton/Bampton road. It does also get cleaned every w/e when I have been riding in the wet. Did get a call from Neil in response to my email which was decent of him. It was a civilised conversation and he assured me that he was certain the problem was that the bike was cleaned by them before I collected it and then leaving it in the garage for the next ten days before using it, caused the brakes to bind due to the moisture from the wash. I have no way of proving this as all I noticed (due to not backing the bike up at any stage) on the way home was the spongy response, which was not there before the work - brake fluid having been replaced by them in a main service they did in July 2021. Suggested they should have warned me of this potential problem with new pads and I would not have left it sitting for so long. He also said getting and retaining technicians was a nightmare for him and from now on they would only be servicing bikes sold by them as they were under so much pressure. Not that I needed another nudge, given my experience, and following the recomendations in these threads, I had Brummers help me out with a rear puncture at the end of last week. They were excellent. Claire phoned back promptly, had the bike dropped there next day by recovery and Paul squeezed in doing it the same day. Also replaced worn rear pads and there is no spongyness or binding! Have booked my next MOT and 20K service with them and feel confident of the job being done well. Hopefully this will also avoid the twice yearly £400 a pop complete brake service (or complete system replacement - £1200, including discs) each year Total said I would be advised to do rather than the cleaning. All because 5 of my daily miles are down narrow lanes. Apart from the odd puncture, hope to have no more mechanical dramas!
I’ve had three brand new Triumphs (two of which were 1200’s) from Total Triumph recently without any problems with the bikes or the servicing and and am looking to replace my latest one shortly. However if this is what is to be expected when something goes wrong I think I’d be better off giving my money to someone other than Mr Mossman.
Unless there's a very good reason to think otherwise, surely your geographical location would seem to suggest that Fowlers are a far better prospect than TOTAL for a brand new Triumph and its subsequent servicing? My experience with TOTAL would definitely not see them on any list of potential suppliers to me personally - YMMV.
