Your opinion/experience: warranty coverage and US bikes

KTM suck then.

Ducati has worldwide warranty coverage and is valid across borders. I believe Aprilia is the same.

so don't cheap out and just buy locally. warranty should be looked at as a privilege and not a right when you're buying outside of a country just to get a better deal.

ssblade said:

so don't cheap out and just buy locally. warranty should be looked at as a privilege and not a right when you're buying outside of a country just to get a better deal.

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not a matter of cheaping out, just a matter of convenience. I am getting a Dakar RallySpecial 525 built by Charlie Rauseo (Team PanAmerica Dakar) in San Francisco. The '07 525EXC will be street legal and comes with a 1yr warranty. Be nice to have some warranty coverage since KTMs can be a bit finicky.

Same deal with Honda. Unless you have a letter from them allowing you into the country with the US purchased bike (which is hard to get), chances are they won't cover you either. I imagine it'd be the same with a lot of manufacturers.

It's the same with many bike manufacturers. Since the dollar is so strong, Canadian dealers can't compete with U.S. prices so this is their way of curbing the market to continue to pay inflated Canadian prices.

You can always buy an aftermarket warrenty. Betchya even with the added expense, it would still be cheaper than buying a lot of bikes in country.

You can always take your bike to the nearest US service centre for warranty work.

A friend moved from Chicago to Vancouver with a 1 year old Honda Accord. Honda will not honour the warrantee in Canada.

KTM Canada, as with all the other OEMs are separately owned distributors for their respective companies. They can make whatever rules they want, and Tattoodles is 110% correct. They want to make it difficult for you to buy a bike from anyone other than them so that you have to pay their jacked up prices.

sad but true.

Tattoodles said:

It's the same with many bike manufacturers. Since the dollar is so strong, Canadian dealers can't compete with U.S. prices so this is their way of curbing the market to continue to pay inflated Canadian prices.

You can always buy an aftermarket warrenty. Betchya even with the added expense, it would still be cheaper than buying a lot of bikes in country.

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You think bike manufacturers are bad? This is the same with Porsches! MCL Porsche won't even service at Porsche from US. With the dollar so high, a lot of guys are bringing them in. So I guess it's their way of being competitive.

Pain in the ass, but I'd say your best bet is to truck it over to the border for warranty type service.

So just pack it down to a KTM dealer that's south of the border if it needs warranty work....

BELDAR said:

not a matter of cheaping out, just a matter of convenience. I am getting a Dakar RallySpecial 525 built by Charlie Rauseo (Team PanAmerica Dakar) in San Francisco. The '07 525EXC will be street legal and comes with a 1yr warranty. Be nice to have some warranty coverage since KTMs can be a bit finicky.

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Triumph sounds like the only manufacturer to honour their world wide warranty.

Lets hear peoples opinions on insurance for a off road use bike converted to street use. I have heard that the insurance companies can denie a claim for this reason.

ssblade said:

so don't cheap out and just buy locally. warranty should be looked at as a privilege and not a right when you're buying outside of a country just to get a better deal.

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“Privilege” - Why so!
The cost of warranty work is covered by the manufacturer, be they in Japan, Italy, Germany the UK, wherever (notice I didn’t mention Milwaukee – they don’t build bikes there ).
Not covering warranty is just a cynical BS ploy to help protect their markets and inflated prices in some countries.
Being from the UK we saw this firsthand. We were paying up to 50% and more for the same models available in mainland Europe. Eventually the grey market import business became so big that the manufacturers had to drop their prices in line.
They can and should honour the warranty on their products anywhere in the world, regardless of point of purchase, provided it was sold by a franchised business. Unfortunately they’re allowed to get away with reneging.

Service announcement about your nickel from Chumly the slow guy!