I bought my original Grom from Kent Power Sports at the end of Feb for $4134 OTD. I also separately purchased the prepaid maintenance for 3 yrs at $999. The prepaid maintenance contract is tied to the Grom's VIN, which is important in a minute. Within 30 days the Grom had been totaled in a crash with a BMW, so while I'm recovering from injuries, I've been looking for a replacement bike. I wasn't thrilled with my experience with Kent because they are HORRIBLE at returning phone calls, their labor rates were ridiculous (something like $250 to mount 2 tires!!!), and they seemed to know nothing about aftermarket parts/mods for the Grom. They even told me point blank that I could get better prices on aftermarket parts on the web. Great business model!
I contacted Woods Honda in Austin who were much more responsive, plus they had a customized Grom in the store and seemed pretty up to speed on aftermarket goodies for the bike. I was handing them a deposit check when I discovered they wanted $4600 OTD and I damned near walked out on the spot, but the sales manager agreed to sell me one for $4100 after I told him that was a no-go. A few days later I get a call that they just got a used Grom on trade with <200 miles on it, but in red. I wanted black, but don't really care that much. So I was prepared to buy it until they tried to charge me $4100 OTD on a freaking used bike. I said "you're going to charge me inflated freight and dealer prep when you already collected that from the previous owner?" They didn't care and said "that's the price". I drove up there the next day and picked up my deposit. You can shear a sheep many times, but you can skin him only once.
Back to the prepaid maintenance - Kent Power Sports is now trying to force me to pay for the $999 maintenance even though the bike is totaled, I never made a single installment payment towards the maintenance contract, and never received a single service or benefit from the contract. They could do the right and honorable thing of tearing up the contract, but instead they choose to be blood sucking scum to try and bilk me out of a grand. They said they would allow transfer of the maintenance to something else if purchased at Kent, but this is not in the contract nor will they put it in writing. Even though I wasn't thrilled with them, they also told me they had two black Groms in stock at the time and I said "Great! I'll take one. I'll come give you a check tomorrow." Salesman said they were in the shop but not in the system yet and he'd give me a call as soon as he had the VINs. I still haven't gotten a call back from the salesman after 2 weeks. I went down there last week because the woman in finance either refused or was unable to send me a copy of the maintenance contract. Every day that I called her it was some BS of "Our email is down.", "I sent it yesterday, didn't you get it?", or "I'm making a copy right now", etc, etc, one excuse after another. I finally had to drive my ass down there with broken-foot and walk in on crutches to get a copy of the damned contract. When I got there I walked right by the sales guy who sold me the first Grom about 40 days prior, and whom I'd just asked a few days earlier to sell me another Grom. He said nothing but 'hi'. Not a word about a new Grom.
I've since made some calls around the state and found much more reasonable prices and dealers. I encourage everyone to do the same. Any of you guys in Austin are also welcome to borrow my new hitch-mounted bike hauler if you want to buy a Grom somewhere in driving distance without paying inflated prices to the lame greedy dealers here in Austin.
I contacted Woods Honda in Austin who were much more responsive, plus they had a customized Grom in the store and seemed pretty up to speed on aftermarket goodies for the bike. I was handing them a deposit check when I discovered they wanted $4600 OTD and I damned near walked out on the spot, but the sales manager agreed to sell me one for $4100 after I told him that was a no-go. A few days later I get a call that they just got a used Grom on trade with <200 miles on it, but in red. I wanted black, but don't really care that much. So I was prepared to buy it until they tried to charge me $4100 OTD on a freaking used bike. I said "you're going to charge me inflated freight and dealer prep when you already collected that from the previous owner?" They didn't care and said "that's the price". I drove up there the next day and picked up my deposit. You can shear a sheep many times, but you can skin him only once.
Back to the prepaid maintenance - Kent Power Sports is now trying to force me to pay for the $999 maintenance even though the bike is totaled, I never made a single installment payment towards the maintenance contract, and never received a single service or benefit from the contract. They could do the right and honorable thing of tearing up the contract, but instead they choose to be blood sucking scum to try and bilk me out of a grand. They said they would allow transfer of the maintenance to something else if purchased at Kent, but this is not in the contract nor will they put it in writing. Even though I wasn't thrilled with them, they also told me they had two black Groms in stock at the time and I said "Great! I'll take one. I'll come give you a check tomorrow." Salesman said they were in the shop but not in the system yet and he'd give me a call as soon as he had the VINs. I still haven't gotten a call back from the salesman after 2 weeks. I went down there last week because the woman in finance either refused or was unable to send me a copy of the maintenance contract. Every day that I called her it was some BS of "Our email is down.", "I sent it yesterday, didn't you get it?", or "I'm making a copy right now", etc, etc, one excuse after another. I finally had to drive my ass down there with broken-foot and walk in on crutches to get a copy of the damned contract. When I got there I walked right by the sales guy who sold me the first Grom about 40 days prior, and whom I'd just asked a few days earlier to sell me another Grom. He said nothing but 'hi'. Not a word about a new Grom.
I've since made some calls around the state and found much more reasonable prices and dealers. I encourage everyone to do the same. Any of you guys in Austin are also welcome to borrow my new hitch-mounted bike hauler if you want to buy a Grom somewhere in driving distance without paying inflated prices to the lame greedy dealers here in Austin.
