Complete failure of any level of service

They deserve a negative star rating. It was all polite and nice, when I bought my bike last year, but since then it has been one headache after another. The first issue, the gentleman I bought the bike from was ridiculously slow in getting back to me regarding any requests. I had to contact him multiple times to get a proper licence disk cover because apparently when I picked up the bike the didn't have any and used sellotape to stick the licence disk to the fork. Eventually, I got the disk cover, but then I again had to ask multiple time for the actual bike manual, from memory I think it took four weeks and, multiple trips and calls to get a simple BMW F800 manual.

Once this was all sorted the next problem reared its face, I had the bike for a few weeks, and the handguard came loose, I took it back, and the genius assisting me decided it would be a great idea to glue the thing. It worked for a few weeks and then came loose again, so I decided to take it to BMW to get a professional opinion, and the gentleman at BMW Centurion told me that it was unacceptable that they glued the handguard as that is counter-productive considering the weight in the handguard is meant to dampen the vibration. He informed me that he could fix it, but it would most likely mean getting a new handlebar because of the mess the glue caused they would possibly need to drill it out. Decided to give Fire It Up a chance and after another struggle, they seemed to have corrected this, but I keep wondering if they just used more glue!!

This brings us to the next lovely story; the time came for the 60,000km service. Thinking that the integrity promise would result in everything going smoothly I was in for another joy ride. Firstly, I had to drop the bike at the new service leg in Kyalami and spend R250 on an UBER ride to get back to my place. Once they had the bike the charges started flooding in; suddenly not much is covered under the extended service plan, my though was after a while that if they look at the bike it's covered, but as soon as they touch it they start charging you. All the charges came through fork seals, tappet gasket cover, etc. R5,000 later and then they wanted to charge me around R2,000 for the front breaks so I told them to hold off because I could do it cheaper myself. They had my bike for around four days only to get another call saying that they took it for a test drive and the clutch cable snapped, so it's going to take another day with an additional R1,800. What could I say but go ahead because the bike is my only means of transport and UBER was costing me an arm and a leg.

Eventually got it back and then decided to take it to The Gravel Man in Randburg to assist with sorting the breaks out as I am still new to biking so learning how to do all these things. What was meant to be an easy 20 min job turned into a 2-hour struggle as a result of Fire It Up’s negligence. When Marcus checked the bike he noted that they never reset the service computer, they didn’t even plug it in. Next, he tried to get the brake disks out and started struggling. This was as a result of poor service again from Fire It Up, the last time they serviced my bike they never greased the calliper properly, and due to this the calliper ceased up so much that he had to take off the entire calliper and loosed the rust with a hammer just to replace the brake pads. Now, because this had to be done he had to bleed the brakes and charge me for the 2 hours labour. He was 100% right in doing this, but now it cost me another R1,500 to fix Fire It Up’s mess. Ohh yeah, forgot to mention that while my bike was at Performance Technic the indicator mysteriously got damaged, I only noted this when I was at Marcus so honestly could not be bothered dealing with fire it up again.

This brings me to my last tale of anguish that pushed me to write this story, this part starts with a warning (be careful when buying anything at Bikers Warehouse, there is also a lot of fine print). Got on my bike and it didn’t wanna start a few weeks ago, eventually did a run start and took it to Bikers Warehouse in Randburg as they were closest to my house. The guy had a look and told me the battery needs to be replaced, and they only have one type that will cost me R1,700 so again I didn't have a choice so agreed to them replacing the battery. 4 Days later my bike didn’t want to start so knew it wasn’t the battery but considering my previous experience with Bikers Warehouse I didn’t even bother contacting them as they would be as useless as before. I then decided to call Fire It Up and book my bike in to have a look. They had the bike for three days and never communicated to me and eventually when I called them I was told that there is something wrong with the starter (regulator or something). I had to inform them again that I bought the bike from Frie It Up and got the extended maintenance plan that covers any issues like this. The guy informed me that he noted this and will get back to me. Fast forward another three days without any feedback I called them again and was then asked to send them the warranty documentation as they don’t have any record of this, I duly submitted this to them the same day. Only to call the next day to confirm that they received it and was told that his email isn’t working, so I need to send it to another person, again I did this same day. At this point I expecting things to go faster, only to get a call saying they are waiting for pricing from BMW. Two days later, I called to find out what is going on; they informed me that they have received the pricing and are now going to send it through to the warranty company to get approval. That was a week ago an I had to keep calling them asking them for an update, and the only story I get is “We are awaiting feedback from the warranty company”.

I had enough!! I bought my bike from Fire It Up with the promise of maintenance and service cover; I don’t care if your third party is taking long. My agreement was with you, and you are creating a very large amount of inconvenience and unwanted stress. UBER is no cheap if you have to use it every day!!!!! Bottom line, sort your **** out!!!