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Another Dealer Drops the Spyder Line

Gunner3773

Gunner3773

Member
I was out at Moon Motorsports in Monticello MN this morning to pick up coolant for my Spyder. I noticed that there were no Spyders on the sales floor. I asked about the lack of Spyders and was told that the dealer had dropped the Spyder line and no longer services Spyders. I was also told it was a business decision due to issues with BRP about having a Spyder line and also, issues in the service department. The Spyders took up a lot of space in the shop, and there were challenges lifting them for service.

As much as my wife and I have enjoyed our Spyder (55k), I don't know that I would buy another one. The lack of dealers and lack of highly trained "Spyder" techs, along with the host of problems with the newer tech, would definitely make me think about other purchase options.

As stated before, come on Honda... we need a reverse trike!
 
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When I was at Moon's for the Spring Open House, I noticed they didn't have one on the floor - and they didn't have one in the backroom either. It made me wonder then.

As far as Honda and a reverse trike, I waited and waited for the Neowing, but apparently, they just wanted to tease us.
 
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As I have said before, BRP really needs to get away from the traditional dealer network and open up their own shops and service centers not only for the Spyder but other BRP products as well and this would make even more sense now that they have an electric line of bikes.

You would have all of the BRP products and knowledge under one roof rather than a dealership which tries to shotgun anything and everything under one roof and thus get results like this.
 
I have to think some of this has to be laid at CAN-AMs door.

My dealer mostly sells CAN-AM products, along with Polaris, Sea-Doo, and Royal Enfield. The signage on the building also lists Yamaha and Suzuki, but I don't remember seeing any of them.

I do know that the last two times I've been there, they didn't appear to have any 2024 Spyders on the showroom, but they did have some new 2023 models.

When I asked, I was told they are having trouble getting 2024s from CAN-AM, and have been pulling new 2023s out of their warehouse to have something on the showroom floor for customers to look at.
 
Can Am have been aggressive in demanding their dealer's stock a level of new bikes on the shop floor. A lot of their dealers don't have the floor space or cash reserves to do that, so they lose their on-road license. They can still sell and maintain their off-road lines, but get shut out of parts and online support. They haven't won many fans in NZ by doing so; there are like three service centres left in the entire country. I'm glad I'm only into them for a Ryker, as the support required is far less than that of the Spyders... as for the Canyon (if it even gets here!), good luck selling that with little to no support.

Rant over... back to your normal viewing.
 
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nightfalcon said:
Can Am have been aggressive in demanding their dealer's stock a level of new bikes on the shop floor. A lot of their dealers don't have the floor space or cash reserves to do that, so they lose their on-road license. They can still sell and maintain their off-road lines, but get shut out of parts and online support. They haven't won many fans in NZ by doing so; there are like three service centres left in the entire country. I'm glad I'm only into them for a Ryker, as the support required is far less than that of the Spyders... as for the Canyon (if it even gets here!), good luck selling that with little to no support.

Rant over... back to your normal viewing.
Click to expand...

It seems many of the Car Manufacturers here in Oz are doing pretty much the same. The 'Family Business' selling one or two brands of cars are being forced out by manufacturers demand they carry a set floor plan, and if the business can't afford to commit the $$ to have all of that sitting around, they lose their rights to sell those cars!! In general, it seems that Manufacturers are trying to force out the 'middleman' businesses & set up a much leaner network of Manufacturer owned outlets; or they're going largely on-line - and here in Oz, that basically means the end of even seeing the new models before you're expected to buy, let alone test driving one!

BRP/Can Am have already done that with their on-road range here in South Oz - there's basically just ONE dealer in a State that's larger in area than Texas!! Now admittedly, we don't have anywhere near the population; and we do have a few regional based outlets that sell Spyders &/or parts, a few of which also do maintenance & repairs; but our 'Prime Dealer' for the State basically drip-feeds them everything, so it takes ages to get anything, IF they'll even sell it on to the regional outlet, and they pretty much sell to them at or near retail prices anyway!! :gaah:

Knowing how all that ^^ works here now, if I was new to Spyders & didn't already have one, do most of my own maintenance, have a handy & skilled service guy nearby, & a good Dealer in the next State over (only 1000 km away!) I really doubt that I'd be buying anything Can Am at all simply because of all that!! And I sure as 'eck don't think I'll be 'upgrading' until that set-up ^^ changes - maybe not even then, unless I can get something like a Canyon, only with a WHOLE LOT LESS of the 'seemingly pointless & useless to me' integrated electronic crappery! :bdh:

Just Sayin'! :p
 
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Well done comment Gunner. BRP is a huge manufacturer of recreation vehicles, it's my opinion they just don't need any more business and don't pay much attention to customer service or dealer support. Not a complaint on my part, jus sayin.
 
My local multi brand dealer told me years ago that BRP was a huge PITA to deal with and made numerous unreasonable demands. They also said that several other motorcycle manufacturers were similar in their approach to dealer relations. In fact, they were voluntarily discontinuing sales and servicing of the on-road line because of the unreasonable demands.
 
Would be nice if we had more independent Spyder people out there that really take an interest in the maintaining and fixing the Spyder. BajaRon and Lamonster come to mind, but I just don't think that's gonna happen either.
 
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When the Ryker came out, I know of a small-town dealer that was forced to take over 100 Rykers for that current model year. If they wanted to keep their franchise, they didn't have a choice. That stated, Harley has done the same thing with their smaller dealers.

I wrenched on BRP products back in the early 1970's, with snowmobiles as their only product. They were tough to deal with as everything came to us via distributor out of Duluth, MN. Based on that experience, I would never have flown on a BRP jet.
 
It seems to be the corporate structure to squeeze out the small guy in just about every venue. Now with the mantra that 'We don't work on anything 10 years or older', things are not looking up. As you can imagine, we get a lot of older Spyders at the shop. We've not had a great deal of problems getting parts for them. In general, there isn't any logical reason not to work on them. We've got original Spyders that are in great shape and have many good years left in them.

The only reason to abandon these owners is planned obsolescence. Which is nothing more than an insidious plan to make you buy another product.
 
Dealerships do vary.

I live in south central Florida. I had a bad experience taking my Ryker to an east coast dealership. They did not have a lot of Rykers and Spyders on the showroom floor. I've had a much better experience with a west coast dealership that has lots more on their floor. The service writers and techs are much more knowledgeable.
 
BajaRon said:
It seems to be the corporate structure to squeeze out the small guy in just about every venue. Now with the mantra that 'We don't work on anything 10 years or older', things are not looking up. As you can imagine, we get a lot of older Spyders at the shop. We've not had a great deal of problems getting parts for them. In general, there isn't any logical reason not to work on them. We've got original Spyders that are in great shape and have many good years left in them.

The only reason to abandon these owners is planned obsolescence. Which is nothing more than an insidious plan to make you buy another product.
Click to expand...

Great points - makes me wonder how accurate these online valuation sites are when taking a 2014 and older model into account. Seems like a bike is worth less if it can’t easily get worked on. Buyers should take that into account if buying a 10-year-old + model year.
 
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Things just keep getting more and more strange. We were told by our local dealership that several of the parts we ordered are no longer available from BRP. Yet we ordered these same parts from one of the on-line stores, no problem. Not sure what's going on with that. But I'm going to ask when I get the chance.
 
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BajaRon said:
Things just keep getting more and more strange. We were told by our local dealership that several of the parts we ordered are no longer available from BRP. Yet we ordered these same parts from one of the on-line stores, no problem. Not sure what's going on with that. But I'm goin to ask when I get the chance.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the dealership uses “just in time” inventory methods and the online entity is smartly scooping up available inventory either from dealers getting out of the brand or OEM sourcing.

Another negative side effect - my son is a tech at a moto dealership and ONLY gets paid when the customer pays the bill. If he has to wait awhile on a part, the project stalls and his paycheck takes a hit. I think he is about to leave the industry, and I can’t say I blame him.
 
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AVBIZ said:
Sounds like the dealership uses “just in time” inventory methods and the online entity is smartly scooping up available inventory either from dealers getting out of the brand or OEM sourcing.

Another negative side effect - my son is a tech at a moto dealership and ONLY gets paid when the customer pays the bill. If he has to wait awhile on a part, the project stalls and his paycheck takes a hit. I think he is about to leave the industry, and I can’t say I blame him.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I wonder if this is industry wide. Not the way we work at our shop. The mechanic does the work so they get paid whether the shop gets paid or not.
 
BajaRon said:
Interesting. I wonder if this is industry wide. Not the way we work at our shop. The mechanic does the work so they get paid whether the shop gets paid or not.
Click to expand...

Exactly the way we have always done it. Clearly, not all shops are quality shops, we have employees who have been with the shop 25 to 30 years.
 
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I guess I'm lucky here in Newfoundland. I have an 08 Goldwing and my local Honda dealer has no issue at all working on it or getting parts. Just bought a 2013 STS for my GF and the BRP dealer has no issue working on the "older" bikes. I needed to have the brake light switch assembly replaced just after I bought it and the dealer had the parts in a few days. They said they had to go to Vintage Parts for some of it. Not sure what that meant but they got the parts and she was back on the road. Here in Newfoundland our riding season is relatively short so there are a lot of older low mileage bikes on the road. I've never heard of any dealer here refusing to work on older bikes.
 
Just found out about Moon dropping the Spyder a couple of weeks ago when I wanted our bikes serviced for the spring. That’s a bummer because I really liked dealing with Moon. Nice folks who do great work.
 
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