Chiswick Honda, London W4 Review

Overall Rating

They clean your bike.
They offer excellent, free loan bikes.
They are always available.

They charge far too much.
They are not reliable in returning calls/contacting customers.
They provide bad service, bad and dangerous repairs.
They fail to complete repairs.
They damage bikes.

I took my Honda Trasalp to the 'award winning' Chiswick Honda for a full service, new tires and a new indicator cover. I informed the service desk that I would need a loan bike at the time of my booking and also explained that I was taking my bike on a trip across Europe in a few weeks.

When I dropped my bike off they hadn't got a loan bike for me, having failed to book one for me, and I needed to take a scooter instead, which was irritating but OK.

Several days later I was able to pick up my bike, having spent an extortionate amount on the service. Right from the start I noticed a strange, rhythmical grating sound from the bike when it was moving. I assumed that this was brake rubbing and hoped it would just run in and be OK after a few miles. Two weeks later I returned the bike to Chiswick Honda and they repaired it for me. Apparently they had failed to correctly adjust the chain, which was so tight that it was causing the noise.

So I drove the bike about 1000 miles, to Italy, where I discovered that the chain was far too loose. I took the bike to a garage there and it was adjusted to a tighter setting, but when that resulted in the same noise as before it was realised that the chain had a very bad tight spot on it and it needed to be replaced, when I got back to London.

When I returned to London, I took the bike back to Chiswick Honda and explained to them that when I had paid such a huge amount of money for a full service I had expected them to do the job correctly and to have noticed the damaged chain, which was clearly at fault from that time (deduced from the sequence of over tight, over loose adjustments). They offered no explanation, only repeating that the chain had lasted a reasonable length of time (which wasn't relevant) and that they offered loan bikes, which was generous (and which I paid for in the premium price they charge for the unsatisfactory work they carry out) They replaced the chain and sprockets and charged me full price minus 15% for their error. I consider this unacceptable.

In addition: the cleaning that they have done to my bike left water in the tank key hole. This resulted in the corrosion of the lock which will need to be replaced for normal use. I asked them to repair my heated grips when I left it with them for the service, but they forgot...