The Daily Rider — Local services in Burlington

Steer clear of The Daily Rider in Burlington. I brought my 74' Airhead there in April of 2019, I didn't get the bike back until Jan of 2020. I was charged ~$2,600 for coils, rocker blocks, two tires mounted, plugs, wires, a new rear wheel, valve clearances, "all" fluid changes, steering bearings, condenser and a general health check. I was a-ok with it at the time, I had gotten the bike running (roughly) when I brought it to them but wanted a trusted source to make sure it was ready to ride.

Fast forward to April of 2020. Excited to get the bike out, I checked the oil, fuel, took the battery off the tender, made sure it all looked good and fired it up. Everything was great. Took it for a ride around the neighborhood a few times then after a bit of that I took it for a 12 miles ride out through colchester bay and back.

Bike gets stuck in 2nd gear. Doht.

Figuring it was something relatively simple and ONLY a transmission issue, I went to remove the gearbox, did so. Set it aside and when I came back I noticed some type of milky brown substance leaking out of it ... Milkshake. Shoot. Started wondering how the hell this would happen as its been in my garage all winter comfy cozy... Well, daily rider leaves all their bikes outdoors. So I contacted them about it and asked what the deal was. I dropped the transmission off shortly after.

A week and a half goes by, hear nothing so I called. Mark, the owner, gets on the phone and denies any responsibility because they "didn't change the fluid according to our notes". On my invoice it states they checked the level, it was too high, so they drained some out. They did however refill my gear oil for the final drive. He said they aren't going to claim any responsibility but would do the labor for $800 + parts. I almost lost my mind, I contacted Rubber Chicken Racing (Who deals almost exclusively with Airheads) to do it and his labor rate with no "discount" was $675! Mark insisted this was a "great price" and that I "wouldn't find anywhere else lower".

Now these old Airheads are NOT watertight. The speedo boots are prone to leakage, so knowing this I feel like any shop should and would know that they shouldn't let these things sit outside, and if they do, to plug the holes. On top of this, if they did drain some out... They would have either seen water on the dipstick OR draining out since it was "overfull".

I'm pretty pissed about this. Its a crap situation, and while it isn't entirely their fault... Their complete inability to offer me a competitive price for something that was LIKELY caused by them leaving my bike outdoors for 8 months... Leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I figured after spending $2,600 and missing an ENTIRE season of riding because of how slow they were to finish the job, they would at LEAST offer me an olive branch of splitting the labor, or just paying for parts. I got no help, and I would highly recommend to take your bike to a shop that will own up to mistakes. I'm happy to clarify any information or send along photos of the bike, transmission fluid, my invoices, or my bike sitting in the rain to interested parties.

I also want to note: Ben, the tech at DR I worked with has been great. Answering questions, being open about things, and doing a good job at getting the bike running correctly. I have no beef with him at all. His initial response to my plight was that they would "do something for you to make it right", but it sounds like he...

I brought my scooter I bought from Facebook to this garage to make sure that it was safe to drive. I paid little money for the scooter and was okay with having to put some work in it to make it safe- but in no way do I think my scooter is of amazing shape. It gets me from point A to point B. Whoever works on scooters there (I forgot his name) immediately knew who sold me the scooter and proceeded to tell me that I wasted my money, the scooter probably wouldn't last more than a mile down the road before I'd have to bring it in again to fix it and said he would take a look at it to "see if there was anything he could do". Very rude as a first impression, but whatever. This isn't the first time I've had someone who works on vehicles talk to me this way. After bringing it in, he said he fixed the idle and that I needed a new battery for the electric start. I purchased a new battery and paid for the service (couple hundred dollars- not a big deal). As I was driving it down the road, I came to a stop light and my scooter completely died. The idle was way too low. I was luckily able to start it again, but it died again at the next stop sign if I didn't feather the gas. I brought it back in a couple of days later. The owner of the shop was very nice and told me that they would take a look and see if there was anything they could do to fix it. All they needed to do was re-adjust the idle because it was too low. After a couple minutes of waiting, the owner told me that there was nothing that they could do to fix my scooter and that I would have to take it somewhere else to get it serviced or buy a new one. I wouldn't recommend this shop to anyone that doesn't have a scooter or motorcycle in amazing shape that won't cost more than a couple hundred dollars to fix because they won't fix it. BTW, I'm still driving my scooter around after adjusting the idle with no problems over...

Mark does shotty rushed work.

My girlfriend bought a bike that needed some TLC, she had friends that highly suggested Ben at the Daily Rider even if the waiting list was a bit long. Ben was nice enough to get things expedited a bit and got the bike running decently in a week but had some time off. Mark stepped in and even though all that was left was to sticker the bike he said the exhaust needed welding for a crack. My girlfriend and I not having ready access to a welder agreed to the work without seeing the crack in person. Days later Mark calls us to say the entire exhaust needed more welding and that work would be another 300.

This is the point where we decided to take the bike back and assess things. We pulled the pipes off ourselves and tested them finding leaks on most of the seams and where Mark noted on the cross over pipe. We however didn't see evidence of quality welds one would expect and mistook Mark's weld job for some the prior owner had done.

This afternoon when we went and asked what welds were his, Mark became incredibly defensive yelling at us that "I'm not going to stand here and have my work criticized". I will leave these pictures here as evidence of why my girlfriend felt she was being bullied by this old gruff man ask asked me to come along. We will now be spending hours of our next weekend grinding this trainwreck of a weld down so a) it's not a tumor and b)...