Dave Bennett

Dave Bennett, Bennett Cycle-ATV Service Scammed me with the promise of a Mod motor and I got nothing even close, Louisville, Kentucky

4th of May, 2011 by User694907

As if it's not hard enough for hard working moms and dads to keep their kids racing week after week with the high prices of gas, travel, parts, track fees, etc. there are several CON mechanics in the Motocross Industry that are preying on good families promising "Cheap Quality" service but in fact they are doing nothing more than promising you one thing and giving you just the opposite. This has happened to me more than once this year and several other dads that I've talked to and I'm tired of watching these so called "experienced mechanics" take advantage of people who don't know the difference and then they exploit it to the highest level. I was approached on several occasions by Dave Bennett at the local tracks about doing some work on my sons motorcycles, he said he has YEARS of experience and can do "Anything and Everything" that the bigger guys can do but for alot less money and that he'll add the "Personal Touch" to it. (yeah, the only personal touch I got was his greasy nasty dirty hand prints all over my sons bikes each time I stopped by to check in on the progress!) Oh, and to mention progress, every time I stopped by I got one excuse after another of why it looked so bad and why my parts were scattered all over the garage where he couldn't find anything and then to make matters worse, an excuse as to why a job that he promised would take only a few weeks ended up taking over two months) Here's a direct quote from his scam website "I started this business because of the high cost of service and lack of ownership when the repair was not completed correctly. My goal is to make it right! If I choose to work on your Cycle/ATV I will do every thing necessary to make the repair right". Well if he meant a single word of that statement, then why hasn't he made it right with me after several attempts to give him the benefit of the doubt and to fix what he screwed up but he refused!!! Dave personally promised me this last job that he was going to MOD my sons RM85, that would include milling the head (or sponging the head as he called it), port & polishing the cylinder, new top end kit, matching the carb to the motor, crank bearings and matching the cases (after talking to several Factory Suzuki mechanics, that's something that can't even be done to an RM, duh!) installing new fork seals, etc. The main selling point that Dave used to real me in was that he was going to send the motor out to a Top Suzuki Mechanic that he knew very well and that my bike would come back "Ready for Loretta Lynn Qualifying" and that it would be the fastest 85 around without changing the bore size of the cylinder. Well, here is where it all goes south :0( A job that he promised would only take a few weeks took over two months and every time I questioned why its taking so long, he would tell me because this so called TOP MECHANIC was so backed up BUT he was going to start deducting $25 every day that the motor wasn't sent back to us. Well, the reality of the whole deal is IT NEVER GOT SENT OUT TO ANY TOP MECHANIC, he took it to a local friend who is a street bike mechanic and not even a motocross dirt bike mechanic (don't be fooled, they are very different as far as moding a race bike) After all this time, he FINALLY text me and tells me that my motor was back (this was on a Monday) and that he would have my bike back together and ready to race for the weekend. I told him very specifically that we were leaving town by not later than 5 pm Friday so I had to pick up the bike by 3 to have enough time to load up and get out of town on time. So, when I called him on Friday to let him know I was on my way to pick up the bike he tells me that it's not ready and to give him another hour or so before I come over. At this point, as you can imagine, I'm getting very frustrated and feeling really sketchy about everything, I just knew things weren't right from all the craziness that I was seeing each time I stopped by to check in on things and NOW THIS!! So, as any smart consumer would do, I felt I better hold back a few hundred dollars of the final payment to make sure things are exactly what he said they would be, and it's a good thing I did. I get there to pick up the bike and it's a total mess. Parts were missing, the front and back wheels were not even on the bike and the rear wheel adjustment bolts were gone and he can't find the rear axle or wheel spacers or my rear break rotor either, so in all his embarrassment, he franticly wheeled in his sons RM85 into the garage and started taking parts off of it just to finish up my bike so I can get out of there and try to make it home in time to leave town (keep in mind I told him early in the day that I HAD to be on the road by 5 pm at the latest, but it was well past 6 pm by the time he had things ready to roll out of his garage) Sooooooo, the bottom line is this, we get to the track and first thing Saturday morning my son was totally excited to ride this new BEAST of a bike and feel the power of all this new work that was done (ooops, I mean work that was promised) and no sooner than he gets out on the track for the first practice of the day, he gets off the gate and around the first turn and headed up a steep hill and all I could see from where I was standing is he goes down really hard and once he got up he couldn't get his bike to move off the track so I run as fast as I can up the hill to check on him and you wouldn't believe your eyes. The front brake caliper was never bolted on and it flew up and hit him in the hand first and then came back down and wedged itself in his front wheel/spokes and caused him to flip over the bars, keep in mind that flying up a hill 4th gear tapped and you come to a COMPLETE HAULT, that could have caused a very SERIOUS injury or even death. Don't you think that the mechanic who put the bike back together is responsible for the ultimate safety of the bike and rider??? Ok, so after I get the bike back to the pits and put bolts in the caliper so he can get back out on the track the next practice, he goes out the 2nd round and can't even make it a 1/2 lap and has to pull off the track and he's just sitting there not moving and waves me over. I get out there and he says "Dad, this thing won't even pull up a hill or the face of a jump, it's popping really bad and has no power" and I'm like YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!! SOOOO, we get it back to the trailer and start checking out the jetting, the carb, and everything else we could try (me and 3 other very experienced Moto dads) and after hours of changing jets, needle positions, cleaning carb etc, I realize that this bike just wont run properly so we load it up in the trailer because we were completely done for the weekend :0( As frustrated as I could possibly be, I call a PRO Suzuki Factory Mechanic and ask him if there were any possibility that he would look at this bike when I get back and see if he can figure out what the #$%@ could be wrong with this brand new motor and why it won't run. I get back home and drop the bike off to him and he takes the head and cylinder off and immediately looks at me and laughs and says, "Mike, this motor has not been touched, the head is stock and covered with heavy carbon build up and then as he pulls the cylinder, he scratched his head (oh, and by the way, his dad was there as well who has worked on mod motors for over 30 years himself) and they both just shake their heads and he tells me that there has been NO port or polishing, there was a new piston but Dave reused the old bearings and pin/clip, and he didn't even touch the power valves and when he pulled them out of the cylinder, they were CAKED with gunk and weren't even working!!!!! They both asked me "exactly what did you pay this guy to do" and I gave them the list of things that I mentioned earlier and they simply just shook their heads and laughed and stated "Mike, this guy didn't mill the head at all, the cylinder has not had ANYTHING done to it and he didn't clean any of the critical parts when doing a top end rebuild, Dude you got taken to the cleaners PERIOD". After looking at several other things on the bike that were not put back together even close to specs, he told me that I couldn't even let my son ride the bike again until all these things were corrected, everything from the clutch cable being pinched in between and pipe and frame and it wasn't working right (it was pinched so hard that it broke it in half and had to be replaced) the swing arm adjustment bolts for the chain were totally the wrong size and type and could not even be tightened due to him forcing the wrong bolts in there (that's so rooky!) He continued to look over the bike and found several missing bolts/screws, wired and hoses routed wrong, loose wheel bearings that Dave promised he had replaced and much much more. The Bottom Line is this, when a business owner accepts your work and promises a quality job to be done right (as quoted in his own words on his website: www.bennettcycle-atvservice.com) They are 100% RESPONSIBLE to make sure everything is done as specified, but unfortunately Dave Bennett did not do ANY of the work as agreed and cost me hundreds of dollars for shoddy work and he almost cost my son severe injury or possibly much worse, so I feel he owes me AT LEAST half of my money back because now I have to go hire someone new to due the work that I was promised in the first place :0( Anyone in Louisville KY or the surrounding areas, BEWARE of this guy along with a guy by the name of Keith Morgan, who did the very same thing to me late last year on our KX100 that my son couldn't race any longer after he worked on it, only to find out that the crank and gears that he charged me Top Dollar for were not installed correctly and ultimately blew up after only a few hours of riding, these guys have to be stopped before they really hurt one of our kids and cause damage that NO AMOUNT OF MONEY CAN FIX!!!

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