June 1, 2020, to be Exact
Earlier this year, I reported the SW-MOTECH founded its first branch in the U.S., and that it would be expanding its operations here. Well, now more information has recently come out. The company will now start serving customers and dealers on June 1, 2020.
SW-MOTECH also announced Sarah Schilke as the head of U.S. operations, and the appointment of Quentin Wilson (formerly of Ducati and Alta Motors) for customer and dealer technical support, and Christain Hansen (also from Alta Motors as well as Speedymoto) to dealer sales.
“We are proud to extend our business operations to the United States and offer our full product line to riders throughout the country,” states Jürgen Swora, CEO of SW-MOTECH USA. “With Sarah at the helm in a city densely populated with passionate motorcyclists and surrounded by some of the country’s best motorcycle roads, we know this will be a win for SW-MOTECH as well as for riders and dealers in the Pacific Northwest and all of the U.S.”
This move should help the company provide its wide variety of adventure, sport-touring, retro, and cruiser motorcycle accessories to North American buyers. Twisted Throttle sells a wide range of SE-MOTECH’s accessories right now, and you can check out the selection there.
Here’s my take on this, having been a motorcycle and accessories dealer. Without Twisted Throttle and their years of effort promoting, stocking and supporting SW Motech the brand would be nowhere in North America. Invisible. Nada. Zip.
TT has supported dealers with fair pricing where a profit can be made, dealt with any warranty issues, and stood behind the SW Motech brand 100%.
Now, the manufacturer opens a direct sales and import operation, essentially shitting all over the company that built a presence for the brand over a dozen years’ time. In no other business that I can think of, do manufacturers screw over their dealers and distributors, like in the motorcycle accessory game. It’s criminal.
Would I buy any SW Motech item from a place other than Twisted Throttle or a dealer that they have supplied? Not a friggin’ chance.
Don’t buy SW Motech products if you care about buying something that’s been tested (I’m talking even put on the motorcycle they are claiming it’ll fit on) or giving your money to a company that even remotely cares about their customer. The two products I’ve bought from them have nearly taken out a rider behind me and caused damage to my motorcycle due to their lack of R&D and testing.
Most recently I was lucky enough to be a “guinea pig” (support apologized for letting me play that role) for one of SW Motech’s new products. In one of their “less fine moments as a company”, they released an engine guard/skid plate for the Triumph a Tiger 900 that they claimed fit all trims. Prior to purchasing, I reached out asking if it fit with stock crash bars since it was only shown with the GT model. They said, “it looks like it does attach to the stock crash bars.”
I waited for several weeks for it come and then followed the instructions to install the engine guard. I got to the step where you have all of the mounts in place and are ready to put on the actual engine guard. Clank clank, it doesn’t fit. I reached out to support and they updated their site to say it’d fit without crash bars and confirmed that over email. At that point I was unsure that I was going to keep them when talking with them over the phone so let them know I was leaning towards returning them (pretty important to note that they believe this is the part where I continued installing something I knew didn’t fit any way, shape, or form leading to the damage that took place that I explain below.)
Over the next few days, I decided to keep the engine guard as it provided more protection to a more expensive part, the engine, for an upcoming trip. I removed the crash bars and continued onward. Not only did it not fit without the crash bars (due to the Rally Pro having straight levers which I discovered over comparing online for quite some time) but the bolt that they provided and instructed to use in their instructions bottomed out and ended up creating pressure to snap off an engine mount.
It was beyond clear at this point, the engine guard was never tested on this model. They gave me three options.
1. A refund
2. Work with triumph to put the other shift and break levers from the road version on my bike
3. Take my $275 engine guard and hack it up. Ya know, Frankenstein it and make it fit since they hadn’t figured that part out.
In the meantime, I walked back through all instructions that led me to this place and realized the bolt they instructed me to put into the engine mount bottomed out when it felt “tight” but visibly not fully tight. I followed each step as advised with all the correct bolts.
After discussing with fellow riders and the dealer about how this all unfolded, I let them know none of the options were what I’d expect for the hours of nonsense, lack of support, and now a damaged bike. I was simply asking them to make the situation right as I wouldn’t be in it without their lack of engineering. They went into defense mode and insisted I was the issue in this problem (claiming I did something wrong following their instructions), and they expected me to send back the part when it didn’t fit with crash bars even though I hadn’t yet to tried the presented option without crash bars. At one point the customer service let me know what an experienced rider he was and that I could carry JB Weld on my upcoming trip in case my case got worse (as I expressed my concern.) A wonderful suggestion to void my warranty.
At the end of the day, it showed they aren’t testing their products and don’t stand by their customer one bit. They jumped to let me know they wouldn’t be taking any liability for anything after just telling me to reach out when I had heard from the dealer. I spent hours documenting what they should have known (including telling them they still had a kit on their site showing that part fit the Rally Pro after they said all were removed) and then they ultimately used that argument against me — that I should have known at some point it just flat out didn’t fit.
As noted above, I had also had a bag of theirs fail on me. This was last year and less eventful. The rider behind swerved around, my cameras survived, and I worked through it with Revzilla. It was just another event to show how they don’t test their products.
Give your money to a company that cares.
“Out of stock but more on the way. Order now for fastest delivery.”
I don’t know as much about this as you do. But as a consumer looking to purchase SW Motech products in the USA you had better get used to seeing the message above. That is from the Twisted Throttle site. These products are in stock all over the world, but not in the US.
Sorry, but anything that will make SW Motech products to be purchased and in stock? We just want a “friggin’ chance” to buy their products.
Thank’s TQ. Hopefully we are accomplishing that goal now that we are a month in! We are trying to improve the entire experience to make sure that no matter whether it is being purchased through the SW-Motech.us website, Twisted Throttle, Revzilla, Fortnine, or any one of the hundreds of dealers that carry our product, that it is a positive and fruitful experience for all involved. We are here to help raise the tide. QW