Nichols Manufacturing, Inc.

and another review from our Yelp! page: WARNING about Nichols business!!! Called and spoke to Mike Lawrence and Sean Henry regarding my 2008 Apria SXV550. Told them both that the bike only had 1800 miles it, but it needed an oil change. They said that they could do an annual tune up for $90 and it would be done in a day... 10 days later, I finally got my bike back with a $229 bill, more than double the original quote and 10X the time. Sean had to modify my rear swing arm spoo...ls, which I was charged an additional $139 without even being notified by anyone from Nichols. The spools are a $20 part btw.. To make matters worse, half way through my first/only ride after I picked up my bike from Nichols, I noticed oil on both of my riding boots, a lot of oil pouring down both sides of my motor, oil blowing out through both rear exhausts, and more oil in my air box. Mike Lawrence and the owner John Nichols came to my house to inspect and pick up the bike. They told me that they will check it further at the shop, clean it up, and put if on a dyno to test the bike is running like it should. Mike did a partial clean up on the bike, re-changed the oil, and took it for a another test ride. He said it ran great and to come pick it up without the dyno test. Mike left out of town and I had to speak directly to the owner John Nichols. After not receiving a call back from the messages I left John, I went down to the shop in person. John told me that he also rode my bike on a 17 mile test ride..? Really?? 17 mile joy ride on a customer's bike that was already test driven? WTF??? The conversation turned into an argument quickly and John told me to take my %$#& bike now. I didnt want these yahoo's with my bike anymore and gladly took it that time. Before I left, I showed John the oil site tube was not showing any oil after the bike was warmed up and I was told by Mike that he checked the oil level. At that time, John Nichols accused me of adding more oil after Nichols tuned up my bike and that was my fault..! John then threatened to call the police on me if I didn't leave the premises. You have been warned!!! Avoid the drama and go to South Bay Cycles on Main Street, Milpitas.

From our Yelp! page: I've been coming to Nichols to service many of my Ducatis and a few other European bikes for at least a decade now. And during that time, I had recommended Nichols many times over. Unfortunately, when Jim (the manager at that time) left, which was some years ago, I've noticed a progressive change. But I continued to come because of loyalty. Over the years, I've noticed that it took longer to do a comparable job which made labor costs (which expectedly... went up per hour like anywhere else) higher and there was a desire to spend (or bill) more time and to do more work than needed. Still, I kept coming. And there was an incident when they could not diagnose a problem in my bike and charged me quite a bit to try to diagnose the problem without a final diagnosis or a cure. I sold the bike rather cheaply, and the owner was able to get it fixed for which I was happy for him since I didn't want to sell a lemon to anyone. But the final straw was when they gave me a diagnosis that was a little fishy (I'm not completely stupid when it comes to bike mechanics) and a rather high cost to fix it. I took the bike to a friend who wasn't even a professional mechanic but did have an understanding, and he fixed the problem in 5 minutes. After that, I lost trust as anyone would be expected to do. I still think they do good mechanical work for standard maintenance issues, but they lost my trust and now I see them as no different than any other bike repair shop that tries to maximize what they can get from unknowing customers. See more

J Hunter Owen Sep 8th, 1:17pm Message is for Mike or Lettie, I understand you have the slides for Salient, of which is one is mine, what is your time-frame for getting them back to Salient??? Not sure what happened b/w the two of you, and it's not my business, but I just want my gun, it's been since last November . . .