In a thread recently , it was pointed out by a long time Honda customer , that they - Honda - kept on missing various vital jobs on his bike , including valve clearance / lash checks. This wasnt a supprise to me and many others , and the reason we concluded it best thing was to do some leg work and find an independant garage whom one can trust to do all future work. A supprise comment by a poster ( who sounds like he knows what hes talking about - i wont name him ) gave the impresion that many of the Honda badged "garages" are not officialy linked or supervised by Honda , resulting in their poor service standards. It seems there is Honda AP , Honda Big Wing , and various other Honda garages , workshops , sales showrooms and dealers , that may or may not be supervised to a more or less extent by honda. Does anyone know for sure which of these , if any , works exactly to the full recomended service scheduals and service job recomendations. May i take this moment to wish everyone a happy New Year. .

Nat Motors CNX follows service schedule.

Just started selling CB650 so maybe sell the whole range soon, but have stock up to CRF250

Independently owned and operated

Thanks seedy , thats good info ( for the Honda owners in CM ) , but i meant - and maybe i explained badly - is which of these Honda badged buildings have THE qualified mechanics that can work correctly on all Honda bikes. There seems to be different "levels" of Honda places , Honda AP , big wing etc Is Honda AP tyhe top level workshops , that do a correct service , and the others are only there for sales and simple oil changes , and asking , and getting , these places to do anything more isnt posible.

I was proudly told by the English-speaking sales staff in BigWing Suratthani, that their mechanics had completed 3 full months training in Bangkok !

Well that was good enough for me

Bigwing staff are from what I can tell properly trained in BKK by Honda and have always done all the work as specified in the service schedule. Now the small bike Honda shops where you get the scooters and up to 300cc bikes are a totally different beast, in my experience it's hard to find one where they do valve clearance checks and so on. They just change oil if you don't insist. And if you insist, then good luck having them do the work properly.

I *think* (someone please correct me) that Bigwing BKK is run by AP Honda and the other Bigwings just franchises but properly trained and supervised by Bigwing BKK. They send their mechs for training to BKK and for example when Bigwing Phuket wants to organize an event, they ask in BKK first.

Thanks CC .Now we need to assertain what level and ammount of training the other Honda mechanics complete it the smaller Honda shops. This may be making the difference between getting ones valve clearances checked , or not . I know Honda has training courses for its staff , as other companys also do , but i didnt know where the mechanics were stationed once qualified.