I really want a better way to get parts!

[Wnuudiction]

First off I live in the middle of the pacific, far from my nearest dealer. I just sent Alta an email which I will paste below, but to sum it up, I like to abuse my trail bike. At first I babied the EX, but after the first scratch I was trying harder trails, pushing my abilities(not the bikes), and occasionally causing that beautiful piece of engineering and technology to go tumbling down a hill (that I almost made to the top...should have been in map two). They are dirt bikes after all, and they are made to be ridden.

Am I alone? I will break dozens of parts a year and I want the schematics and oem part numbers online for ease of repair.

See email to Alta below:

Hello Alta,

Are you planning to link up with a major retailer, ie Motosport, Revzilla, Rocky Mountain...anytime soon. As an owner it is very frustrating (I live on No where near a dealer btw), to call Elite, who are great, (Scott is very knowledgeable about your product) and order parts from California, to Colorado, to Maui. Also not having the OEM diagrams available is really frustrating. Scott at Elite sent me one screen shot of a schematic to order parts, but as owners we need the whole catalog of schematics. That's not just for ordering parts but also for reassembly. For my Honda, I'll just call my local shop and ask them to order 45105-MY6-415 for me, this cuts out any mis communication or wrong orders. I really hope you guys are close to giving us, first the schematics to at least get part numbers to your dealers for orders, and second a major online retailer selling oem parts.

I mean, these are dirt bikes. Am I the only one completely abusing mine? I know they are expensive but that's the whole point. Push your limits, ride the steepest hill, loop the bike and watch it roll down the hill. I see Hondas and Yamahas destroyed on our trails, then rebuilt for the following Sunday (thanks to Motosport 2 day shipping).

Love the bike, love your tech, looking forward to a response.

 

[Mark911]

I made mention of this awhile ago as well. They obviously have assembly drawings, BOMs (bills of materials) and at least an entry level MRP system. Between these it's pretty simple to create exploded views with item numbers just like everyone is familiar with now. Those exploded views are VERY helpful not only for parts ordering but for figuring out how the bike is assembled and functions (mechanically). I suspect Alta doesn't want to "show too much" engineering detail for whatever reason.

In aerospace we'd need to change part numbers whenever a component was re-designed to a point where its form, fit or function precluded interchangeability. The optimization process that we required resulted in a constant churning of part numbers and the resulting rollups in drawings, BOMs, etc. We needed entire organizations and systems to keep track and make sure our products had the latest as designed vs as built configuration. Maybe Alta is experiencing a similar situation and doesn't want to release BOMs to the public that are still somewhat in a state of flux.

 

[WoodsWeapon]

Im with ya man, I will sacrifice the bike for my good times at will.
When I bought my MX there wasnt even an owners manual available. I emailed Alta and explained the story of buying a 65cc Polini for my kid to race, and promptly sold it because there was zero support of parts, knowledge, setup, or otherwise. 2 days later Alta made the owners manual live, hopefully the same happens here.
As for using RMATV or Motosport, sure theyre great, and knowing their real world inventory is awesome, but I still use my local dealer too. I have to believe Elite can get parts to Maui in the same time frame anybody else could.

 

[rayivers]

I've had a pretty good experience with Alta parts so far (HVMC has been great!). Several single-item orders took maybe a week each. A recent large parts order (100+ items) took much longer, but that's to be expected as Alta's currently dealing with a big spike in production demand. Maybe AF1 Racing might be a possibility for handling online parts sales, as they've done with Zero.

 

[snydes]

I’m with you on wanting to be able to order my own parts quickly at home on my computer. I doubt it’s something that Alta would initiate though as I’m sure from a dealers point of view it’s a big negative having some big internet company taking a chunk out of your parts sales. It will happen on its own eventually I think.

Having some parts schematics online would be great though because it would give us the ability to at least generate our own parts list for that Monday morning phone call to the dealer!

 

[rayivers]

From Alta's perspective it'll be a whole lot easier to ship parts to a single destination instead of dozens, and compared to ICE bikes the dealer's Alta parts 'chunk' will surely be tiny & probably more of a headache than it's worth (IMO). With a centralized online presence, overall parts sales would likely increase greatly as well. After trying to describe a 'CUP, TRILINK, HK2016' without even a diagram to look at, I'm looking for easy like everyone else.

 

[Wnuudiction]

From Alta,

Hi Ben,

Thank you for reaching out with these suggestions. Our team fully understands your ask, as it is logical for an OEM offer fiche drawings and sell parts through major retailers. Unfortunately Alta Motors is not at that stage yet. 2018 is only our second year of production and we are still a small company growing as fast as we can to keep up with demand. Right now our internal product documents are changing very frequently and while tracking the changes internally is possible, at this stage managing these changes for major retailers is simply beyond our current bandwidth. Still we are working to implement these improvements over time as they are important milestones which our team is adamant about achieving.
Until then we sincerely appreciate your understanding and support. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about your bike or parts, I am always happy to help get you what you need.

Sincere thanks for you patience and support,

-Kevin