Member Contributer RollinAgain Posted April 30, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 30, 2014 Seriously, what the hell is wrong with Honda and their damn Owners Link website? They took the site down last summer for "redesign" and originally said it would be back up in the Fall of 2013. Well Fall came and went and they updated the site to say it will be available again in "Early 2014." Now here it is almost summer of 2014 and the site is still not ready. WTF is wrong with you Honda?? I work full time in the IT industry and know exactly what it takes to develop a website from scratch and it definately shouldn't take this long unless you have only one single developer working on the entire project. I'm also not sure why they didn't keep the old site up and running while working on the new site at the same time. Does anyone have any insight into what the holdup is? I know lots of people who kept their service records on this site and everyone is pretty frustrated with how this has been handled. Rant over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Belfry Posted April 30, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 30, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer vfr350 Posted April 30, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 30, 2014 If you work in IT you know that database is gone, it would be a start from scratch if they brought it back online. Not a priority since its not revenue generating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer RollinAgain Posted April 30, 2014 Author Member Contributer Share Posted April 30, 2014 Honda clearly states on the landing page that all the data from the original owners link site has been preserved so I don't really understand what you mean when you say the database is "gone" and we would have to start from scratch. VFRD isn't a revenue generating website either but Miguel still keeps database backups for this site and keeps it running 99% of the time so I doubt that Honda did not have backups of the DB. I understand that the Owners Link website isn't a direct revenue generator but it still contributes to overall owner satisfaction which has an indirect affect on future revenues spent on Honda products. Maybe I missed the notification or it was flagged as spam but I don't even remember getting an email saying the site would be taken down for re-design. One day it was working and then the next day it wasn't. Had I known this was going to happen I would have printed the service records I needed and filed them away. Bad on me for not keeping hard copy of these records but I assumed this wasn't going to be such an issue considering that everything is kept online nowadays and this is one of the largest motorcycle manufacturers in the world. It just doesn't make much sense to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer vfr350 Posted April 30, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 30, 2014 I just don't know that money would be spent to keep a database idle for almost a year. I have seen unforeseen issues with migrating databases where the original DB had no limits on file name but the new DB had a requirement of only 9 characters creating havoc, time consuming. An instructor I spoke with had his Goldwing which he rode to about everywhere in the US and Canada serviced religiously at our local Honda dealer which just closed up one day. Later found out they had finance and bookkeeping issues, Honda yanked the dealer. His repeated attempts to recover his service record history from Honda turned up nothing. We are lucky that VFRD is run on donations hopefully covering all costs (minus "labor") without advertising, SWEET! I have been assuming the Owners Link Website is part of Honda and those accounts are free correct? At some point Honda covers the cost but when budgets are tight is this a priority? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer RollinAgain Posted April 30, 2014 Author Member Contributer Share Posted April 30, 2014 Yes the Owner's Link website registration is free. I understand what you are saying about the costs involved to keep it running for another year but we are talking about one of the largest motorcycle manufacturers in the world!! I can't imagine it costing more than a few thousand dollars to maintain the site for another year and I bet those savings they achieved by choosing not to maintain the site have easily been wiped away by owners who decide not to purchase another Honda in the future because they are pissed off due to the inconvenience Honda has caused them. I'm really not so upset about the site being down as much as not receiving proper notification about the site being taken down. It is also irriating that Honda keeps changing the ETA on re-launch date. I'd rather them not give an ETA at all rather than giving an ETA and then changing it 3 or 4 times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer vfr350 Posted April 30, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 30, 2014 I'm not sure of the situation but like you stated a heads up email thats its going down so you could download your records would have been great. Maybe it would be worth an email to honda to get some more info rather than a vague splash page with a date that keeps moving i'll agree that is annoying. I'm not sure the detail of the information, maybe the site had some sort of security audit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Switchblade Posted April 30, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted April 30, 2014 That boy needs a Tmac Break !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Belfry Posted June 17, 2014 Member Contributer Share Posted June 17, 2014 Dredging up an old topic here ... I was searching for something else the other day when I found this article on the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration site. It says the NHTSA is requiring all car and motorcycle manufacturers to have a VIN search for recalls on their sites by Aug. 14, 2014. The Honda Owners Link site (now Honda Powersports for bikes) used to have a VIN search, but since they took it down for 'upgrading' and brought it back as Powersports it is mostly advertising and has very little functionality for owners. Maybe they'll relaunch it in mid-August with the VIN search and the other features they mysteriously removed. :unsure2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer RollinAgain Posted November 12, 2014 Author Member Contributer Share Posted November 12, 2014 Shame on Honda!! The site is still "Undergoing Redesign" and while they removed the ETA date for relaunch they still state it will still be available soon. It has now been more than a year and a half since they took the site down. Pretty lame of Honda!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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