WTF Factor: 9.5

[m4lu6]

It's been a long time since I've posted here, but it seemed appropriate for me to do so tonight. I could use a good venting.

Let me start off by saying how much I love my R6. I bought it in December of last year, and I couldn't be happier. It was my first "real" bike, and has brought me 9,000~ miles of pleasure. I've respected the bike, and in turn, she has respected me.

In late April, perhaps early May, I can't recall exactly when, I noticed a rather slippery green splotch on my garage floor. Ruh-roh! So I called my dog Marley out to investigate, "Lick that, boy. What's it taste like?", ok ok, just kidding.

Anyhow, I noticed a good amount of (perhaps an ounce or two) of cooland on the floor of my garage. The bike immediately went up to the shop, heretofore known as "Blarney's", to get checked out. I was due for a service within 200 or so miles anyway, so I had them do whatever service I was up for at the same time.

They called me up later that day and said, "You gotcher'self a cracked radiator. You drop your bike or sumpin'?".. uh... No. "No. Do you see any sign of dumping?" "well, no. but we have to ask." ... whatever.

So Blarney's techs decided it qualified for warranty replacement, and they did so. I got my bike back about 2 weeks later. Apparently they'd ordered the wrong radiator (dubious), and it took an additional week to get the proper replacement in. Ok. I'll forgive you this once.

So, I get my bike back, and I go back to riding. I'd taken a new job in tampa about this time, and daily riding was pretty much shot. I pretty much just rode during the weekends, and every friday to work. It was acceptable. I was putting, I figure, maybe 300 miles on the bike a week.

Everything was running smooth, until July 8. I was riding home from tampa, and a a red light close to my house, I noticed my temperature was way, way the $*@k up. I figured, "Well, it's just the summer heat. It'll cool off." My gauge showed 235. That's the highest I'd ever seen it, and in florida, well, sh*t, anything's possible.

I got home, and forgot about the issue.

Skip forward to next friday. I hadn't had the opportunity to take a ride since the previous friday, and I was really looking forward to the ride to work. I remembered the overheating issue, and I kept a close eye on the temp. As I do every ride, I started her up, and walked away for a few minutes to let her warm to at least 130. I came back a few moments later, and she was idling at a steady 140-ish. Ok, little warm, but damn, it's 88 degrees here at 7:30 in the morning. Big deal.

I got on the bike and headed to tampa.

Within six blocks, I noticed my temp had shot from 140-ish to 190-ish. DAMNIT. that's just WAY WAY off the mark.

I turned around and headed home, PISSED off that I had to take my jeep to work. AGAIN.

Saturday morning, I woke up and decided to do a flush & fill. When I emptied out the fluid I noticed something wrong immediately. The fluid was a greenish brown. Wtf? I took some hoses off to get rid of any latent goo, and flushed her bowels out with some good clean distilled Zephyrhills water.

I noticed when I took off the filler cap that there was corrosion on the cap. WTF x 2.

I prepared a 50/50 mix and poured it in. My manual says 2.74Q. I might've gotten 1.5 when it started to overflow. WTFx3!?! SOMETHING's not right here.

I finished putting all my fairings back on, and got the bike over to the shop ASAP (it's about 2 miles away, very close).


By the time I got there, my temp had jacked up to 220, then 230, then 240. F*CK. The bike just wouldn't cool off, and neither would I.

I was totally pissed that a 2 month old radiator had corrosion in it already. I was prepared to slay a mechanic for filling me up with tap water.

OK, so, here it is, the 15th of July (or was it the 14th, I can't recall), and I drop the bike off again. They called me up about a week later saying, "We just got a chance to look at your bike, and it's a cracked radiator."

WTFx10

AH SH*T. Fine. FIX the radiator again, I said. It's under warranty, no big deal here.

What I want to ask this fine crowd of people (that's you), are some qualified reasons as to why I'm now going on my 3rd radiator, and just when I should expect to see yet more corrosion in my system? The last part of that 2-parter is asked because I'm convinced that the guts of my motor are filled with crap.

I've asked Yamaha dealershit to request a teardown of my motor, some two days ago, and haven't heard from them since. I will most likely go up there tomorrow and inquire.

So. Please, fill this thread with some good information about my problem.

She's a 2006 Raven R6S. She's been treated like a true lady. She should not have this kind of trouble!

[younggun]

No help from me here but just had to say that sucks the big one, sorry to hear you are having the probs with the rad.

[BuzZz]

9000 or so miles on a brand new bike shouldn't be showing any signs of corrosion in the cooling system, IMNSHO. Sometin don't smell right 'bout dat. Dunno what, 'zactly.....

Could be they filled your system with use crap or bad product or some such thing, but I would hope they knew better than that...? Could be the rads themselves are made with a material that reacts with whatever coolant your shop used. Or some other reason...

Rads crack most often due to vibration. They are rubber monted for good reason. Maybe your bike is missing one of those rubber mounting cushions, or something is assembled just enough out of place to allow contact at certain times(this can be done during manufacture, many brackets, tabs bars, mounts, etc, can be easily bent and moved anytime the bike is worked on, hey, it happens all the time ).... something like that.

Could be that the maunt allows an unussual amount of vibrational movement of the rad at certaion RPMs. Or you could have a lose motor mount that allows extra vibe to beat up your rad.

Or they tryed repairing your original rad and passing it off back to you. Come to think of it, that could be where the rad picked up it's corrosion/contamination, too.

[TechTMW]

I'll bet the dealership put on a used radiator on from a junkyard, and then charged the manufacturer for new parts on the warranty issue.

Time to find a new dealer. NOW.

[Bachstrad37]

First off - yet another reason why I wrench things on my own.

I'm almost certain that your dealer used tapped water to fill that radiator. He probably filled it with tapped water even when the bike came out of the crate.

Did you get a look and verified that the first replaced radiator was indeed new? If you're finding sediments in your coolant, it's guaranteed to be present throughout your engine. If you really want to keep this bike, I'd suggest after a brand new radiator is installed, bring it home and flush the entire system out yourself. Then do your 50/50 with distilled water and run that for a couple hundred miles and recheck.

Like most dealers, once your 1 yr. factory warranty is up, they'll drop any and all responsibility on it. If you want your bike to last, you need to either have trust in your dealer's service dept. or learn to do your own maintenance and repairs. So far, your dealer sucks.

[m4lu6]

Blarney's replacing the frotzed radiator with a used one? Yeah. The though did cross my mind, but I am quite confident that they didn't.

More news has come to light...

Blarney's has to keep warranty-claim parts on hand for 90 days. "Raul", the mechanic who's been working on my bike "got the initiative" and pulled out my original radiator, and it too was packed with gunk.

I am heading up there today to find out if Raul asked the Yamaha "tech line" for authorization to teardown my motor, which is something I asked to have done. Raul seems decent enough, and has been forthcoming with information.

I smell a new motor in the wind.

[jmillheiser]

if this is the 3rd attempt to fix the problem they should be giving you a brand new bike. Make a lemon law claim against them.

[ofblong]

to me this looks like the second. The lemon law is different from state to state and usually only counts during the warranty period. I dont know if all states include motorcycles in with this issue either.

You may want to check out
http://autopedia.com/html/HotLinks_Lemon.html for your state lemon laws.

*edit
for example in my state this applies

(a) During the term the manufacturer's express warranty is in effect.

(b) Not later than 1 year from the date of delivery of the new motor vehicle to the original consumer.

Either of those constitutes lemon law. if it is outside of these periods the lemon law does not apply. However if the first issue with the part on the motor vehicle happens within the a or b timeframe and the 3rd issue happens to fall outside of it you may still get the lemon law. The first issue has to be within a or b timeframe though. Thats just michigan though as every state is different.

oh i forgot to mention that it also (in my state) doesnt count unless you have to go in a 4rth time within 2 years.

[blues2cruise]

Don't rule out writing a letter to the manufacturer. If you write to them now, then it will be on record. If the problem persists past warranty, then you will have a bit of clout that you did indeed try to get it tememdied before the warranty expired.

[ofblong]

Don't rule out writing a letter to the manufacturer. If you write to them now, then it will be on record. If the problem persists past warranty, then you will have a bit of clout that you did indeed try to get it tememdied before the warranty expired.

thats what reciepts are for .