Nobody needs rear brakes!

[tlwisner]

Or so my mechanic seemed to think. I picked up my Kawasaki Concours from having the transmission fixed and took it up a 35 mile country highway back to my office. A test drive. The 1-2 upshift problem seems to be totally fixed, they removed the positive neutral finder, and the bike is riding smoother than ever. Shift - yeah, accelerate - vrooom, brakes - no problem. Almost back to the office and I start to meet some other traffic. Applying a bit of brake and I find that my rear brake is doing nothing. Not a huge problem, the two front discs do well - but still, WTF?

I get off the bike and there is the rear caliper, hanging by the brake line. The dealer gave me the mounting bolts and I bolted it back on, no problem. Still, it was weird that the rear brake worked well in the first part of my trip and then just frickin' fell off.

[themeatmanlandry]

Doooood . . . that's SOME DEALER ya' got there!

[md2lgyk]

Sounds like you did one hell of a pre-ride check too.

[xbubbax]

dood you could have been tommrow lunch meat for the meatmanlandry to serve to the little school kiddies.

yea i'd look around the bike after you get the bike back from the dealer before you even put on your helmet.

I find that a good OEM manual and a saturday will get my bike fixed never the dealer, never again. i had my chain/sprockets replaced and the mechanic didnt put my front sprocket on tightly, (he used a reg socket wrench with no torque setting, and the sprocket didnt get put on tightly, and when i was doing 5 down the road my front sprocket flew out of the housing faster than a fat chick at an arby's convention. the chain then bot caught around my tire and made me do a dead stop. it was so scarry. i still scared.

i need some good old fashoned thearpy. a blunt and a beer.

[themeatmanlandry]

Originally Posted by xbubbax

i need some good old fashoned thearpy. a blunt and a beer.

I'm on my way! (I hope you've got the beer!)

[xbubbax]

meatman, 24 rack just 4 you. hope you like bottlenecks.

[themeatmanlandry]

I hope you like red-hair.

(we need a stoned guy emoticon)

[GIXXER-Mike]

Whoa! That coulda been a close one.

[xbubbax]

hahahaa meatman, you funny guy. ill find somthing......

[Madura]

Maybe he don't like no Kwaks.

Seriously, kick his ass. That is NOT legal advice!

[tlwisner]

Originally Posted by md2lgyk

Sounds like you did one hell of a pre-ride check too.

Yeah, I know I should go over and check the torque on every bolt on my bike before every ride, but it was my lunch hour, running late, etc....

[themeatmanlandry]

Originally Posted by tlwisner

Yeah, I know I should go over and check the torque on every bolt on my bike before every ride, but it was my lunch hour, running late, etc....

Good comeback!

You pay the shop for their knowledge and ability, not to check every single bolt they may have had to touch to do the repair.

[xbubbax]

lame excuse,

hmmmm death by idiocy, yea your on the right track.

pleez, you being late for work does not excuse you from death. look i have a little role reversal lined up for our entertainment.



DEATH: you have died in a motorcycle accident becauese you didnt check your front wheel and you died doing 90mph on your fork.

you: yra but i was late from work and i didnt want my boss to chew me a new %%%%%%%.

DEATH: yes you were late, and stupid, and now the dealer screwed you out of you r money, and your dead, xbubbax has all your motorcycles and now and your hangin with cool crew . the dead headz.


ouch tough luck if that was to happen to you.
just next time break out the toolkit and do a liuttle check.

i just dont want you to meet death before you scheduled to.

xbubbax

[themeatmanlandry]

Dude . . . bubba . . . if they do MAJOR work on your bike, do you disassemble it and check out the engine internals?

I'd bet $ that no one here (including you) would have broken out the tools and checked the tightness of those bolts.

[AwwsChwA]

I have to agree with Meatman...a professional shop is paid to be...what's the word here...oh yea...PROFESSIONAL. If I brought my bike in for repair, I would expect that it be reassembled completely and correctly. For an automotive shop, any negligence like that is assumed the shop's fault. Why should a motorcycle shop be any different? Just cuz you're supposed to do the pre-ride check, it's your own fault that a shop put a brake part on wrong?

[Trapper]

I think what Bubba is saying that this situation shows that you can't trust them no matter what you pay. And you should take a look around and "kick the tires" after someones been working on your bike. Which I didn't and wouldn't untill now.

[tlwisner]

Originally Posted by xbubbax

lame excuse,

hmmmm death by idiocy, yea your on the right track.

pleez, you being late for work does not excuse you from death. look i have a little role reversal lined up for our entertainment.

WTF? I'm going out on a limb here and saying that your rectum size matches your neck size, and it's not a coincidence. I'm relating something I learned today and you're f*ckin' calling me an idiot because I did not break out my toolkit and go over every bolt on my bike after my dealer did major engine work. Get a motorcycle and learn what it's like to ride instead of hanging around on a motorcycle board and showing off how incredibly stupid you are...

[inspiron]

I had my bike in the shop yesterday ... to retension the chain. I watched him do the work (it was Saturday, so I had time), and in the future, I can do this myself.

However, thanks for the lession - when the bike goes in for a major service, (and I can't watch every move the mechanic is making) I'll take a closer look at it before getting back on it.

I had my car in the shop a couple of weeks ago, since they had to replace a gasket around the camshaft (it was leaking oil onto the timing belt). When I came to pick up the car, it wouldn't start - and ended up spending 5 additional days in the shop before they could find the problem (there was air getting into the cylinders, and the diesel wasn't combusting). After five days, they had to admit that the mechanic had screwed up and the engine wasn't put back together properly. It's like they say ... if you don't have the time to do it right, you'll have to make the time to do it again. They had to provide me with a rental car for 5 days (from Wednesday to Monday), and spend several hours diagnosing and correcting the problem. I will not go back to that dealership, because 1) they were unfriendly, and didn't even offer us a cup of coffee even though we had to wait more than an hour while they tried to start my car, and 2) because they don't know how to diagnose problems - when someone has been mucking about on the cylinder head, that would be the FIRST place I would look when there are combustion problems. They first assumed that the fuel pump had given out (but it didn't fix the problem when they put in a new one) or that an animal had bitten through the fuel line (even though it wasn't leaking anywhere). So, to summarise, ... don't trust the mechanics - they are just people, doing a job like you and I. Sometimes they just have "the Mondays" and screw up, or are pi$$sed off at their girlfriends, or still suffering from the 6 bottles of beer they drank last night , .....

[GIXXER-Mike]

Had a new rear tire put on my Gixxer the other day. I get home, back my bike into the garage, put it on it's stand & I hear something hit the floor. I walk around it & there next to the back tire is one of the balancing weights. There were two on it spaced about a 1/2" apart & one just fell off on the floor. WTF!

Gotta ride back next week & get this corrected.

[wavyredlaurie]

I agree that we pay them more than enough that there is no excuse for any part not being on tight. I used to watch the guys at the local Honda shop work on my scooter - and they were like surgeons, lining up the bolts, and keeping everything organized so they put things back on in the proper order, tightening each bolt. As I looked around the shop, every mechanic there was doing the same. Were they the cheapest place in town? No. But I NEVER went behind them and checked ANYTHING. And they never let me down.

I think this was gross negligence, and I don't think the victim should be somehow given a part of the guilt here! If I had a shop do something like this, I'd raise an unholy ruckus, not only till they made it right, but so it might be prevented from happening to someone else, too.