Bike Maintenance
 

I am interested to know who you prefer to get your routine servicing done by. Do you love that service book to get its annual stamp or are you a shrewd penny pincher and do all your own?

I would love to save for the bike i have at the moment i do bit and bobs my self and large services i get a mechanic to do them but i cant as i am too lazy, but when i get the XT660R i will have to learn as i will be a fully qualified student (ie no money, all time)

Up until now I have been coverting that official stamp with gusto but after my recent experience with Yamaha I may well resort to much more DIY. To be honest I do prefer to do it on my own, not just from a fiscal view point but I know what's been done and what's been missed and what will be coming up soon and it's a great way to learn about my bike.

Plus I now question whether the worth of a fully stamped book equates to the cost of a Yamaha service.

On the down side my experience is quite limited so there's a slight lack in faith in my own abilities which can weigh heavily on my mind when I undertake bigger jobs. Always usefull to have mates with essential know-how at these times... I should join a forum or something... Oh, I have :tongue3:

With the milage I do I need the stamp for the warranty... that & the fact I can only do minor service items & I'd be bound to miss something.

Service for the warranty is made by the Yamaha-dealer so far.
Otherwise I do it either by my self o with my dad! :)

In the past I've mostly done my own servicing including a few engine rebuilds (TS250X, DR650/800, XRV750) as I've had oldish bikes with no warranties to worry about.

In the case of the Tenere, full dealer servicing (with a few diy minor services) has just paid dividends viz-a-vis the warranty!!!!

The warranty is still valid if a dealer doesn't do it. As long as the mechanic follows the service schedule and uses genuine parts you're ok.

Yamaha dealer's too far away. I've used a back street guy (next to an undertaker - very sobering!) for over 20 years and trust him implicitly. We're almost friends and I'm fairly sure he actually undercharges me!

I took/take my Tenere to the dealer for the valve service (checking and shims), as that is not something I want to get involved with - although I'm happy to adjust the screw type rockers on my Hondas...

Same with the WR shims - I'd rather someone who was used to doing it day-in and day-out (and has a handy box of shims in stock) did timing jobs, while I'm happy to do the rest...

Engine internals scare me x

Jx

Mine has been to the dealers so far, and will go back for it's 18,000 mile service within the next couple of weeks. Mostly because it's under warranty at the moment - I know you can get Yamaha to honour warranty claims with servicing by an independent/yourself, but it's an additional headache, whereas I've had no hassle getting my local dealer to put in claims for stuff either I've noticed or they've noticed. I don't know of a decent independent garage up here either. My bike's had probably a couple of grand's worth of warranty work done over the last couple of years, so I think I've got VFM out of it :D

But that will be the last one. Warranty is up at the end of the month, so it'll be done at home thereafter, unless I'm feeling money-rich and time-poor next time it's due.

Went into dealer whilst under warranty, from here on in though it's in my hands...
Oh and Jenny, it's screw and locknut, not shims on the Ten, so it's all good.

UT, you are going to burn in hell for that middle management bull****.

Gulp! �2000 of warranty work. I thought everyone says these bikes are bulletproof. What did that entail?

Was just thinking the same thing! 2g's of work is a hell of a lot. Please tell.

@Tom: What, 'VFM'? That was just laziness. I'm not important enough to know management speak ;)


Regarding warranty work:

- I know it had the loom and rectifier changed before I bought it (usual, well known connector fault). ICBW but I think this is about a grand's worth of work from what others have said on here.

- Ignition barrel/key wore and got difficult to operate, so I got that replaced, which also meant seat and filler cap locks, plus I think they had to replace (rather than reprogram) the ECU because of the key-based immobiliser.

- A few minor things, cush rubbers, sprocket carrier bearing, oil breather catch tank.

I could be wrong about the �2k, but I don't think it's far out. It's the electronic bits that cost the big money.

How very dare you! ;)

Graham, I don't think any bike is bulletproof, just some are tougher and less maintenance heavy than others. The Ten is one of them, it just donks along happily.

Ok, I'll concede that one. But it is true - I don't have a lot of free time to spend half a day or more making sure I do everything on the service schedule, and if it takes me a month to get round to it, it's at least a thousand miles overdue. So I can see there being occasions where �180 to just have it done for me is good value.

Being a Light vehicle mechanic I do it all myself.

u srs bro?

For the last 10 years or so I've been paying others to do my oily work - but with the Tenere I've decided to do it all myself - even though it is still under warranty.

I was (once) an engineer and could weald a spanner with the best of them, and as I will be on the road doing a likely 30,000km run next year, I thought I should get under the Z's skin a little before the off - if for no other reason than to ensure my toolkit is complete and sorted.

I can see the arguments either way, and a lot depends on your skills, workspace and financial position, etc, but I have to say I'm having such a blast messing around with the bike that I am beginning to regret having handed this work over to others in the past. :075:

Pat

Like Barcelona Pat i felt uneasy/frustrated paying others for tasks that i now see are relatively simple especially since buying the "Haynes manual" my other main gripe about handing it over to dealers/garages was that mine and others always came back with little scratches, nuts undone, oil everywhere etc etc so this and the fact that i can no longer afford to pay others gave me the incentive to start learning/tinkering and after doing some small simple things that previously the garage did for me i regret not doing things sooner!
Now that i have stripped things down and looked in places that you normally cant see it also gives you an indication of how its all put together and works which will come in valuable when out on the road/touring.
PS "you tube" helps alot also!
steve...

My x has done only 5.5k miles & is very clean. I do all the little bits of tinkering, but am happy to pay my local dealer to do main servicing. They are VERY helpful & have carried out warranty work without question.

A question: how close to the specified mileage does one need to be to fulfill the warranty conditions? For example, my manual says next service due at 10000 km, which I believe is 6.2 k miles. If you went, say 1000 km over, would Yamaha void the warranty??

Well, until I left the UK I had all of my work carried out by my friendly dealer, they were Honda at the time when I had a CB750K6 and they became Yamaha more recently.

I have now a lovely garage where I have a bike lift as well as a beer fridge and a good set of tools so I now do all of my own routine stuff and none of my bikes have ever required anything more, touch wood. I am also still best mates with my UK dealer and their service manager comes on holiday to me from time to time so if I need anything more complex he can help, but fortunately so far so good.

In my experience and opinion, Yamaha has now caught and maybe even overtaken Honda for product reliability. Ciao Simon

Mash - it may be down to your dealer. When I needed engine work done after 60,000 miles of courier use it was covered under warranty (along with replacement of ignition barrel/seat & fuel cap locks/ECU). My dealers service manager was not bothered by the fact that a couple of oil changes may have been 500-1000 miles overdue. In fact I think he said it may be more detrimental (and unesseccary) to change the oil too soon - something to do with build up of detergents left over from the clean(ish) oil. Hopefully Kev can qualify that.

It may have helped in my case that because of my high mileage they were seeing me every few months during the warranty period for dealer servicing and knew the bike was looked after.

A big thumbs up to the Motorbike Shop (ex Infinity bike sales/Motorcycle City) Farnborough.

My nearest Yamaha dealership is too far away to get it done there so whatever I can do myself I will and then i get a local guy who does bike maintenance to sort out the bigger jobs that I can't do or don't have the tools to do.

new bike warranty service's at the dealership...
After that I do it all..

Simon, you have NO IDEA how jealous I am!!!!!! I live in a block of flats, so my poor X sits under a rain cover chained to car park railings all night/rain. I can put an axle stand under her to raise back wheel for chain lube/wheel cleaning & do the odd bit of minor tinkering, but its up & down 2 flights of steps to get the right tool/beverage each time, no external power, & reliant on daylight & dry weather. Sooooooooooooooooooo unfair!!!!!!

Got a garage and three bikes to look after, so I do my own servicing but if anything major cropped up, I might have to take it to a local dealer.

I'm reasonably capable mechanically, but I have less confidence in my electrical capabilities, especially if it came to fuel injection woes!

Do it my .the waurty had dune there didn't have clue about bike mest up co setting