just interested to know if anyone has had anything to do with the above qld business particluarly the service department? I offered to buy my fzr250 off my stepfather as he no longer had time for it. he was ritualistic with servicing so seemed a good thing. the one condition was that STAR YAMAHA SPRINGWOOD were to inspect the bike, evaluate any problems, quote (or estimate) on any required works and, if we were to go ahead with the sale, repair service and roadworthy. we chose star at springwood because they had the fastest turn around over the phone, several days for the initial report compared to a little longer with others. and they are yamaha afterall. after almost 3 weeks of harrassing them for an answer, i was told around $450 (thereabouts) to get her up to scratch. go ahead was the order. another lengthy period (2 weeks) passed and the bike hadn't been touched untill several phonecalls later. i kept getting told tomorrow tomorrow. next I heard they had gapped the valves, changed the oil and THEN realised there was no compression. so a $450 job blew out to $850 as they found the valves not seating due to carbon. at this point i owed them the original estimate and the bike was going nowhere, after they reassembled everything before actually checking what is going on. even i knew that if there is no compression, and rings are fine, and there is a gap between the valve bucket and rocker arm, something else is wrong! weeks later it was finally done. but the final bill was $1112.67, and it still hadn't had the new rear disk, lights etc fixed that were the original problem. 2500 k's later i melted a piston. i have been to 4 well known mechanics who informed me the the cracked and leaking intake manifolds were the only cause they could find for a piston meltdown. funny, since i have had the bike going again, my new mechanic said to me 'the first thing to change is those manifolds, you don't want to lean out'. he didn't even know the story before telling me this. i informed STAR YAMAHA that this was my first bike, therefore everything had to be right. it took family members to look at it to figure out the exup, throttle, clutch and chain all needed adjusting after i picked it up from STAR. since this all happened the owner/manager of STAR YAMAHA has been a right *****, telling me that he is not interested in chatting about it. as far is he is concerned, his workshop runs like clockwork and his grease monkeys are capable of thinking for themselves. not everything is someones fault, but ****, some people actually take pride in their work an understand what they do. i never trusted mechanics before this, and now learn as much as i can so i don't have to trust them again. the funny thing is, everyone who heard what happened actually said to me "why did you go to THEM? My mate took his bike to them and..." similar story. DOWN WITH STAR YAMAHA SPRINGWOOD! <!-- s:sniper: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_snipersmilie.gif" alt=":sniper:" title="Sniper" /><!-- s:sniper: --> as i finish there area apparently other good STAR YAMAHA sales and service divisions on the northside of Brisbans of which i have heard only good stories.
Sorry to hear your story! Hopefully you can share it far and wide. If you want some immediate 'impact' sign up to a few other forums and post this little story there (perhaps ozsportsbikes.com or netrider.org.au - ozsportsbikes has a lot of QLD readers, and netrider has readers primarly in Melbourne, but also from all over). It is never good to hear stories like this and especially when the dealer is being a ***** about it and I do believe in 'warning' others of your story so they may think again about that place. It also serves to the original dealer/mechanic that customers are important...
I'm no lawyer, but I think you have to be careful how you say this stuff. I agree totally with you that dodgy mechs shouldn't be allowed to get away with stuff like this, I had a similar experience myself at a bike repairer in Caringbah, Sydney. However, I think that naming the company on a public website could come close to constituting defamation unless you can prove they were at fault. I know at Overclockers, they don't allow stuff outright bagging a company. If you want to tell someone the repairer's name, you need to send a private message... Just my ten cents worth...
I don't know if you're interested, but i had all the work done on my fzr at Tony Bogaarts cycle tune just around the corner from moss st. Honest, exceptional work (he now does the work on my new bike) i had the same problem with the carbon, cost me $70 to fix!! The import centre recommended him to me, and the only thing i could fault is that he's so busy it's hard to get your bike booked in!!!
Tanya recommended me to Tony Bogaarts Cycletune on logan rd Underwood, I have to agree he's pretty thorough. I wasn't sure what to expect though, being my first bike and first major service. I dropped it off at 7:45am Monday morning, Tony said he had alot on and hopefully it would be done that day, if not definitely the next day. I called in the afternoon and Donna told me that he's done pretty much everything but it needs a new cylinder head gasket which wasn't in stock and had to be ordered. It would take a few days. I asked her "realistically what are we looking at her, next monday?" She said "Probably Thursday so your bike will be ready friday". I called thursday afternoon, she said they had just received the delivery and she'd let me know tomorrow. I called the next day (friday) and they said that it would be ready to pick up saturday morning. I got to the shop at 8am Saturday morning. I waited an hour because they still needed to put the fairings on. Tony took it for a quick ride to check that everything was good and came back, replaced a bulb free of charge and handed it over. Sandra explained the invoice to me and everything they did. I'm pretty happy with the quality of the service, he did a thorough job, only constructive advice is that they should call when they said that it would be ready and let you know that it will be longer. Secondly, he made my bike leaner(was running too rich) more economical, which is good, but now I can't pop wheelies ;-) Quoted me $450 for the full service when I phoned. When I picked it up it cost me $600 due to the air filter ($100) and gasket ($57). So it didn't blow out that much. I had air filter & oil filter replaced, sticky throttle replaced, throttle cable replaced, lubed EVERYTHING which was fantastic - clutching, kick stand, gear lever, brakes are awesome... gasket replaced, did valve clearances, spark plugs, carbs re-done, fuel tap fixed ( was leaking slightly ), coolant etc... all done.. Would go back to him if i needed it. Only gripe as Tanya said - He's booked out for like a month or something...
The best piece of advice I can give is to learn how to service your own bike. My bikes been to a mechanics just once, to have the rims balanced. I've never had problems relating to home servicing and I can always rest assured that pride and care goes into every service. Additionally, it saves mega bucks. Here is just one example of what it can save you. I service my dad's Triumph Trophy 1200. It just came up for its major 30,000km service. It needed new spark plugs, new fuel filters, a new air filter, oil change, coolant change, brake bleed and other various inspections and lubrications. So far we've spent $180.00, using genuine and aftermarket parts and shell oils. It took three evenings to complete and saved roughly $500. To top this off, everything is now running beautifully. The best way to start this off is to invest in some good quality tools. The next thing to do is to read up on everything that you can. I know the FZR's are hard to get manuals for but many of the principles related to motorcycle maintenance don't vary greatly between bikes. Just be careful and you shouldn't stuff up too many times (anyway, mistakes are often the best way to learn). Furthermore, the great thing about forums such as this is that you can always ask for advice or help. hope this helps, RVZ
