Jim, did you ever figure out what is making your front wheels have play in them? I know that you were going to take it to the dealer if you couldn't figure it out. Just curious. i think we'de all like to know. Jared

 

Yeah, the tie rod ends and ball joints are worn. 20 hours on the quad and the upper, lower ball joints and inside tie rod ends are at the cause. This is pretty bad, but not the end of the world. I just never had this problem with my 400ex in the year and a half I rode/raced MX with it. Oh well, gives me a good reason to tell the wife I need a-arms and other misc stuff........JIM

 

Mine was a combo of ball joints and steering stem is loose...

 

Here is where I am with this front end play issue. I haven't brought it to the dealer yet, the quad is up on a stand and waiting for my axle, shocks, wheels/tires, etc. If I do bring it to the dealer after I am able to load it into my truck; best scenario I see is free replacement with the same design ball joints and tie rod/ends. This doesn't seem too favorable to me, even free.

Ricky Stator has offered to send me free tie rod ends to see if they will work with my tie rods and if they do, just send him my tie rod ends, I think just one set; but still very cool of him. I also see custom "TRX style" tie rod and end assemblies on sites for about 199.00, this might be a good option too. The ball joints will take care of themselves with my Houser +2 a-arm package I figre, so I can leave those be.

What would you guys do? I know I can probably score free tie rod ends, and ball joints from the dealer; just why do it to have this happen again? With only 20 hours on the quad, I am not ready to replace again in another 20 hours. Thanks for listening, JIM

 

Hummm. Well, I think the whole thing sucks! Why can't cannondale just use durable piece parts on their products. It would seem to me that with the earlier problems with the fx's that they would take any chances on stupid stuff like that. I think they just need to upgrade the quality of some of their parts on their quads. I'm sure they have to know about it. They test them thoroughly enough that they should know and do something. Don't you think? I don't know. I like the dales a lot and the customer service in un-heard of, but some of the sh*t they pull like this is just unsatisfactory to the consumer and should be to the manufacturer too! Maybe they'll do something about it on their 03 models along with some other changes. Cannondale just needs to pay more attention to the details because if they don't, people are going to start to shy away from them. Any comments??? Jared

 

I too am a little tired of doing r&d for them but I also remember buying a 87 banshee and having the upper j-arm bushings go bad in about a month they wouldnt help me out.From what I can gather the cause of the cannondale joints going bad in the new quads is dirt getting in the rubber boot there is no matal ring to seal out the dirt and water.Honda is very reliable but they have problems to remember all the cracked swingarms some frames were cracking and the clutch basket bushing siezing up.At some point cannondale has to stop warranty work on quads that are out of warranty they have to make money too.If they dont they could go out of bussiness and then we would all be stuck.They do know about this and I am sure they will make changes also the majority of cann. are used harder than normal there probably isnt a lot of data for them to study and I bet the other manufacturers arent to willing to let cannondale use their parts I am willing to put up with the small things for the BIG performance advantage cannondale has.

 

Cannondale27, I agree with you. It's great the way Cannondale takes care of their customers but everytime I read about them goodwilling a repair on a quad that's outside of the warranty period I wonder how long they can afford to do that? Don't get me wrong, if I was one of the guys with a Dale and had a problem I'd be as happy as a clam that they were going to fix it. I just think about Cdale's long term financial situation and wonder. I'll give them one thing though, if there is a next generation of Cdale's and they've made them more reliable from the info they're gathering now, you can bet your a$$ that they've earned many-a repeat customers.

 

Don't get me wrong guys, I admire cannondale's customer service and their machines. I just wish that they had the reliability of a Honda, although I wasn't aware of the clutch basket problems with the red ride. Was it on the 400ex? I understand that the dale is a high performance machine and needs a little more TLC, but they need to address a few problems. How hard would it be to make all their joints more resistable to foreign materials and water? Maybe they need to use a different manufacturer for their ball joints and tie rod ends. Just my thoughts. Jared

 

Yeh I see what you guys are saying and I own a speed so I am prolly a little more bias to making excuses for these small problems, but the bottom line is they have only been making quads for two years not 20. They have a great machine that is not having MAJOR issues just some smaller ones and they are still taking care of these for the customers. I figured all this in when I made my purchase but I like what cannondale is trying to do for this lame and boring industry, some quads haven't had updates for 10 years and others had transmissions go out and the manufactuer (not naming names), didn't take care of its customers. I wanted to support someone that is trying to take quads in a positive direction because they are supporting us. Let alone that they are made 6 hours from my house, and they back a factory race team. Just imagine where they will be in 5 years after they get a little experience in the quad industry.

There are just TOO many positives to this company to let some ball joints or a little stalling to keep me from supporting them, as long as they keep this up they have a life long customer in me and I am sure many others.

-josh

 

I highly doubt that they will go broke or out of business over their acts of goodwill. I bet that most people don't even use warranty, like me with these ball joints/tie rod ends; why would I want to get the same parts that are inferior in my eyes just because I can get them for free?

Seriously, little chassis problems are of no concern to me. I planned on getting aftermarket extended a-arms anyway; as long as the motor still breathes fire every time I hit the start button, I am happy.

I guess I just went into this purchase knowing that there could be potential problems with the quad, as long as the powerplant is stable; I am fine. Money isn't an issue for me, so none of the problems I have seen posted on this forum have any affect on my satisfaction with my quad.

I have many friends with many types of high performance quads, from LT500R's, TRX250R's, Tecate 4's, LT250R's, Banshees, 400EX's, etc, etc and they have all missed riding weekends due to some problem with their quad. I really think that a lot of these Cannondale "problems" are being blown out of proportion due to Cannondale's willingness to go above and beyond to make things right for each customer. I hope you understand what I am trying to say here, overall I would buy another Cannondale before I bought the new LTZ400, etc. JIM

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