I have a question for you guys who have had your motor professionally built. I am trying to find out what kind of "warranty" shops will give in the case of a failure. I know that when you do high performance mods, you stick out your neck, but where does a shop have to take responsibility?
For instance: I had a head gasket blow and part of the gasket got into one of my intake valves. I had the valve replaced and the head gasket replaced as well as surfacing the jug and head. I took it out and gave it a 75% run through gears, killed it checked oil ect, them I hammered it. As soon as I got to 5th gear I heard the dredded noise. I killed it pulled in the clutch and called for a ride. I dropped the very valve I just had replaced.
I am new to having my motor built by somebody else and I am not sure about this.
In your opinion who should pay for the damage? Myself , the shop, or split it up somehow?

 

ttt

 

WOW...now thats a hard question....first of all every shop has to realize the customer is what keeps them in business so it is very important to keep them satisfied.
With that said I also think its IMPOSSIBLE to satisfy everyone
With high performance you DO stick your kneck out...
Without assigning blame figure out what the problem is(why is it happening)
and then work with the shop to correct the problem...when I have a high performance customer going with a new product that we havn't tested I give them guinea pig status(I sell them the parts cheap with the warning "I have no idea if this is worth the money)

Your problem sounds silly...give the shop a chance to help you out again...even the best screw up
Maybe let them keep it an extra day or go out riding with one of thier employe's so they can see the problem develope for themselves

Good luck

 

Well the shop offered to split the cost of parts, so it scosting me only $100, I am happy with that, I am just curious what other shops might do in this scenario. Chek out my gallery to see the carnage.

 

Sounds like they are making an effort at least...depending on what happened I think most respectable shops would have done the same
Yamaha motor corporation would just tell you that it was rider abuse and stick you

 

I think purely the integrity of the shop is what you go on. Purely hypothetical if you ended up in small claims court and explained you were wide open throttle through the sand dunes or whatever I think your case would end there. Even though it's understood that's what the thing's built for. If it were my shop, and I built a motor that gave up first hard trip thru the gears, I would replace 100%, not only because word of mouth for honesty is good advertisement, but it's the right thing to do.

 

Thanks Shady and Jay, I appreciate the opinion. I agree with you Shady, its a tough deal for me to swallow, that I have to pay a penny for this because I have had manyother problems witht the motor including delivery time, getting a hold of my mechanic, ect, He had my motor for 5 months, supposed to be 6 weeks, ect.. But at the same time, I understand his side that it could be my fault or an accident. I wont cry over $100.00 either way.
Anyboby else have an opinion.

 

OUCH!
Where does the liability end? Well, I can tell you that when this happened to me... the liability ended when the motor went out their front door!
Not to mention any names (Trinity racing)...

"Not our problem" was the patented answer.... So if you're getting any help from them... that's better than nothing. My only question would be... "Do I really want these folks working on my motor again??? especially since it wasn't right last time?"

Sorry for the bad luck....

 

It is easy for a company to say when you fire it up it's yours just because the fact of it not being stock anymore. But as Shady said there is the ethical and right way of handling things. The cases like that just have to be handled one at a time. Most will tell you that they would take care of it. The good customer oriented companies will be generally the ones who back it up. Glad you didnt get stuck with a big bill or a total broken engine case.

 

What caused the valve to drop? Float, bad keeper, etc?

I had my 250x motor orginally built at FTZ. When I got it back (after paying $125 for "assembly) and bolted it into the frame, it wouldn't start. A few minutes of troubleshooting proved that they degreed the cam 180 out! I stopped in their shop the next day and told them what they had done. They kept saying it wasn't possible. I took the bike in and they said they would look at it and see what it would cost to fix it. I politely (in a loud tone) told them what I thought about that. I paid $125 for assembly plus another $50 for them to slot the cam gear and degree in the engine only to have them do it wrong. They fixed it while I was at class and ended up not charging anything (which was smart). About 20 engine hours later, it dropped a valve. Pulling the engine apart proved that the drop was due to RD springs (which were recommended by FTZ). Who is liable there? RD for making junk springs, FTZ for putting them in, me for possibly overrevving it?