Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA

January 3rd, 2003

My full name
And address,
Blah, blah

Dear Mr. Jose

I am in receipt of your letter to Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA.

We are always interested in the concerns of our valued customers. We appreciate the time you have taken to share your concerns regarding the 2001 Raptor. We have not been having any problematic issues with regard to the transmission on this model. However, we do take your concerns very seriously and I will forward your comments to the appropriate personnel.

We are proud of our heritage and reputation for manufacturing products with the highest standards of quality and workmanship. Product excellence is the cornerstone of our commitment to customer satisfaction. We are constantly striving to manufacture products that meet our customers’ expectations and needs.

Thank you for your letter and the opportunity to respond.


Sincerely,

Signature

Jim Owen
Customer Relations representative
Customer Support Group

Cc: 856880


MY LETTER TO YAMAHA::


Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA
6555 Katella Avenue
Cypress, CA 90630

To whom it may concern:

This letter is in regards to my 2001 Raptor, purchased June 5th 2001 VIN # JY4XXXXXXXX001615. I have been aware for quite some time now of an apparent discrepancy in the 2001 Raptor transmissions. 4th gear wheel dogs breaking off. Second gear problems etc. Apparently the 2001 transmissions are weak in that they have only 3 dogs on the gears. I know a couple people and there are many across the Internet posting on message boards about their transmission failures. These don’t appear to be isolated cases.

Yamaha apparently felt there was a need to upgrade the 2001 transmission when the 2002 models came out. The transmission gears now have 4 dogs on each gear instead of 3. This tells others and me that Yamaha felt the design was weak and made attempts to correct this problem. Thank you.

The updated gear sets were a good change for new purchasers of the Yamaha Raptor 2002 models and newer. This does not however solve the problem that many 2001 raptor owners have faced. It is the 2001 Raptor owners that have made the Raptor what it is today.

Unfortunately for myself, on November 30th 2002 my 2001 Raptor transmission failed. All 3 dogs were broken off the 4th gear wheel. I was slowly going through a sand wash following my family on a family trail ride through our local desert near Ocotillo Wells, Ca OHV Park. The transmission popped out of 2nd gear and was never to be found again.

I have had the repairs done from a local dealer; my quad now has the 2002 gears installed. It was not cheap to fix. My total costs were $1631.00 to have this repaired. I have sent my report into the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It is my hope that they will add my report to their long and growing list of Raptor transmission failures. It is also my hope that Yamaha will step up and recall all 2001 Raptors and have the transmissions replaced with the 2002 gears. For those of us that have already had to endure the transmission failure it is my hope that Yamaha will reimburse all or part of the costs for this repair. If Yamaha does not do this on their own it is my hope that with my CPSC report and all the others the CPSC will feel the need to act on this issue.

I sincerely hope that Yamaha will take this matter seriously as I have another 2001 Raptor that has not failed but I feel it is only a matter of time.

Thank You for your time.

My name address, Blah blah.

 

Dang dave i didn't know you could spoke so well.....[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

Well done dude. Even though it would seem they are going to give it the run around.

 

Fact of the matter is........if I had only known there response to their customers, I would have never become one of them. My Raptor was my 1st 'new' Yamaha and probrably my last. I love my Rap,,,,just hate the company ethics (or lack of).

 

I would rather get a responce like this.

Sorry to hear you guinea pigs had problems with our poorly designed trannies the first year. But we get letters like this every other day. Do you think your telling us something we don't allready know? And don't hold your breath waiting for us to do anything about it.

At least I would have a little respect for truth and honesty.

 

LMAO Mitch. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] I wonder if the CPSC would tell me how many reports have been filed with them about the Raptor transmission? Hmm.

 

LOL, good letter wshrdkn. Even with my tranny taking a dump i am glad i have a raptor

 

I too wrote a letter to Yamafuctme, and I have not gotten any response on the matter. After reading the response that you got, I'm glad now I haven't. They just keep lying and lying and lying. Then they want to talk about their committment - HA!

If I can dig up the letter, I will post it here too.
"TOID"

 

I hear ya 14. I think most people that buy a first year product know they are taking a risk, but do it anyway to have the latest and fastest quad out.

 

I too love my Raptor. I am glad I bought it. I would much prefered to have spent the money I used to fix the tranny on a YZ80 or even a TTR 125L for my boys for Xmas instead of a tranny repair.

 

That letter about sums up this whole mess. I went to the dealer today, I was bored. So I told the guy behind the counter. About my tranny going out. He said that and I quote."I didn't know they had a problem" Yea right. Then he said ya we've done a couple here, but I don't know what year they were. And one of them wasn't stock. I said well I know of plenty unstock 02 with no problems and STOCK 01 with bad tranny's. I wanna shirt that has what eraptoid said, yamafuctme.

Oh yea then the genius said they ought to undercut those gears to make them hold up. Uhm thought he was unaware there was a problem. I'm going to be that dealerships BEST advertisment.