I brought my bike to have new BT-45s put on ($USD 36 per tire) and noticed (several days and a few hundred km later):
- indicator dots on the tires don't line up with valves
- paint has been scraped off of both wheels (here's a pic showing some of the damage on the rear wheel (http://www.onryou.com/images/2005-05-29-rear-wheel.jpg)). Previous tires were stock and these gouges are definitely fresh.
- swingarm tire alignment markings were off 2.75 clicks (holy crap)
I realigned the rear end but I don't have the means to rebalance the tires myself. Both wheels will need to be sanded, repainted, and rebalanced. Thing is, the shop is quite a ways away from home and it's a pain to arrange a ride there and back.
I plan on calling them up on Tuesday and asking them to make things right -- I don't want to make any unreasonable demands, but what should I ask for? A refund? Store credit?
Thanks, all.
C
I live around upstate New York. Where abouts is this?
And yeah, I'd have them make things right!
They're in Cohoes NY, around 20 minutes North of Albany. They're the closest Suzuki [st|d]ealership to Albany. When I picked up my bike I talked to the Service Manager, Greg, for a couple minutes and he seemed like a good guy. Hopefully they'll take care of me and this thread will have a happy ending Tuesday.
No, not that kind of happy ending you perv.
C
Quote from: cay
- paint has been scraped off of both wheels (here's a pic showing some of the damage on the rear wheel). Previous tires were stock and these gouges are definitely fresh.
Hello cay.
I can sympathize with your irritation about the dings on your tire rim. My first tire change at a dealership turned out the same way. It will not happen again.
Last year I changed my first MC tire myself. I was not going to let someone else charge me a small fortune to change a tire and then mess up the wheel in the process.
The tire change went very well and was quite enjoyable. I also balanced my own tire and it was not difficult.
Quote from: cay
I realigned the rear end but I don't have the means to rebalance the tires myself.
Check out my post of 11/21/04 for some details.
http://gstwins.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13651&highlight=balance The balancer described worked very well. This balancer can actually be made simpler than described.
I built mine out of some plexiglass and old rollerblade bearings, similar to that in the illustration. However, the bearings proved to be junk and they did not rotate half of the time. The wheel rotated freely around the axle on its own bearings allowing the heavy spot to rotate to the bottom. I think you could just use some stout cord hung from the track of your garage door opener, or whatever, to support the wheel axle and it would work OK. Just hang the wheel at a comfortable working height and make sure the axle is level.
I bought some self adhesive tire weights from a NAPA car parts dealer and used a cheap digital postal scale, set to grams, to check the weight of the tire weights as I experimented with their placement.
Just read the info from the links in the 11/04 post and it will tell/show you every thing you need to know to do this job. I have never had any experience doing anything like that before and it went well. I did have a garage and plenty of time though. That could be a problem for many of you.
Quote from: cay
- indicator dots on the tires don't line up with valves
The indicator dot does not necessarily end up at the valve stem. You use the balance rig to find the heavy spot on the wheel rim and then place the tire indicator spot to the appropriate spot on the rim.
I took my rim back to the shop and they were very apologetic. They just happened to have a bodyman working for them and the repair was excellent.
Well, good luck.
Bob