so i have to rant about this because i am furious with my local dealership service dept.  so i bring my bike in to get suburban machinery handlebars installed, they call me back at the end of the day saying they dont fit cus the master cylinder hits the tach. now im mad, so i log on to suburban machinery web page and it says all you need to do is rotate the master cylinder forward to clear the tach, so i phone my dealership back and they say they wont do it because its not the proper way for it to fit. this sounds so stupid to me!!! now they are charging me for shop labour to take my old bars off, try to put the new ones on and then putting the old ones back on. this is the last time i will ever take my bike there. EVER!!!!

that sucks but why didnt you just put them on yourself?

I have no idea how to do anything like that but I might try

just take your time and pay attention to what you take off and how you take it off.  and if your worried you can always take a pic and use it as a reference when putting it back together.

Yeah, sounds like a chance to do things yourself. There are all kinds of good posts and other resources here to help you do it right. I hate when this kind of stuff happens, but I'm sure the dealer is worried about someone suing them if anything ever went wrong with the front brakes...

could be worse, I paid $200 to have them 'clean' my carbs (they were already clean, and it ran the same way before/after) and adjust my valves (which still weren't adjusted properly) and to add insult to injury, they screwed up the fuel hose routing

Quote from: arbakken on April 02, 2009, 03:46:12 PM
could be worse, I paid $200 to have them 'clean' my carbs (they were already clean, and it ran the same way before/after) and adjust my valves (which still weren't adjusted properly) and to add insult to injury, they screwed up the fuel hose routing

Wow, that is terrible. I hope they made it right when you called them on it.

I hope you didn't pay them...

I can't decide what sounds dumber, the dealer being fussy about mounting the master cylinder on an angle, or someone paying for a job a teenager can do with a couple wrenches.

Technically, the dealer is right.  A master cylinder mounted on an angle will allow air to get into the brake line sooner than one that's mounted vertically.  The shop has to protect themselves so you don't sue them when you crash because you had air in your brake line.

I've made my decision.  Hiring someone to do this is dumber.

I changed my clutch cable yesterday.  Took me 20 minutes.  You would have had the shop do that too, right?

The recession isn't hitting you, that's for sure.  I think you should learn something about yourself.  The way you come-off in this thread screams "TAKE MY MONEY".

Until you're ready to take a wrench to your bike yourself, you should resist the desire to modify it.  If you came here BEFOREHAND and asked us about it, we would have told you to do it yourself, and many of us would be willing to walk you right through the job, probably with pics!

Help is right here.  Use it!  I'm reluctant to do jobs that require special tools, like engine servicing, but as far as the basic stuff goes, I'm all over it.  I suggest you adopt the same philosophy.  It never made sense to me for anyone to be a motorcyclist if they're not at least to a certain degree a do-it-yourselfer.

they ended up not charging me a cent. yay!

Quote from: bill14224 on April 03, 2009, 09:31:56 AM
I can't decide what sounds dumber, the dealer being fussy about mounting the master cylinder on an angle, or someone paying for a job a teenager can do with a couple wrenches.

Technically, the dealer is right.  A master cylinder mounted on an angle will allow air to get into the brake line sooner than one that's mounted vertically.  The shop has to protect themselves so you don't sue them when you crash because you had air in your brake line.

I've made my decision.  Hiring someone to do this is dumber.

I changed my clutch cable yesterday.  Took me 20 minutes.  You would have had the shop do that too, right?

The recession isn't hitting you, that's for sure.  I think you should learn something about yourself.  The way you come-off in this thread screams "TAKE MY MONEY".

Until you're ready to take a wrench to your bike yourself, you should resist the desire to modify it.  If you came here BEFOREHAND and asked us about it, we would have told you to do it yourself, and many of us would be willing to walk you right through the job, probably with pics!

Help is right here.  Use it!  I'm reluctant to do jobs that require special tools, like engine servicing, but as far as the basic stuff goes, I'm all over it.  I suggest you adopt the same philosophy.  It never made sense to me for anyone to be a motorcyclist if they're not at least to a certain degree a do-it-yourselfer.

If i wanted your opinion on who was dumber i would have asked for it!! big mouth

Quote from: scotilac on April 03, 2009, 09:16:06 PM

Quote from: bill14224 on April 03, 2009, 09:31:56 AM
I can't decide what sounds dumber, the dealer being fussy about mounting the master cylinder on an angle, or someone paying for a job a teenager can do with a couple wrenches.

Technically, the dealer is right.  A master cylinder mounted on an angle will allow air to get into the brake line sooner than one that's mounted vertically.  The shop has to protect themselves so you don't sue them when you crash because you had air in your brake line.

I've made my decision.  Hiring someone to do this is dumber.

I changed my clutch cable yesterday.  Took me 20 minutes.  You would have had the shop do that too, right?

The recession isn't hitting you, that's for sure.  I think you should learn something about yourself.  The way you come-off in this thread screams "TAKE MY MONEY".

Until you're ready to take a wrench to your bike yourself, you should resist the desire to modify it.  If you came here BEFOREHAND and asked us about it, we would have told you to do it yourself, and many of us would be willing to walk you right through the job, probably with pics!

Help is right here.  Use it!  I'm reluctant to do jobs that require special tools, like engine servicing, but as far as the basic stuff goes, I'm all over it.  I suggest you adopt the same philosophy.  It never made sense to me for anyone to be a motorcyclist if they're not at least to a certain degree a do-it-yourselfer.

If i wanted your opinion on who was dumber i would have asked for it!! big mouth

Now now.. play nice..

Quote from: scotilac on April 03, 2009, 08:58:13 PM
I was told if I don't have anything good to say about a person don't say it at all but I'm thinking it....

He might have been a bit harsh, but he makes a good point about mods. If you're going to change your bike from the stock setup, you shouldn't expect the dealer to treat the modified parts the same way they treat stock stuff. If there are things they haven't had much experience with and don't feel comfortable adjusting, they should tell you. You really don't want them to do work they don't think is a good idea. They're professionals, you're paying them for their training and experience and you should respect their opinions, even if you don't agree with or understand them.

From a more practical perspective, mods are for the most part all about improving the ascetics of the bike. Paying someone to do easy, mostly cosmetic, modifications makes them far to expensive to justify on a bike like the GS in my opinion. Perhaps if you had a Ducati, getting the dealer to install your new handlebars made from hand forged meteoric iron and carbon fiber, it might be worth it but if the dealer charges about the same to install a mod as the mod itself, it just isn't worth it anymore.

One last thing, I don't want anyone else installing my mods because I want to personally inspect everything and know exactly how it works so that I can be sure it is going to be safe. Suzuki has spent a lot of time and effort designing the GS to ensure that it is safe and every part will perform as designed. They've also been at it for the last 20 years and they know what they're doing. Other people making aftermarket parts simply can't even come close to Suzuki in terms of time, effort and money spent designing things. This isn't to say that aftermarket parts are bad, just that you should be much more sensitive to their quality and more skeptical of their safety. The more involved in this process you are, the more you'll recognize potential risk and be able to reject bad parts. It isn't hard to learn how to work on your bike, and the benefits of doing so are huge.