Went to the shop and spent about 30 minutes with the tech. He's an older dude with 35 years experience and Yamaha and Honda certs plastered all over his station. He went through all the troubleshooting with me that he did did. In fact, he showed me my battery (now out of my bike of course) hooked up to the tester and showed me the testing. Everything passed. He explained how normally if there was a battery problem it would either fail testing or show other symptoms on the bike which werent appearing. He also showed me the shop manual and the route the starting wiring takes through the bike. It passes through 6 relays and is tied into the ABS and braking system. He showed me on the bike all the places they tested. The original clicking noise was coming from a relay under the seat, thus they thought that relay was bad, even though he showed good current going in and out of the relay.
My next question was then WHAT exactly is wrong with my battery, and WHY didnt they find it during testing? He explained there is a bar that goes across all the cells of the battery connecting them all, and there is a hairline crack in that bar. He also then explained the amperage needed to start the bike is greater than what the stress test can put on the battery, thus why it didnt show up in testing. Apparently during startup that crack prevents proper amperage from getting to the startup system.
I guess I would be more pissed if it was young dude with no experience, or if somehow I thought they werent thorough in their troubleshooting. After spending some time with the tech, I dont feel that way. Afterall, it was Yamaha who diagnosed the issue as a bad ECU, not the tech.
So he'll spend the rest of today buttoning it up and I can pick it up Monday.
While I was there I was chatting with the finance mgr who Ive known for about 4 years and have bought 2 bikes from (he used to be a sales guy). After some discussion he checked inventory and said Tuscon had a '13 still in the crate, but it sold today. He then checked the wherehouse, and he showed one is scheduled for delivery on the 24th. I told him I wanted it if a deal could be reached. I didnt have time to stick around and talk numbers with him as the wife made plans for me this afternoon, but I'll go back tomorrow and see what kind of deal he can make me.
So thats the end of this adventure. Despite my personal feelings I know you guys suspect something fishy or haphazard in the way they dealt with this. Im not a stupid guy, and being a network guy I know about troubleshooting. I honestly dont know what they could've done differently, other than ignore all their testing and ignore the direction their troubleshooting took them and just put in a new battery. I think that would've been dumb luck because nothing appeared to point to the battery after digging into it.
So you get see your bike naked up on the rack while they feed you the same line of ******** you already heard. Just ***** and tell them you want your bike back now, perferably in one piece.
What ******** is that? Is there anything indicating sloppiness on their part that Ive missed? Out of curiousity do do any kind of troubleshooting for a living? I do, and I can tell you with problems there are things you look for that would lead you to certain conclusions about the problem. Nothing indicated a bad battery. All their testing didnt reveal anything. Ive been in similar situations for my work and have experienced situations like this myself. In a network environment Ive had routing issues that myself and our 3rd tier design engineers couldnt find, and we replace the hardware with the exact same IOS and config and the issue corrects itself. If you know anything about routing, thats all layer 2 and 3 (programming, IOS, and config), not physical.
So, thats that. Appreciate the support and feedback from you guys, and hopefully soon I'll be changing my profile to a '13
