Sport-tourer warranty

[na1g]

Longer is better, I'm told. We all know that the FJR has a dinky 1-year warranty, although you can buy more years if you want. Honda gives you a long 3 years on the ST1300 and you can buy still more years. So what is Kawasaki offering with the C14? Or BMW with the R-RT and K-GT?

pete

 

[Brodie]

Pete

Better is a relative term.

I paid cash for my brand new first model year '06 AE. I put a ton of miles on it, I ride year round here in the San Jose Bay Area.

I did not get any extended warranty. The 1 year was good enough, though I do all my own wrenching. Armed with the "Official" shop manual, this (FJRForum) great fount of knowledge, and my meager skills and experience, my bike has been quite reliable.

I pay strict attention to the maintenance intervals outlined in the owners manual, and I haven't had a lick of problems with it.

For my money, the extended warranties on laptop computers (especially for my Daughter) are a better deal. However, I am able, and willing, to do all my own work. For others extended warrantees are a godsend, if for nothing else - peace of mind.

YMMV

Brodie

 

[FJRBluesman]

I think we need to get the ladies opinion here.... Or... err... Oh! You mean warranty, never mind. :huh:

It is what it is. It's insurance. The insurance company is betting you won't use it, the consumer is betting they will and need more repairs than the cost of the extended warranty.

This is really subjective, many have enjoyed the expensive repairs on the house with their YES, others not. Lets let the ones that have used them and not used them chime in.

It really comes down to, if you can afford it, and don't care if you use it, then go for it.

Good luck.

 

[rockmurf]

BMW has a 3 year 36k miles and the connie has a three year and I believe it is unlimited miles. Plus you can buy extended warranties on these and the honda. It is as stated above, an insurance policy/peace of mind kind of thing. If the bike you buy in your opinion needs an extended warranty then you may want to pass on that bike. I have one, yes, and never used it but am glad I bought it, plus it helps in resale.

 

[bramfrank]

Extending the FJR's warranty to 5 years costs all of $389 in the US (unless you live in Florida, though there is a work-around for Flloridians).

Kawasaki's C14 basic warranty is 3 years., extensible to 6. Honda's can be extended to 7.

 

[phroenips]

Extending the FJR's warranty to 5 years costs all of $389 in the US (unless you live in Florida, though there is a work-around for Flloridians).
Kawasaki's C14 basic warranty is 3 years., extensible to 6. Honda's can be extended to 7.

I'd add to this only to clarify that the OEM extended warranties are only available on new bikes (or probably also if the initial warranty is still in effect)

 

[Tenchi]

They don't offer a longer warranty on the FJR with unlimited miles because they know you lot will never get off your bikes in order to get your money's worth

 

[Fred W]

Another thing in favor of the extended warranty is resale value. The YES warranty is transferable to potential new owners, others may or may not be.

When considering buying a used bike that warranty can mean a lot. Yeah, the seller may be a great guy, and have great service records etc, but you just don't know what you don't know. Having that piece of mind that you are not assuming someone else's troubles is key.

I bought my FJR used though a second-hand dealership. They pick up "off brand" trade-ins from various new bike shops in the region. Mine was traded in (by a prior forum member) towards a new BMW R1200S. The PO was a little fella and couldn't get used to the Feejer's considerable size. The BMW shop didn't want to have their cash tied up in a Yamaha languishing on the sales floor, or they didn't want to have a potential BMW sale cannibalized by the used FJR. In either case they wholesaled it off to the second hand place I bought it from. So, I had no real info of the bike's condition. Having 3 tears of remaining YES warranty made that a non-issue. If it had turned out to be a ticker I'd have been covered.

I never had occasion to make a claim of any kind against the YES warranty.

And I now have full confidence in the bike.

 

[Panman]

Here's my thought, I bought the YES Warranty and at this moment am wondering what good it did me. On 8/6 my bike failed to turn over, checked the battery which checked OK called all of the local shops (six of them) and the soonest any of them could get it in was 8/18. That was not satisfactory to me as I live here in the Pacific North Wet so escaefjrtist and I went after it and found a bad starter relay (with Ashee's help). I had to wait till Tuesday to order and they all said a week to get it in. So if I would have waited for the YES the bike wouldn't have even been in the shop yet and the part wouldn't have been ordered yet.

I ordered the part on line and saved ten bucks including shipping and the part is suppose to be here Thur (8/19).

So my though is if Yamaha and their dealers can't do better than that what good is the YES? At the end of this month the bike will be Three years old with a little over 38,000 miles (I know Carver, a Major CBA player) and I spent $56 on a Starter Relay, and that my friend's is considerably cheaper than the YES.

 

[olsonm3915]

Here's my thought, I bought the YES Warranty and at this moment am wondering what good it did me. On 8/6 my bike failed to turn over, checked the battery which checked OK called all of the local shops (six of them) and the soonest any of them could get it in was 8/18. That was not satisfactory to me as I live here in the Pacific North Wet so escaefjrtist and I went after it and found a bad starter relay (with Ashee's help). I had to wait till Tuesday to order and they all said a week to get it in. So if I would have waited for the YES the bike wouldn't have even been in the shop yet and the part wouldn't have been ordered yet.I ordered the part on line and saved ten bucks including shipping and the part is suppose to be here Thur (8/19).

So my though is if Yamaha and their dealers can't do better than that what good is the YES? At the end of this month the bike will be Three years old with a little over 38,000 miles (I know Carver, a Major CBA player) and I spent $56 on a Starter Relay, and that my friend's is considerably cheaper than the YES.

You're apparently unhappy about having to spend $56 on a starter relay that didn't get paid for under Y.E.S., and you admit you basically fixed it yourself with a little help, much quicker and easier?

I bought Y.E.S. in case my engine blows up, the rear end grenades, or something else that's expensive to fix. I wouldn't want my local dealer to even touch my bike even if it needed a replacement engine (I just put an ebay engine into my son's EX500, which now that I think about it cost about $200 more than what I paid for Y.E.S.), but I'd swallow my pride and let a Yamaha dealer do it to save the expense (and risk) of buying a GOOD low-miles FJR engine from a wreck. I don't like letting other people work on my bikes.

It's insurance, for big expensive stuff. I wouldn't call my car insurance company to get a light bulb replaced, even if it was free.

 

[Panman]

Here's my thought, I bought the YES Warranty and at this moment am wondering what good it did me. On 8/6 my bike failed to turn over, checked the battery which checked OK called all of the local shops (six of them) and the soonest any of them could get it in was 8/18. That was not satisfactory to me as I live here in the Pacific North Wet so escaefjrtist and I went after it and found a bad starter relay (with Ashee's help). I had to wait till Tuesday to order and they all said a week to get it in. So if I would have waited for the YES the bike wouldn't have even been in the shop yet and the part wouldn't have been ordered yet.I ordered the part on line and saved ten bucks including shipping and the part is suppose to be here Thur (8/19).

So my though is if Yamaha and their dealers can't do better than that what good is the YES? At the end of this month the bike will be Three years old with a little over 38,000 miles (I know Carver, a Major CBA player) and I spent $56 on a Starter Relay, and that my friend's is considerably cheaper than the YES.

You're apparently unhappy about having to spend $56 on a starter relay that didn't get paid for under Y.E.S., and you admit you basically fixed it yourself with a little help, much quicker and easier?

I bought Y.E.S. in case my engine blows up, the rear end grenades, or something else that's expensive to fix. I wouldn't want my local dealer to even touch my bike even if it needed a replacement engine (I just put an ebay engine into my son's EX500, which now that I think about it cost about $200 more than what I paid for Y.E.S.), but I'd swallow my pride and let a Yamaha dealer do it to save the expense (and risk) of buying a GOOD low-miles FJR engine from a wreck. I don't like letting other people work on my bikes.

It's insurance, for big expensive stuff. I wouldn't call my car insurance company to get a light bulb replaced, even if it was free.

$56 wasn't the issue it's the fact that waiting for almost two weeks for the dealers to even start a warranty job and the fact that it would have been over three weeks down time. I am in the opinion that the YES is a customer service deal that is sold to you and three weeks isn't customer service in my humble opinion.

My FJR has only been to the shop for the first service, all other work has been done by myself with the help from this Forum and the Pacific North Wet crew.

 

[olsonm3915]

I fully agree with you that waiting weeks for a simple starter relay fix is totally unacceptable. The fact is that most bike dealerships in the USA are a joke, because bikes are perceived as leisure time toys and not as practical transportation. In the UK, when your bike is in for service, it's common to be given a loaner bike. Have you ever heard of that here? Waiting times of anything over 2 days for a part is ridiculous, given the fact that if the part is in the USA in a warehouse it should be available by FedEx the next day in 99% of all cases. Yet we put up with this sort of crap because, well, I don't know exactly.

I still bought YES as insurance against a very expensive catastrophic failure. I fully expect I will never collect on it for any sort of thing I can fix myself that costs less than about $500. Over that amount I would probably swallow my distaste for letting the dealership touch my bike in order to get Yamaha to pay for the fix.

 

[Fred W]

I'm with him. The YES, or any other extended warranty is to cover the big stuff. For the little stuff I would much prefer to take care of it myself, regardless of how quickly they could get to it. Plus the responsiveness of your local dealership has exactly nothing to do with the warranty. It has to do with your local dealership. Mine, like many, is not like that. When I fragged all of my front tupperware on that kamikazi ***** of a ruminant they had my bike completely repaired in a little over a week (on my insurance, not YES).

A relay or some other little thing is no big deal. That's not a good reason to get an extended warranty.

It might be a reason to learn to work on your own bike though...

What would happen if the relay **** the bed when you were in the boonies? How much would an extended warranty help that?

 

[Panman]

I'm with him. The YES, or any other extended warranty is to cover the big stuff. For the little stuff I would much prefer to take care of it myself, regardless of how quickly they could get to it. Plus the responsiveness of your local dealership has exactly nothing to do with the warranty. It has to do with your local dealership. Mine, like many, is not like that. When I fragged all of my front tupperware on that kamikazi ***** of a ruminant they had my bike completely repaired in a little over a week (on my insurance, not YES).
A relay or some other little thing is no big deal. That's not a good reason to get an extended warranty.

It might be a reason to learn to work on your own bike though...

What would happen if the relay **** the bed when you were in the boonies? How much would an extended warranty help that?

Did you read my post? The bike has only once been to the shop, and that was for the first service?

My point is, what are you getting buying the yes. IMHO not much. As IMHO you shouldn't have to wait that kind of time to get a simple job done. Simply put, you pay extra for a service contract you should get service. Not two weeks out if your lucky kind of attitude then we'll order the parts and only maybe on the YES.

I can get parts from England faster for my 73 Trident, Yamaha and their dealers need to step up to the plate.

This well may be my last MC as at the rate I'm riding I'll wear out before it does. I love my 07 it does every thing I want it to do, wish I could say that about Yamaha.

 

[Fred W]

Yes, I read your post. Did you read mine?

I'm saying when you buy an extended Warranty (like YES), you are not buying a Service Contract.

You are buying insurance against major failure. What you are getting for your paltry $350 is financial protection against a catastrophe, and possibly increased resale value if you were to change your mind about it and sell the bike during the extended warranty period.

 

[fastpappy]

Better to have it and not need than to need it and not have it.

 

[RadioHowie]

Ask me....just ask....if I wish I'd had a Y.E.S. when my CCT broke and tore the hell outta my motor.

Would I have been willing to trade the $400 buy-in price for the $1600 it cost to replace the motor in my '04? Not to mention the 10 MONTHS it sat in my garage?

Everything in life is a Point-of-View. In my P-O-V, a Y-E-S is a b-l-e-s-s-i-n-g. And I don't even have one!

But I can guaran-damn-tee you that when I drop coin on a V-4, six-speed Gen III with cruise, heated grips, a clutch lever, no spiders and an espresso machine, I'll be adding a YES to the order form.

 

[chrisflock]

Ask me....just ask....if I wish I'd had a Y.E.S. when my CCT broke and tore the hell outta my motor.
Would I have been willing to trade the $400 buy-in price for the $1600 it cost to replace the motor in my '04? Not to mention the 10 MONTHS it sat in my garage?

Everything in life is a Point-of-View. In my P-O-V, a Y-E-S is a b-l-e-s-s-i-n-g. And I don't even have one!

But I can guaran-damn-tee you that when I drop coin on a V-4, six-speed Gen III with cruise, heated grips, a clutch lever, no spiders and an espresso machine, I'll be adding a YES to the order form.

Would you still have been with the YES period when your CCT went?

Would you have brought it in and had the CCT replaced before it blew up?

I've still got my YES, and so far I've spent more on repairs that haven't been covered than those that have, and I ended up taking my clutch back off to 'repair' the repair that was done under warranty.

I think it all comes down to whether you are going to take it into the dealer for repairs or not. Do you trust the dealer to do the work right? Would you generally rather do the work yourself anyway?

 

[RadioHowie]

Would you still have been with the YES period when your CCT went?

If I had purchased the bike and YES new, it would have been covered...just barely

Would you have brought it in and had the CCT replaced before it blew up?

Well, there's the rub. I DID take it to my local Yammy dealer. They gave me the corporate "it's normal" BS and sent me on my way. There just wasn't enough anecdotal evidence on CCT failures when mine occurred to give me an idea of what was happening in my motor.

I've still got my YES, and so far I've spent more on repairs that haven't been covered than those that have, and I ended up taking my clutch back off to 'repair' the repair that was done under warranty.

Sounds like the sadly typical "shop monkey" scenario.

Do you trust the dealer to do the work right? Would you generally rather do the work yourself anyway?

Certainly don't trust "my" dealer. Not that I go there for anything, but it's just they're local to me. Fortunately, for me anyway, I've got enough wrenching skills and knowledge to fix just about anything that can go wrong on my bike, short of welding or painting. Never did acquire those skills. That being said, if I'd had a YES warranty when the "Frankenbike Saga" began, you can be sure it would have been the dealer's problem, not mine.