Good God!

[docsherlock]

I have just read on another forum about a couple of bikers that take their bikes to the dealer to have the chain adjusted (not replaced, adjusted).

Fcuk me sideways - I've read it all now. Bikers ain't what they used to be.

In the unlikely event the culprits read this forum - GET A GRIP, BOYS!

[Warin]

Some bikes are company property ... on the expense account. Takes all kinds.

[Threewheelbonnie]

Odd this is in BMW tech, but could be F-series I guess.

The dealer adjusting chains will be going places. This is the exact business model all the large manufacturers want and BMW excel at. Get your bike renter back in the showroom every other day. Give him "free" coffee while the £80 an hour technician looks at the chain, confirms it is indeed still there and stamps the "safety" record and the salesman gets a go at convincing him his knackered old August-2013 200 mile bike isn't as good as last months upgrade which will only be another tenner a month so long as he doesn't go over the mileage limit.

How you get to this state of affairs is to copy what the IT providers do. Instil a fear of the device breaking. Fill the customers head with terrifying mumbo-jumbo and jargon. Be an utter **** if the thing goes wrong and the customers spending trend isn't in the top 20th percentile (again where BMW excel, claiming non-OEM petrol made the tyres go flat etc.).

The mobile phone model of pounds per month is way more profitable than the old vehicle builders who sold you something then had to compete for the maintenance.

Our problem is that as many here cannot fit the expected profile. I bet even if you could get your £199 a month/7p a mile over 100 a month bike connected to the diagnostic system in Ulan Bator, the computer system there wouldn't recognise your customer number.

The extremists of this business model, BMW and Triumph will either rise or fall on it's success. The Japanese big 4 can afford to hedge their bets. The consumer will choose, but it is the weekend riders who outnumber the long range travellers.

Andy

[pebble35]

A few years back I borrowed a 2003 Ducati Multistrada 1000 for a trip to Europe. It was all a t short notice and i was not familiar with the bike so the extent of the prep did not go much beyond making sure I had a copy of the bike manual and the toolkit on board - after all that should be all you need for any routine maintenance on the road shouldn't it .......................

Anyway after a thousand miles miles or so the chain was a little slack so I got the manual out to check how to adjust it - the Multistrada has one of those concentric hub adjusters.

And the manual said 'take it to a dealer'

The toolkit did not even contain the tools necessary to do the job !

[backofbeyond]

As an old school "biker" whose formative years were spent with oily fingernails and spanners in my pockets I too was initially amused by the thought of someone taking their bike to a dealer to have the chain adjusted, but thinking about it I'm not so sure I'm not the one off the normal spectrum these days.

Time was when bikes (and cars, but bikes more so) were hugely maintenance dependent and you were as likely to be changing a piston or a valve at the side of the road as you were adjusting the chain. Bit by bit the manufacturers have removed the weak spots to the point where there's not much the average owner is expected, or really needs to know about the mechanical side of things. I suspect many "weekend" low mileage bikes don't need their chains adjusting from one service to the next and, like much of the rest of the bits under the covers, can be ignored.

Part of the problem with the "no user maintainable parts inside" approach is the old Colin Chapman (founder of Lotus cars!) quote of "if I made it adjustable they'd adjust it wrong". Adjusting a chain does actually require a reasonable knowledge base as well as a number of tools to carry it out. You have to know that "as tight as possible" isn't the correct answer but if you're starting from scratch why would you assume that it has to be slack but just not as slack as it is. Years ago you could probably have picked up a copy of Motorcycle Mechanics magazine who would have walked you through the procedure step by step but they saw the writing on the wall years ago and reinvented themselves as Performance Bikes. Not much chain adjusting info in the last copy I read.

Of course it's an ill wind that doesn't blow anybody any good and reducing the knowledge base requires to ride a bike as a weekend hobby does give the dealers some chance to pull back an income stream lost when fitting new Norton crankshafts and fixing Triumph oil leaks were day to day jobs. If you can adjust your chain, rebuild your wheels or weld up a new frame think yourself lucky to be able to, but what else could you have been doing instead.

[docsherlock]

Originally Posted by Warin

Some bikes are company property ... on the expense account. Takes all kinds.

Nah - privately owned and expensed.

Originally Posted by backofbeyond

If you can adjust your chain, rebuild your wheels or weld up a new frame think yourself lucky to be able to, but what else could you have been doing instead.

Agree with all your points in your posts, but adjusting a chain ain't in the same ballpark as welding a frame or rebuilding a wheel (neither of which are in my skill set)!

The business models of BMW & Triumph (and the associated maintenance hassles) are why I ride a V-strom and Tenere.....

[craneguy]

I just picked up a 2010 KLR650. The headlight beam is too high so I checked the manual to see which way was up with the adjusters. Manual says "let the dealer do it"

Sheesh!

[docsherlock]

Originally Posted by craneguy

I just picked up a 2010 KLR650. The headlight beam is too high so I checked the manual to see which way was up with the adjusters. Manual says "let the dealer do it"

Sheesh!

Yeah, but did ya take it to the dealer??

[Walkabout]

Originally Posted by craneguy

I just picked up a 2010 KLR650. The headlight beam is too high so I checked the manual to see which way was up with the adjusters. Manual says "let the dealer do it"

Sheesh!

It wouldn't happen with a KTM; the manual even tells you how to change the light bulbs.

Of course, the solution is:-
"We have ridding from London to Everest Base Camp so far and with the Scottoiler on our F800GS we have not even adjusted the chain once. Can't fault the design and reliability. You can almost forget you have a chain on the bike. Through all the dirt, dust, mud and sand the Scottoiler has performed faultlessly"
Kevin Sanders – Co-Founder Globebusters
(taken straight out of the HUBB link -- http://www.scottoiler.com/uk/adventu...nlimited+Forum )

Isn't this the same guy who used to ride a shafty 1200GS?????

[backofbeyond]

Originally Posted by docsherlock

Agree with all your points in your posts, but adjusting a chain ain't in the same ballpark as welding a frame or rebuilding a wheel (neither of which are in my skill set)!

I agree, but the fact that you're able to make the distinction shows that you've traveled at least part of the way along the greasy fingernails highway. Have you noticed any reduction in your skill set over the years as replacement bikes have needed less doing to them? Nobody sets two stroke timing with a dial gauge any more (well I do but that's another matter) but it was almost a daily ritual years ago. Chain adjusting is just another step on that journey.

My wife doesn't ride but she does drive and has zero knowledge of car mechanics - to the point where she doesn't know where the bonnet release catch is. She doesn't need to as BMW have engineered out the need for her to lift the bonnet. Nothing has gone wrong in two cars over five years and the service intervals are a couple of hours in the dealers' every two years. I could easily see her taking the car to a dealer to fill the windscreen washer fluid (were I not around to do it) - and complaining about how hard it is to do.

Bikes are not quite at that stage yet but they need a lot less hands on intervention than they did and it's a trend that's only going to continue - even the Italians have had to raise their game! You're meant to enjoy them rather than enjoy repairing them.

[craneguy]

Originally Posted by docsherlock

Yeah, but did ya take it to the dealer??

Nope. Dealers here know less than anyone.

Plus I just bought a GSA so the KLR is gathering dust!

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

[Threewheelbonnie]

The dealer de-skilling is a bit of an advantage to us if they change the designs to match. If their YTS McDonalds reject can get the oil out without burning himself or destroying either your bike or the workshop, doing the same in a layby isn't going to be impossible. If they seal the engine and we work out they've done it (they'll hide behind inspecting filters and other non-jobs) we can ignore the service intervals so long as we are prepared to walk away from the warranty.

The risk is rubbish like having the "safety" light disable the ignition every 2500 miles unless a dealer is called in to inspect and reset it. None have dared do this yet. Their attempts at special tools go back to the Victorians and always fail in the end. If they can make an 69/93rds bolt, we can make an 18.8 mm socket. Same goes for electronics, some teenager will break the code and sell you a phone app to reset the light.

Suzuki BTW are getting lower in my opinion. The Wee-strom is fine with 5000 mile oil changes. The threat of a cancelled warranty if I don't let their grease monkey inspect my air filter (how do you do that BTW, open the lid and should "oi, boss, is this it?") every 3500 miles drives me towards Moto Guzzi who don't seem to care less so long as someone drops the oil once a year. Suzuki policy is to double the dealer visits and cost by taking the tank off at 4000 to inspect the air filter then again at 7500 to change the plugs. I changed both at 5000 and will again at 15000. Putting new oil in a dirty filter is stupid. Our local dealer seems to be able to change the plugs with the tank still on according to the paint marks on peoples bolts, stamps in their service books and £400 invoices. I bet he uses X-ray vision to inspect the air filters too. That or the invoices just buy more warranty?

Andy

[backofbeyond]

The cynic in me has wondered for some time how of the drive towards having essentially trivial maintenance tasks done by a dealer is part of an attempt to just give them something to do and keep them in business. All manufacturers must face the same issue, that they're making cars (mainly) and bikes more reliable, with less parts needing periodic attention (when was the last time you greased your propshaft ) so there's less need of a semi skilled dealer workforce making up for design deficiencies.

Maybe if Touring Ted picks up on this thread he could give us some inside info on what typical day in his workshop consists of but, accident repairs notwithstanding, I wonder how much of the routine stuff could be (almost) eliminated if BMW set their mind to it when their designers start on the next generation of cars and bikes. I suspect there's a fine line to be trod between making vehicles that don't need dealer attention (during the warranty period anyway) and giving them so much to do that a reputation for unreliability means no one buys them in the first place.

[Walkabout]

Originally Posted by Threewheelbonnie

Suzuki BTW are getting lower in my opinion. The Wee-strom is fine with 5000 mile oil changes.
Andy

A passing acquaintance of mine bought one of these new fangled 650DL about a year ago and, in negotiating with the Suzuki dealer, it was agreed that they could both ignore the intermediate "service" and the dealer would stamp up the service record book twice when the bike came in for the "more-normal" service interval; thereby, the dealer got his sale of a new bike and the customer got a bike that could go out on a tour of, say, Europe, without searching for a dealership along the way.

Originally Posted by backofbeyond

The cynic in me has wondered for some time how of the drive towards having essentially trivial maintenance tasks done by a dealer is part of an attempt to just give them something to do and keep them in business. All manufacturers must face the same issue, that they're making cars (mainly) and bikes more reliable, with less parts needing periodic attention (when was the last time you greased your propshaft ) so there's less need of a semi skilled dealer workforce making up for design deficiencies.

There is plenty of "street-talk" among owners of newish BMWs that the original reputation for reliability has been swopped for a modern reputation for good warranty cover - yes, yes, this is all very well if the dealership is close at hand and is up to the task!
Just a few years ago, the 1200GS was being "bashed together" in the Berlin factory by "pretty-much-untrained-immigrant-labour" (gastarbeiten) - such as wheel bearings inserted with a hammer; on a % basis this works OK most of the time (at least during the warranty period).
Any issues that arise under warranty can be sorted out by the dealers, which gives them work and an ongoing involvement with the marque.

Some years ago there was press speculation that future cars would not be designed with a bonnet (that's a hood for those using USA English) that opens; there would be a small hatch type door for checking oil and coolant levels and the engine would be sealed-for-life, even down to those seals that can be found on computers; "warranty void if opened".

[Threewheelbonnie]

They hit the limit with that one too. No bonnet puts off the buyers. Instead you open the bonnet to find a grey plastic sheet with just the washer bottle lid peeping out.

Andy