NEVER AGAIN with Kawasaki

[tukibandit]

Engine issue cannot be recreated at the dealer, though they can feel the engine is running very lean.. BUT Twiggs Cycle of Hagerstown says, That is the way Kawasaki has the Vaquero set up, they cannot change it..

They have also said IVAN's ECU Reflash will void parts of the warranty..

So I have a Vaquero that has issues climbing up hills without it being all jerky and there is NOTHING the Dealer can do unless I document it..

Mind you, the first 1000 miles, the bike ran fine..
Now I will just take a vid of how it runs and post that all over the place..

Screw this bike right now..

They are bringing it back to me in the morning... I will put 2 go-pros on it and just run daily clips of the engines running issues..

Incredible that the dealer cannot do anything...

They will "fix it" once I make videos of it happening..
But I will use those vids to get the lemon law in MD to fix it all for me..

Guess I will be driving a turd for the time being..

This shit is dumb..
Over 100000 miles on bikes,. never had this issue before.. Didn't with my last bike, that was a Honda..
pfffffft Twiggs

Time for a drink.. I hear Yukon Jack, calling my name..

[LMP88]

Dammm i feel your pain.....is it taking it to a Different dealer an option?

[Demolition Man]

Originally Posted by LMP88

Dammm i feel your pain.....is it taking it to a Different dealer an option?

That is what I would do, get a second opinion.
Okay, you could have been unlucky with a lemon, but often, another dealer, who cares about more about customers, COULD bring back the SUN !


Cu,
Sven

[tukibandit]

Originally Posted by Demolition Man

That is what I would do, get a second opinion.
Okay, you could have been unlucky with a lemon, but often, another dealer, who cares about more about customers, COULD bring back the SUN !


Cu,
Sven

Yeah, gonna look around to seee what dealers have great customer feedback.. and try that..

Dealer said I can and should do that as well..

Just a PIA, since I work midnights, it gets to be difficult to be droping the bike off at another dealer and then having to try to UBER home or back to where I keep the bike

[twowheeladdict]

Kawasaki has the best warranty in the business. Sounds like you have a crappy dealer.

Did they not test ride it up a hill?

Why would Ivan's void the warranty?

Kawasaki completely rebuilt my engine at approximately 50,000 miles when the KACR came off the cam chain sprocket and bounced around the engine.

[DragonLady58]

Well, as a dealer mechanic, I saw a few dealers really look bad hiring bad mechanics, and turning away good folk that went to other 'good dealers'....MaKawa won't tolerate that for very long. She will eventually find out about it, and they will have their ass handed to them, and you might also even get a new bike outta it.
Stand up and speak up....to a new dealer....might get things done. These guys want you to be happy and they want repeat customers, and people to buy their parts/accessories....

I had to replace a inner primary bearing, shaft, and inner primary housing on a early E-Head back in the 80s, this dude had trouble with his brand new harley. Took it back to the dealer, they adjusted the chain so tight, it pulled the slack outta the bearing, but turned the white nylon block on the adjuster into shreaded white confetti....
Well, I called a district mgr. friend, he was coming by our dealership, so our dealers head honcho and district manager called this other dealer and had informed the head office , who inturn dispatched a dealer investagator....needless to day, they didn't pass....and were shut down.
They had many complaints, this guys was just the straw .....dealer ship was shut down poste haste

[Snake Ranch]

Originally Posted by tukibandit

Engine issue cannot be recreated at the dealer, though they can feel the engine is running very lean.. BUT Twiggs Cycle of Hagerstown says, That is the way Kawasaki has the Vaquero set up, they cannot change it..

They have also said IVAN's ECU Reflash will void parts of the warranty..

So I have a Vaquero that has issues climbing up hills without it being all jerky and there is NOTHING the Dealer can do unless I document it..

Mind you, the first 1000 miles, the bike ran fine..
Now I will just take a vid of how it runs and post that all over the place..

Screw this bike right now..

They are bringing it back to me in the morning... I will put 2 go-pros on it and just run daily clips of the engines running issues..

Incredible that the dealer cannot do anything...

They will "fix it" once I make videos of it happening..
But I will use those vids to get the lemon law in MD to fix it all for me..

Guess I will be driving a turd for the time being..

This shit is dumb..
Over 100000 miles on bikes,. never had this issue before.. Didn't with my last bike, that was a Honda..
pfffffft Twiggs

Time for a drink.. I hear Yukon Jack, calling my name..

Just food for thought.

I had a real problem with my skoot when I first purchased it. Real jery. Bad enough I was getting a lesson in whiplash at slow speeds.

I went to 4 different dealers. Some more than once. 3 were over an hour away, like 2 hours plus.

What I learned was they don't have a lot of knowledge on these skoots, and they don't want to get warranty involved because they might be on the hook for the bill if it is not covered. So if it is not simple and clear to them, they don't want to say we don't know. And they want you to do the work for them.

BUT....... they will work on it for as long as you want if you are paying the bill.
AND....... they are learning on your dime.

I had one dealer tech tell me I didn't know how to ride my skoot. "Cause that's how these big V-twins are with the shaft drive". When I tried to explain this skoot was not a shaft drive, He wanted to argue the point. Now my skoot is a belt drive, I didn't know all the other Vaquero's in the world are shaft drive.

Another dealer told me this might not be the skoot for me and I might want to consider getting rid of it for something I might be happy with.

The local dealer, about 10 minutes from my house told me to take my skoot back to where I bought it because he didn't want to work on it. Needless to say I have not stepped inside that dealer's door again.

I spent the better part of my life working on Cat equipment. And troubleshooting was what I spent a large amount of time doing.

There is "cause' and "effect". And it takes an open mind to sort these thing out.

If they are going to fix it once you make a video of it happening, you might ask the question, What are you going to fix. The jerking is a symptom. The root cause is where the problem lays.

Just a thought and this could be a long shot. I had my skoot into the dealer for this jerky problem also. And it was worse in a different way when I had my skoot back from them trying to correct the problem the first time.

What I observed and learned was the shoot was more jerky, smaller jerks than the original whiplash kind of jerkiness. The tech had lubed the fly-by-wire cables, and he did a good job.

But the throttle grip was loose on the handlebar, .030" of an inch loose.
My throttle cables had been adjusted so there was almost zero slack in the cables, which could be a problem with what you are experiencing.

But in my case the loose throttle grip was pulling on the tight cables and the computer control was reacting to each little input.

Take note of the road conditions, because I was having this problem on some rough city streets I had to use to get to work. For a quick fix I wrapped some black electrical tape on the handlebar to fill the clearance

It's easy to check. Lift up and down on the throttle grip. If you have movement there is potential for unwanted throttle input resulting in jerkiness in the engine speeds.

Again, just my 2 cents.

[redjay]

A good fix for a loose grip on the throttle is to spray hair spray inside the grip.

[ringadingh]

I'd take it to another dealer, and possibly let the Kawi district rep in on your situation.

[tukibandit]

Originally Posted by twowheeladdict

Kawasaki has the best warranty in the business. Sounds like you have a crappy dealer.

Did they not test ride it up a hill?

Why would Ivan's void the warranty?

Kawasaki completely rebuilt my engine at approximately 50,000 miles when the KACR came off the cam chain sprocket and bounced around the engine.

They said they put on over 100-miles on the bike, and the only thing they noticed is that it runs lean.. but that is how Kaw set the bike up, and they cannot change it..

Ivans, because they can say, it is no longer in factory specs, you changed those settings, and the cause of your issue relates back to the reflashed ECU..

So they could potentially push back any engine warranty issues back to the ECU that changed the factory settings..

I didn't know that, and right now, it is what is holding me back from getting the bikes ECU flashed..

I may go for a power-commander if I keep the bike

Not sure what I am doing at the moment.. All I know is I am very disappointed in the dealer and their mechanics

[tukibandit]

Originally Posted by ringadingh

I'd take it to another dealer, and possibly let the Kawi district rep in on your situation.

Yeah.. good point.. might be the next thing

[JD Hog]

Originally Posted by tukibandit

They said they put on over 100-miles on the bike, and the only thing they noticed is that it runs lean.. but that is how Kaw set the bike up, and they cannot change it..

Ivans, because they can say, it is no longer in factory specs, you changed those settings, and the cause of your issue relates back to the reflashed ECU..


So they could potentially push back any engine warranty issues back to the ECU that changed the factory settings..

I didn't know that, and right now, it is what is holding me back from getting the bikes ECU flashed..

I may go for a power-commander if I keep the bike

Not sure what I am doing at the moment.. All I know is I am very disappointed in the dealer and their mechanics

Why would they accept a Power Commander as an OK modification and kick back an ECU reflash. They both change how the bike runs in regards to fuel supply.

If they are going to refuse warranty work on a reflashed bike I would think they would also do it on a bike with a Power Commander.

[MET-RICK]

Originally Posted by tukibandit

They said they put on over 100-miles on the bike, and the only thing they noticed is that it runs lean.. but that is how Kaw set the bike up, and they cannot change it..

Ivans, because they can say, it is no longer in factory specs, you changed those settings, and the cause of your issue relates back to the reflashed ECU..

So they could potentially push back any engine warranty issues back to the ECU that changed the factory settings..

I didn't know that, and right now, it is what is holding me back from getting the bikes ECU flashed..

I may go for a power-commander if I keep the bike

Not sure what I am doing at the moment.. All I know is I am very disappointed in the dealer and their mechanics

*** sorry to hear of your troubles with the dealer but if, quote " ( Ivans, because they can say, it is no longer in factory specs, you changed those settings, and the cause of your issue relates back to the reflashed ECU..) ",
then it should stand to reason that all the rest of the many, many, many other bikes with Ivans reflash would also be experiencing the same problem (s)...but in fact most if not all have reported that they run much better, smoother and stronger to say the least. So how do or, would/could they explain that all these other bikes have not been going back to the dealer (s) with the same complaint (s)...I think I hear the dealer bs detector going off . good luck with this issue. cheers

[DragonLady58]

Originally Posted by ringadingh

I'd take it to another dealer, and possibly let the Kawi district rep in on your situation.

You should listen to these guys....I'm telling ya....get the factory Rep or district manager. Call up Kawasaki America, talk to someone in charge, have your VIN# ready....they find out you got a fairly new bike, your disgruntled, and shits fixin' to happen....
You'll be suprised just how freaking fast things can happen.
Though I was a Harley Factory Dealer Mechanic....they (Harley) were pretty brazin when shit went wrong, and they were on top of it. They did not tolerate crap getting screwed up, they fixed it, especially after the AMF crap went down in the 70s....
Kawasaki is not only about bikes, they got ATVs, watercraft, outboard motors, industrial engines, gen. sets, etc..... and they're world wide. They don't like negative press and won't tolerate it.
Get the big guys in on this and get it straightened out....all you gotta do is talk to the right guy! Start making phone calls, but not to dealers....and speak your mind!

[Snake Ranch]

My skoot started to rattle perty loud at startup on cold mornings. SO I let the Blackbird set for about three weeks one time, and when she fires off it don't rattle no more. It's banging something awful and won't go away.

A time prior I had talked to the tech who does the warranty work on my skoot and when I explained what was happening, he was kinda concerned and stated I shouldn't ride with this happening. So what am I supposed to do? Ride to work and push it home. Sooo.... after he calls the factory, he said it was ok, they all may do this.

SO.... I called the factory and asked the question, How many of these skoots are you going to sell if they all clatter like mine? They pulled the engine and replaced the HLA's.

Get the factory involved, ask direct questions, and don't take no for an answer. You have to go over the dealer's head if they don't want to resolve the problem.

Use the term,....Drive ability issue or safety issue. That's something they can relate to.