A tad annoyed

The 10R needs a new head gasket.

Coolant leak turned out not to be an incorrectly fitted hose after
all.

 

Obviously a dodgy running-in routine.

<cough>

 

Heh, it's was pretty damn near by the book. And the dealer hasn't
mentioned it.

 

Well, I'm fucked. No wonder they were knocking 'em out cheap.

 

Looks like it just wasn't put together right. It runs fine, just
weeps coolant from the back left of the head, so it looks like the
gasket was slightly damaged in that area.

 

Or the head's warped.

Er, I'll **** off now, shall I?

 

Paging the Spiccy Gentleman.

Is that Kwaks added to the 'avoid at all costs list' now then?

 

That's alright then

 

Scraggy says...

I've owned lots of Kawasakis and the only one that was utterly shite was
the KR-1. Asaide from that one bike I don't think I've ever owned a
'bad' Kawasaki.

Ben's obviously not thrashing his enough, my mate Danny's race ZX10R has
survived 3 1/2 seasons of racing with no mechanical problems whatsoever.
It's currently leading the Bemsee/MRO Powerbike championship by 9 points
against the likes of 07 R1s and Gixer Thou K6s and K7s.

--
Lozzo
Triumph Daytona 955i SE (Black with added black bits)
Suzuki GSX-R750L trackbike (Shite with added shite bits)
Yamaha SR250 Cheasy-Rider (undergoing a transformation)
I ride way too fast to worry about cholestorol.

 

Well obviously, you have seen his comment regarding running it in by the
book. I mean......

 

If that's the case then I'll be having a new bike.

 

Aye, to be fair to the dealer (Drayton Croft, Hinckley) he's stripping
it down on Monday, should have a gasket by Tuesday and I should be
able to collect it next weekend.

So I'll have them do the work and we'll see how it is afterwards.

 

Is this something they spotted at the first service, or did it show up
afterwards?

 

When I took it in for the service I complained about the leak. It had
been doing a hundred miles or so before the service.

They re-torqued the head down and asked me to carry on riding it to
see if that was it.

 

Ouch, that's a fucker.

This might be a bit late, but can I suggest you put it in writing that
you're agreeing to the repair on a without prejudice basis. If it is
something more serious than just the head gasket, you might decide to reject
the bike later [1].

[1] agreeing to repairs could be a waiver of the right to reject.

 

Thanks for that Kiran. What do you think, a simple letter along the
lines of I accept them attempting to repair it, but I reserve the
right to reject the bike, and sent to the dealer and copied to
Kawasaki?

 

Yeah, that would do. No need to tell Kawasaki, but then again, no harm in it
either. Depends on how the dealer might respond to you telling Kawasaki.
Remember, at the end of the day, you want them to do a good repair and get
you back on the road, so the more informal the letter, the better. I'd agree
about copying the letter to the finance company - if memory serves me
correctly, I think they might also be jointly liable, bicbw.

I'd suggest just a simple factual letter recording what's already happened
[1] so that there can be no "he said xyz later on", and then simply saying
that you're disappointed such a major fault has occurred on such a new bike,
that you're happy to get the repairs done (set out what they have said they
will do), but this is on the understanding that your agreement to the
repairs is without prejudice to your rights to reject the bike as unfit for
purpose.


[1] You might as well bung in how the dealer told you to run it in, how you
in fact ran it in, the discovery of the leak, what the dealer did to "fix"
the problem etc etc.

 

<checks coolant level>

<while out there checks tail of pink bike>

*sigh of relief*

 

Good point.