Regular service gone wrong...

I took my bike today for the 4000 mile service. After this I went for a ride
and
felt something scraping in the rear of the bike. I stop to look only to find
the
adjuster plate on the right swingarm loose and pressed against the disc
brake.
Can't even imagine what would have happened if the rear wheel locked.
The result is that the adjuster plate is eroded on all 4 edges, there is a
small scratch on the swingarms (where the adjuster plate attaches) and
deep scratches on the disc brake.
Needless to say I am really pissed that I paid for regular service only to
end
up with the above mentioned damage, a ruined weekend and most importantly
the fact that I could have seriously injured myself.

I will go back to the dealership on monday and was wonderig if you guys
can give me any tips over the course of action I should take.
Should I demand a new swingarm/disc brake because of the scratches?
Some might consider the scratches a minor thing, but they sure bother me
on an otherwise spotless bike. I just feel that they need to pay for this,
a simple "sorry" won't satisdy me.

BTW, the dealer is a well known and supposedly reliable Honda, Yamaha,
Kawasaki
Daly City business.

 

FWIW, I'd suggest that you telephone the dealer and tell the service
manager what happened. If you have any doubts about whether the bike is
safe to ride in for his inspection, ask for his opinion on that. If
you're confident that it is safe or get his assurances, then make an
appointment with him personally so that he can inspect the damage and
propose a remedy. It's generally best to let him make the first offer
-- he may feel guiltier than you imagine he ought to and you can end up
getting more than you thought possible.

If this is the dealer from whom you bought the bike, you might start out
by talking to the salesperson who sold it to you. He has a legitimate
interest in the reputation of the service department that could add some
weight to your case.

A few years back, I traded a bike at a San Diego County dealer,
acquiring a 1989 Virago. The dealer was not a Yamaha authorized dealer
but shortly after that acquired a dealership that was. The salesperson
moved over to the acquired shop and so I started taking my bikes there
for service. Over the following six months, this bike died on me a
number of times, necessitating emergency calls. After about the third
time, I took it in for service, telling them to do whatever was
necessary to fix the problem because I couldn't accept this level of
unreliability.

They ended up going over the electrical system inch by inch and finally
traced the problem and corrected it. The surprise for me was that they
felt responsible for the defect and did all of this work at no charge to
me. They got a loyal customer and some damned good word-of-mouth out of
the deal, but it never occurred to me that they really had to do this.

I infer that the business you're dealing with is Mission Motorcycles. I
bought the bike I still have from them in 1999 and though I moved south
in 2001 and my experience may be out of date, they seemed at the time to
take very good care of their reputation. I would expect them to do
right by you.

Rich, Urban Biker