08-09 busa and b-king owners - Suzuki service bulletin

[ByfordBlade]

No luck needed - I had a problem with what I thought was a warped front disc on my Fireblade and asked the dealer to check it during a service. When I picked the bike up I was told it was nothing unusual so asked them to note down on the service receipt that I had enquired and they had checked. A few months out of warranty I rode a mates blade and it became obvious that there actually was a problem, albiet only irritating and not unsafe. Went back to the dealer and mentioned it, got quoted a few hundred bucks for a replacement as they now felt there was a problem but not claimable under warranty as it had expired. Got them to give me a written quote and note why it needed replacing. Faxed that quote and the note on the service receipt to Honda Australia with a covering letter stating I felt just a little bit pissed off and the next day I got a call asking me to drop the bike into another dealer the following week to have it replaced at no cost.

Major lessons learnt - get everything in writing if you feel there's a problem but the dealer doesn't and never buy another Honda. If there was something that I felt was unsafe and they said it was ok then I'd go to every dealer until one either fixed it or convinced me I was worrying over nothing. Warranty covers you regardless of which dealer you ask to fix it - some dealers just can't be arsed fixing things as there's no profit margin in it for them.

Noisy clutch on the 'busa isn't going to kill me but now I'm covered if it ever happens anyway. In this case I have a thread on www.australian-hayabusa-club.com started prior to the service supporting why I asked for it to be looked at in the first place too.