05 RX-1...Broken W-Arm, Cracked Rails, Damaged Track

[sledrider_ny]

My 05 RX-1 is currently at the dealers with the above problems. The W-Arm broke at the welds for the transfer rod mount causing the drive nubs on the track to be ground up pretty good and upon further inspection at the dealers we found the rails to be cracked as well. The sled has 3500 miles on it and I have never pounded it. After reading several posts about it on here I'm seeing it is a well known and common problem with the first mono suspension.

The sled is under warranty until Nov. 09. After taking it there we did a once over on it and found the driver nubs on the track were damaged from this breaking. Then their head mechanic scraped off the ice on the rail and found both rails are cracked under the mounting bolts.

So now the question is, will they cover all of this including the track? My dealer says they will cover the W-arm but hasn't talked to them on the rails or the track yet. I won't know the final outcome until Monday but IMO, they should be covering it all since a failed part created the damage to the track and the rail cracks are also a well known problem, enough so that their mechanic knew exactly where to look without me even knowing they had cracks. The track on the outside is in excellent condition and it's obvious it hasn't been beat. There aren't even and torn lugs and very little wear.

I'm looking for some feedback here as to anyone who has dealt with these problems and the warranty deal. What did they cover? Did you have to fight them to cover it? Stuff like that.

I also find it hard to believe that a company that had had grease fittings on their suspensions since the 70's would omit these in 05. Not that it would of helped the breaking points but holy crap, if your going to skimp, do it where it won't cause lasting damage.

 

[Snowaddict]

deja vu

I just had the w arm break on my '05 in the same spots. I took it to a local dealer (different from where I bought it, though) and they told me warranty was out. Also, said new cost would be $320. I thought the cost was way out of line and found another TY member with an '06 mono part with only 800 miles on it for 1/2 the price. I got the part and took it in to the dealer today. Told them to install and check everything else. I have my fingers crossed that is the only problem. Hope yours all works out.

 

[Len Todd]

Apparently, you have YES warranty coverage. Well, I would bet you are about to get your YES money back, plus.

This summer they warranted my W-Arm on my '04 Rx-1. Also, in the past, if a component breaks that is on warranty and it causes other components to be damaged, they will replace the other components also under the warranty. Just be reasonable with the Service Manager (i.e. "You get more flies with honey, ... ."

If you get any resistance to the track replacement under warranty, which I doubt, be persistent. If that still fails, the dealer gets a huge markup on parts. Maybe they would be willing to give you any remaining parts at their cost. But, ... this is worst case. I'll bet you are covered by YES, if there are no signs of abuse.

 

[maxdlx]

If they seem to not want to do all of it under warranty, get a hold of Yamaha customer service in Cypress Cal. Be very persistant that the damage was all done by a warranty covered item failing. I am guessing you are in the states by your user name, but you need to fill out your profile as site rules require it. Be a big help in cases like this. Maxdlx

 

[jlarrabee]

I wish the best of luck with your situation. I went through this this fall with my 05 RX1. When doing my preseason work found that my W arm was broken and in looking it over further found my rails where cracked also. Took it to the local dealership(not where I bought, just a lot shorter trip to make)they took pics and submitted it to Yamaha. Three days later got a call back from the dealership saying Yamaha has had no reports of similar conditions and that it would not be covered by them. No I do not have YES and my sled had 5k miles but poor design = poor design which = failure. So the dealer gave me the customer service # and I called talked to a "snowmobile technician rep". That was the worst customer service I have ever had. The guy told me sorry your sled is past warrenty by like 34 months and the dealership that looked at my suspension was so kind to report to Yamaha that the sled had been ridden "to hard". So the cust. serv. rep went on to say we have had no issues of this kind reported and I can't help you because your sled is not under warrenty and according to the dealership report it appears to be abuse. Give me a fri**in break!! I don't abuse my sled but I do ride it. I mean I thought I bought a " high performance trail sled". So I politely challanged the rep and asked to speak to his manager and that I was not satisfied with the explanations and lack of data (because he could not tell me/would not look into the history on this type of reported failure) so he then told me that there was no one else for me to speak with because Yamaha gave him the authority to make these decisions and that his was final. So after ten minutes of challenging him I go absolutely nowhere. I was so dissappointed with the outcome of this that I refused to even try again with Yamaha. Fortunately I work in an extremely capable machine shop and was able to get my W arm and rails fabbed up there and I made sure to give the W arm some extra support and I put it all back together and now I'm good to go. Still love my RX1 just was really dissappointed with the service from Yamaha and don't tell me "we're" not aware of this issue. It's all over this website and dealerships all over have dealt with this, so to you sledrider_ny I say best of luck that this all goes well for you, sounds like your dealership will be able to help you out.

 

[RXKID]

You need to Call Yamaha customer service and tell them that the damage is from the failed part. I had the same thing happen to me in 07' they covered all parts, New w arm, track, rails. I only paid part of the labor to repair the dealer covered the rest. It's better than paying the full shot. You need to call Customer service until they agree to warranty this. I did a search on this site down loaded all the cases of broken W arms and took that to the dealer and sent it to customer service. Don't take no for answer.

 

[sledrider_ny]

Thanks For The Replies

So far I haven't heard from my dealer. This was suppose to be taken care of Monday and so far, no call. Hopefully that's a good sign as I would hope they would call me if Yamaha wasn't going to cover this to approve any work. I can do this crap myself if I have to buy the parts.

Yes, it is the Y.E.S. warranty. I'm going to stop over there tomorrow and see what the dealio is. It's been three weeks since it broke but the rails and the track weren't discovered until two weeks ago when I brought the rest of the sled over.

I'm missing my sled! I've been riding the old faithful V-Max 700 with 14,000 miles on it and my gear is starting to smell like two stroke again!

Oh Yeah. Sorry about not having my profile filled out. I've been a member on TY since 03 but this was my first post on the 4 stroke section. I figured all my info would of followed me over here.
http://www.totallyamaha.net/forums/member.php?u=451

 

[sledrider_ny]

Update

Well Yamaha says they will cover the parts but not the labor. Track and all. I'm not at all happy with this decision so I put in a personal call to Yamaha. They tell me my dealer told me the W-arm broke from a hard impact. So off to my dealer I went with a bit of fire in my eyes. My dealer says they didn't say that and that's what Yamaha said. Someones full of poopy here! Yamaha is suppose to call them in the AM for another opinion I guess or who knows what. They also said all you guys that had the w-arm break on this site are full of crap. It never happened because it's just internet hype.

I told them it's a well known problem with the 05's?-They say its not.

I asked then why were the W-Arms redesigned with gussets reinforcing the spots that break?-They say we are always upgrading our parts.

I ask them if there wasn't a problem and it was just an upgrade then why were those gussets put there where the problem occurs?-They had no answer for that one.

They also said that because my sled had 3600 miles on it the suspension is considered a wear item. I said to them, so you're telling me you build these suspensions to last less than 4000 miles?-They had no answer for that one either.

I asked them why it was in 2005 they omitted putting grease fittings on their suspensions but in 2006 they returned to using them?-Once again, no straight answer, it's just that always upgrading components thing again.

So I asked them why up until 2005 when you came out with the mono shock all the sleds had grease fittings, then they tried to save a few bucks and omitted them but returned them the following year because of the problems they had with the 05's?-They say there were no problems with the 05's and all the people you talk to are liars.

I asked them why my two friends that I ride with that have 05 RX-1's that had the same exact problem and they warranted them but they won't pay the labor on mine?-They said it must of been different circumstances.

Then I said I thought there were no problems with the 05's breaking?-I got a moment of silence!

Those were just the highlites of a very lengthy conversation with some fast talking young girl. More to come tomorrow!

 

[Len Todd]

When they replaced my W-Arm this year, they wanted pictures of the bumper landing plates. Their claim was we were running the front spring too loose and the W-Arm was slammimg. But, you do not even have that adjustment (i.e. no front spring).

Well we sent them pics of the landings, which were perfect, and that was the end of that discussion. I guess their strategy of resistance failed, in my case. But, I was out of warranty, the gave me the part and I did do my own labor. Maybe they will just give you parts, and you can do the work?

 

[sledrider_ny]

I was going to go that route but they already had my sled apart buy the time I talked to Yamaha. Hopefully there will be some mind changing. My dealer said he was glad I called them because sometimes that's what it takes to get them to cover stuff. He said they give them a straight up answer and that's what they have to go with. I still say someones full of poopy. I'm getting conflicting reports. I said to my dealer why would you guys even say something like that, I spend a ton of money here, I groom the trail to your business and being on the Board of Directors of the local club, we support you guys in many ways. Their answer was they wouldn't say that because there's no way of telling how the sled was ridden. Yamaha came up with that conclusion.

There are two scenarios going through my head. 1st off, someones lying obviously but either my dealer is scamming me to make more off labor or Yamaha is not standing behind their warranty and is cheaping out.

 

[jtman04401]

I found mine broken just like yours this fall on my pre season check. I have NEVER ridden this sled hard. Yes I have had a few high speed smacks when your doing 80 and a bump sneaks up, however never abused this sled. ANd as a matter of fact most of the 2,800 miles on the sled were put on by my g/f and not me. And she bearly does 60 or so and only weighs 140 lbs. My local dealer didnt even want to look at the sled without me paying money so I pretty much tore it down and removed the W arm and reinforced it myslef at the shop. I welded it back together then added gusset plates on it. It SHOULDNT break again. It only cost me me the cost of all the new freeking lame junk bushings and shafts as they were all shot. I didnt put grease fittings on though, but I will next fall b4 the season comes around.

 

[ualav8]

i've called yamaha in california trying to get some help with my 06 attak overheating. seems that starting in 08 (i think) yamaha made a rear heat exchanger standard equipment cause the 06 and 07 models overheat all the time. its like talking to a wall. i got the same b.s. about 'we are always improving our product line' when i asked why they included the heat exchanger on the new models. all i asked them for is the part- i would install it. i have 3 of their sleds and their boat and i would think they would try to please a loyal customer, but i guessed wrong. yamaha may make a good product, but if you have a problem you are on your own.

 

[jsjk-4-stroke]

my w arm broke same as yours , mine is a 2005 rx1 with 3500 miles , i called yamaha also they said they never heard of this problem. must be the dealers not letting them know. waiting on new parts now.

 

[BIG BLACK WARRIOR]

All the problems you mentioned here happened to me back in 2005, the first year when the sled was only 3 months old. All the 2005 mono shock suspensions had the same problems once you got some miles on them.

 

[sledrider_ny]

In The End

I went rounds with Yamaha for two days. It got to the point that the little sweet heart (in other words-The lying b!tch) that answered the phone and took care of my warranty claim quit accepting my calls. What she didn't know is I have 7 different phone numbers. I was lied two more times than if I was talking to a car dealer! And just as was mentioned above, I told them I have bought nothing but Yamahas since 1997, 6 to be exact, and they didn't give a crap at all. Customer loyalty is not their strong point. Neither is standing behind a warranty as far as that goes.

They would never accept responsibility for the W-arm breaking. They would never admit there's a problem with them even though the new one has not just one new gusset on each side of the W-arm but two new gussets. If there were no problems why would they reinforce that area not once but twice.

The end deal I got out of them was I could take the parts for free, not as a warranty but as a good faith deal, and pay the labor.....OR.....I could pay the full cost, parts and labor, they would send the bad parts to Yamaha for inspection, and if the decided it was due to faulty craftsmanship they would reimburse me in full. If they decided it was from abuse, I eat the entire cost.

With the line of BS stacked a mile high that I had received from them over the phone I ended up paying the labor ($400) and took the parts for free. I know darn well I'd of eaten the entire cost otherwise. Once they got my money I highly doubt I'd of ever seen it again. I got a track, slide rails, slides, and the W-arm.

At least I got enough parts out of them to cover the cost of the YES warranty so it wasn't all bad. I will get $400 out of them by word of mouth on just how bad the YES warranty is. You have got to love the wording on it. "If you ever have a problem with your Yamaha snowmobile while under the YES warranty it won't cost you one dime". Yeah right.

I would not encourage anyone to waste their money on this warranty. Yes, I did get my parts for free but the hassle to get them was over the top.

And last but not least, my dealer sucks as well. 200 miles after I got the sled back one of the rear idlers decided it was time to exit. Upon further inspection, the other one was ready to depart as well. You would think the incompetent fools at Capraras Outdoor Toy Store in Pulaski, NY would have mentioned that the wheels needed replacing while they had it apart. I'd of gladly payed for new wheels so I didn't lose a day of riding after they had the sled for 3 weeks. DF'ers