'16 Turbo recall - Interesting tidbits

[alexm2816]

Well. Not so impressed yet. First the factory, now the dealers.

With the lack of snow and pending recall, I didn't go riding last weekend and the sled was sitting at the lake. Drove up especially to get it Friday night (9 hours RT and about 500 miles) to take it to one dealer where I had called ahead for an appt for the service near MKE. For some reason, this dealer and another I had spoken to talked to each other, looked me up on Facebook, and decided I would be taking it to the 2nd dealer (despite my appt) and another viper was added to the schedule. So the first I heard of this was when I knocked on the service bay door to unload the sled. Much less than pleased but frankly, dealer #1 was a bit of a jag and his shop was a goddamn disaster.

Thankfully, shop #2 is confident they'll have the time in the next 2 weeks (off to Mexico) but I was still less than pleased.

 

[InRBigness]

This means that Yamaha was unable to identify which motors had the bad new rods. It was already established by Hurricane and others that NOT ALL new rods were bad. It also was partially established that if one rod was bad all in motor were and if one was good all were good. Maybe Yamaha just didn't want to chance it that some motors might have had one or two bad ones out of the three? If it were me I would have checked the number 3 rod which is easily seen after removing flywheel sidecover.

My understanding is that this is exactly the situation. I keep seeing people talking about Manufacture dates and that is not accurate. Motors are made in Japan and loaded into a shipping crate, sent to Thief River and installed. I was told that they are covering all their bases and replacing all of the turbo ones. I doubt that they would have a situation where you had one bad rod out of three but it could happen I guess.

 

[ordonje]

I think we need to give the dealers some slack...
This is a MAJOR undertaking for some of them. They are losing their shirts on labor costs for the recall. Yamaha says 14 hours, Ulmer, which is a crack shop, is saying 28.
My dealer who only has mine to do, has over 30 hours into it. It should be finished today, and I'll pick it up Thursday. One other dealer that mine knows has SEVEN to do...and he's not that big..

This is Yami's f-up ,start to finish. If they really could pinpoint the bad motors, I'm betting they would have just shipped short blocks.

 

[ToddMeister]

Had my sled recall done over the past few days. Yes Yamaha is giving the dealers the shaft on this repair. About 30 hours to do this job is about right. My dealer had total of 4 to do. Mine was the second one. My brother's sled would have been fifth, but his block ventilated on Friday the 13th, so he gets a new motor. Dealer is still waiting on the new motor. Brother is not happy at this point.

 

[ToddMeister]

Here's a pic of the "defective" rods out of my 16 Viper. The upper half of the rods are a darker shade. The new rods were uniform in color, more like the lower half.

 

[Poechman]

Here's a pic of the "defective" rods out of my 16 Viper. The upper half of the rods are a darker shade. The new rods were uniform in color, more like the lower half.

The new rods should also have a darker colour at the top of them, I believe it's from the heat treating process some of the "bad" rods had missed..

 

[InRBigness]

My old rods looked the same as my new rods when they came out with the exception of the fasteners for the bearing cap. They were very dark at the top. I tested mine with a file and they were definitely heat treated which explains why I was able to go 4000kms on them.

 

[cannondale27]

Here's a pic of the "defective" rods out of my 16 Viper. The upper half of the rods are a darker shade. The new rods were uniform in color, more like the lower half.

Hit them with a file.

 

[ToddMeister]

I will try that later today at the dealer when I pick the sled up.

Any particular area to focus on?

Hit them with a file.

 

[cannondale27]

On the beam.

 

[ToddMeister]

Okay, looks like all along the beam is soft. I used the file in several spots, all created a groove with minimal effort.

See attached pic, the grooves are very visible.

I did the same on a Nytro rod, and that rod was HARD, could not put a groove in it, the file just polished the surface.

And the new engine for my brother's sled may arrive tomorrow...you can see thru the block, both sides are open. The PTO side (left) rod let go. See second pic.

My sled has 1900 miles on it, brother's sled has a few over 2000.

 

[alexm2816]

Looks like you got lucky Todd. I don't think anyone got the turbo and decided to baby it lol.

The engineer in me would love to see the recalled and nytro rods put on a press and see what the difference in failure stresses and failure dynamics are.

 

[ToddMeister]

I think Hurricane already did this last year, and the 16.5 rods were significantly softer than the older rods.

Looks like you got lucky Todd. I don't think anyone got the turbo and decided to baby it lol.

The engineer in me would love to see the recalled and nytro rods put on a press and see what the difference in failure stresses and failure dynamics are.

 

[cannondale27]

Okay, looks like all along the beam is soft. I used the file in several spots, all created a groove with minimal effort.

See attached pic, the grooves are very visible.

I did the same on a Nytro rod, and that rod was HARD, could not put a groove in it, the file just polished the surface.

And the new engine for my brother's sled may arrive tomorrow...you can see thru the block, both sides are open. The PTO side (left) rod let go. See second pic.

My sled has 1900 miles on it, brother's sled has a few over 2000.

Wow you did get lucky. Thanks for the pics.

 

[cannondale27]

I think Hurricane already did this last year, and the 16.5 rods were significantly softer than the older rods.

Yes but not all. File is the equalizer.