Not happy with the assembly of my new Viper

[Blue Dave]

None of the missing fasteners that I have found so far on my sled were critical from a safety perspective. However it makes me wonder if there are "critical" fasteners that are missing somewhere on the sled that I have not found.

I plan on doing a detailed inspection of the sled before I ride it. I want to be able to have the confidence in this sled that I had with my eleven previous Yamaha sleds. I guess time will tell if that happens after I get to put some miles on it.

 

[cannondale27]

While i agree with you that yamaha and cat both need to know about these types of issues.
There should be an easier way then hauling a sled back to the dealer.
For a guy like me, i live in massachusetts and ride in maine. I bought where i ride because the dealers are more knowledgable with sleds, but that means a 160 mile ride each way. Its just not feasable to drop it off for the little things. It cost me a full tank of gas and 5 hours of travel.
And yes i could have it serviced locally but i wont because i want it done correctly and that will not happen locally. Been there done that.

Maybe contact a dealer rep?
I would hope there is some sort of log tracking system in place for simple quality complaints

Just take a picture and talk to your dealer. Ask them to warranty it. You will know if it's done and approved if you ask them and then you will receive a service survey. They will ask you to bring sled in to verify next time in area. Any defective parts need to go to dealer. The replacement parts will need to be ordered and replaced. For minor things I can't see a issue. Other course would be to contact customer service. Number is in the manual. Even if they do nothing it will be logged and that is what is important in these minor cases. Dealer rep is not at all involved in this.

 

[cannondale27]

None of the missing fasteners that I have found so far on my sled were critical from a safety perspective. However it makes me wonder if there are "critical" fasteners that are missing somewhere on the sled that I have not found.

I plan on doing a detailed inspection of the sled before I ride it. I want to be able to have the confidence in this sled that I had with my eleven previous Yamaha sleds. I guess time will tell if that happens after I get to put some miles on it.

Sadly you should wonder. Check out my post about loose bolts. "made in USA and Japan assembled by TY" It did make a season with nothing falling off but some loose bolts are critical safety wise and can cause damage if they loosen. Loctite and proper torque is critical. Some fasteners are just plain subpar. Will be replacing if possible. That said I did find many loose bolts on Phazer. There were recalls on Nytros and phazers for same thing. Whether that happens for us or not. Think safety and be proactive.

 

[ken reece]

The missing fastener count keeps climbing. Last night I went to install my Yamaha skid plate and the instructions said to remove and re-use two T27 bolts from the underside of the sled. Guess what? Yep, my sled did not have these bolts. So today I made my fourth trip to the dealer to obtain fasteners that were forgotten on my new sled.

While I was there I checked all seven of his Vipers on the showroom floor. Five had these bolts and two did not. Who would have ever thought that Yamaha would put their name on something that is put together this poorly! I am certainly not impressed so far with this Arctic Crap assembled Yamaha.

As I stated earlier I have owned eleven new Yamaha sleds over the years and not one of them ever had a missing fastener. So far I have found six missing fasteners. I have attached a picture of the fasteners that were missing. As I said earlier this is completely unacceptable on a $12K sled.

It turns out that the two bolts are not T27's but rather T20's so the skid plate instructions has a typo.

mine was missing the T27 a
bolts also

 

[ken reece]

The missing fastener count keeps climbing. Last night I went to install my Yamaha skid plate and the instructions said to remove and re-use two T27 bolts from the underside of the sled. Guess what? Yep, my sled did not have these bolts. So today I made my fourth trip to the dealer to obtain fasteners that were forgotten on my new sled.

While I was there I checked all seven of his Vipers on the showroom floor. Five had these bolts and two did not. Who would have ever thought that Yamaha would put their name on something that is put together this poorly! I am certainly not impressed so far with this Arctic Crap assembled Yamaha.

As I stated earlier I have owned eleven new Yamaha sleds over the years and not one of them ever had a missing fastener. So far I have found six missing fasteners. I have attached a picture of the fasteners that were missing. As I said earlier this is completely unacceptable on a $12K sled.

It turns out that the two bolts are not T27's but rather T20's so the skid plate instructions has a typo.

Mine was missing the same 2 screws when I installed the skid plate.

 

[yamahaguy]

Ken, You're probably not missing those 2 torx bolts . AC changed production some time this summer and left those out. They don't do anything so I can see why they eliminated them.

 

[cannondale27]

Am going to have to find a solution to the serrated screws digging into the plastic. Is a good idea to prevent them from loosening but those of us who take hood off often will need to do something to prevent them from cutting into plastic too far. Thinking a sheetmetal backer.

 

[Blue Dave]

Ken, You're probably not missing those 2 torx bolts . AC changed production some time this summer and left those out. They don't do anything so I can see why they eliminated them.

As I said earlier, if they decided to leave these two screws out intentionally then they should have changed the skid plate installation instructions that tell you to re-use these screws and they should be including these screws with the other fasteners that come with the skid plate.

 

[cannondale27]

Yes they should.

 

[yamahaguy]

Cannondale, A cheap but very fast fix is to add some hot glue to the area where the screw head is smashing the colored plastic. This way every time to tighten the screw the hot glue takes the abuse, not the plastic. You would have to add some more glue from time to time to build it back up as it wears down.. I know, we should not have to hot glue a $12k+ sled. lol

 

[yamahaguy]

As I said earlier, if they decided to leave these two screws out intentionally then they should have changed the skid plate installation instructions that tell you to re-use these screws and they should be including these screws with the other fasteners that come with the skid plate.

We can blame AC for not updating the installations instructions since that's mostly there part. haha. We installed one AC skid plate and one Yamaha skid plate due to the colors we wanted. Both have the same identical instructions, I agree they should have updated them. But on the other hand that one skid plate fits numerous AC and Yamaha models so its kinda general install one size fits all and they point you in the right direction for install and the rest is up to you.

 

[Blue Dave]

We can blame AC for not updating the installations instructions since that's mostly there part. haha. We installed one AC skid plate and one Yamaha skid plate due to the colors we wanted. Both have the same identical instructions, I agree they should have updated them. But on the other hand that one skid plate fits numerous AC and Yamaha models so its kinda general install one size fits all and they point you in the right direction for install and the rest is up to you.

I believe you were joking about it being AC's fault because it doesn't matter who wrote the instructions or made the parts list. When Yamaha puts their name on it and sells it in their dealerships then they are responsible.

I agree with you that the skid plate installation instructions are very basic and only point you in the right direction. Obviously an assumption is being made that the skid plate will be installed by someone with mechanical aptitude and some experience with installation of accessories which involve things like drilling out rivets and having to enlarge holes to make things line up.

Overall I felt that the fit of the skid plate was very good. Much better than the one I had on my Apex which required almost all of the mounting holes to be enlarged. On my Viper skid plate I only had to enlarge one skid plate mounting hole on the LH side running board, specifically the one on the outside. All of the other skid plate mounting holes lined up perfectly and the skid plate fit the contours of the underside of the sled perfectly.

I took some pictures during the install that I will post in a new thread to assist others who will be installing a skid plate. Most of us here on this site are very capable of figuring out the details of a basic job like this but some guys might appreciate a helping hand and pictures are always helpful!

 

[stingray719]

Am going to have to find a solution to the serrated screws digging into the plastic. Is a good idea to prevent them from loosening but those of us who take hood off often will need to do something to prevent them from cutting into plastic too far. Thinking a sheetmetal backer.View attachment 103109

Or the EVO kit that requires no tools to remove

 

[FAMILYMAN]

I replace my seat screw with an aftermarket machined aluminum one (no names) but it Stripped the threads second time I took it out. Now second season without a screw at all. It doesn't move. I can just release the clip and off with the seat.


2014 viper, mpi
2009 Phazer 144"

 

[Blue Dave]

I replace my seat screw with an aftermarket machined aluminum one (no names) but it Stripped the threads second time I took it out. Now second season without a screw at all. It doesn't move. I can just release the clip and off with the seat.


2014 viper, mpi
2009 Phazer 144"

I hope that it wasn't the Racewerx seat fastener because I just installed one myself! As far as running with no fastener in the seat latch you should be fine. I was told by my dealer that the Arctic Cat version of the Viper does not have a fastener on the seat latch. Yamaha however wanted one on the Viper.