Warning: Hondas fall apart (poor customer service)

[Cabby]

I think 3 failures in 2 1/2 years isn't good enough.

[Dee Duble Yuh]

You're stating the bl€€din' obvious that it's the owner's problem! My question was, who's at fault? If an item needs to be replaced more than once a year it should appear on the service schedule.

[LazyRider]

Who's fault? - I would have thought that would have been bl€€ding obvious!

The owner has used the bike so it is their fault. Much like tyres and brake pads, fork seals, etc wearing out. Not everything has to be someone Else's fault?

Once an owner buys a bike it is their responsibility. Honda do offer a 2 year, unlimited mileage warranty. After that the owner is on his own.

If the owner thinks they have a legitimate claim, get it repaired and take Honda to the small claim court.

If riders can't look after a bike themselves, they must be prepared to pay for someone to do it for them on a preventative maintenance basis.

[Dee Duble Yuh]

It's this kind of attitude that contributes to motorbiking being left in the dark ages compared with the motor car industry.

I agree that if an item has a high MTBF then it doesn't make sense for it to be on the maintenance schedule. Even though the MTBF for a car cam belt is well over 60,000 miles, it's listed in the service schedule. Anything higher is usually considered a "replace when it fails" item. However the MTBF for this exhaust component seems to be about 10,000 miles (I accept small sample = low estimate reliability). When it failed first time I thought I must have been unlucky; I'd expect a high MTBF and mine must have been well down the bell curve. When it failed again I wondered if there was a high deviation about the mean and mine was just a stochastic example of statistical clustering. However from what owners have published on the web it seems that the MTBF is indeed quite low. That would indicate that checking/adjusting/replacing should be part of the regular service schedule. It isn't.

Your examples of tyres and fork seals proves my point: checking them is on the service schedule.

There's no valid reason for this kind of gasket to fail regularly. There are three identical gaskets and the other two seldom fail. (My car has done 60,000 miles and no exhaust gaskets have failed.)

You haven't explained why the clamp should be tightened. If it's tight on assembly then it should remain so because ordinarily the gasket won't deteriorate. It seems to me that there's a design fault. I believe that the joint is under undue strain. The collector pipes are unsupported and perhaps their weight is causing the gasket to wear away and eventually disintegrate.

I value constructive input. Telling me I'm at fault because I rode a bike says more about you than about the situation. The point of this thread remains: if you own a Varadero expect the exhaust to fall apart; Honda consider this acceptable.

[Cabby]

Welll......It can't be unreasonable to expect an exhaust joint to last more than 10 months on average...can it ?

Semi dual purpose bike and all that....

[VTwin]

It must be the type of road salt your council gritters use thats causing the premature failure, I'd blame them.

[LazyRider]

Obviously some people are not yet ready to own a Varadero

[j]

I agree with Dave the exhaust gaskets are very poor quality. I have worked in the automotive industry all my life. and these exhasut fittings need to be better designed, This is because the compressed carbon seals will degrade with time as they are so soft and when you tighten the clamps you induce cracks.What was and is wrong with metal too metal as most exhausts are.

[LazyRider]

I agree with Dave the exhaust gaskets are very poor quality. I have worked in the automotive industry all my life.

So, where in the scheme of things do you think you stack up against Honda designers and technicians?

Gaskets and their fitting cost money. If Honda could do away with them they would.

Other Varadero owners have had this problem - not me, 1999 bike 55,000 miles no exhaust gasket problem - they have, using their own imagination and ingenuity, overcome the problem with a minimum of fuss. They have not tried to import the 'nanny state' - everything that goes wrong has to be someone else's fault - into their motorcycling.

[Sharribee]

So, where in the scheme of things do you think you stack up against Honda designers and technicians?

Gaskets and their fitting cost money. If Honda could do away with them they would.

Other Varadero owners have had this problem - not me, 1999 bike 55,000 miles no exhaust gasket problem - they have, using their own imagination and ingenuity, overcome the problem with a minimum of fuss. They have not tried to import the 'nanny state' - everything that goes wrong has to be someone else's fault - into their motorcycling.

Obviously with a great deal of expereince in the motor industry and that time spent repairing stuff such as, and he repaired DDY's bike on this occasion J. is able to offer an educated opinion on the problem. Yes of course Honda has design engineers etc etc who are paid vast sums of money for thier creativity but they are not infalible.

I don't think for one minute DDY is trying to "import the nanny state" he is raising a recurrent problem that he, and other owners have had with the Varadero.