Motorcycle Maintenance Log, Part I

About a week after buying my Goldwing I noticed a huge gap between the instrument panel and the fairing it mounts to. I took it back to the dealership to have the panel seated correctly, and to have the windshield adjusted (it wouldn’t stay in the raised position).

When I picked up the bike I immediately noticed that a trim panel inside the fairing vent was missing, so I asked them to put it back on. When I got it back the next time the trim panel was there but didn’t look right. And the windshield still wouldn’t stay up.

Because of some other sloppy work they’d done (losing all the rubber grommets from my side panels, replacing the heated grips three times before they got it right, disconnecting the cruise control, etc), I decided to fix the windshield and trim panel myself. Three years later I finally got around to it, thanks to a friend and fellow Goldwinger who’s been teaching me how to do my own maintenance.

When we pulled the fairing off we discovered some disturbing things. The dealer’s mechanics had incorrectly installed the windshield clamping bar, lost the rubber grommets that go in the bolt holes where the fairing attaches, lost the rubber grip pads on the windshield clamping bar and replaced them with glued-on strips of inner tube, and broken off one of the male prongs that hold the fairing on. And that trim panel that didn’t look right? They’d replaced it with a dirty old piece of scrap plastic, crudely cut with scissors to resemble the stock part.

Of course, all this was meant to be the dealership’s little secret – clearly, they assumed I’d never discover their imbecile butchery. The dealership?  Well, since you ask, it was Tucson Motorsports. Needless to say, I immediately checked the axle nuts and every other critical part on the bike. They will never touch my motorcycle again.

But I’m not slamming one particular dealership . . . well, yes I am, but I’m gun-shy on all dealers now, and so should you be. I don’t know about other locales, but in Tucson, Arizona, starting motorcycle mechanics make less than $7.00 an hour, actually closer to $6.00. And these are the kids who work on your bikes. You tell me: what incentive do they have to do a decent job?

If you have any mechanical capabilities whatsover, I strongly recommend doing as much of your own maintenance as possible. That’s what I’ll be doing from now on.

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