Hey everyone. I have a question. About 8 months back, I purchased an 05 Deluxe from a dealer here in San Antonio. It had 1032 miles on it. When I took it in for it's 5000 mile service, I received a call stating that while servicing my bike, my clutch cable broke. They chalked it up to the previous owner not performing routine maintenance. Question is this: Should I have to pay for the replacement cable if it broke while they were doing work? And is there any special routine maintenence between 1000 and 500 miles? Thanks for your input.

 

There is a 1,000 mile service and a 5,000 mile service.

If they try to charge you for the new cable and installation, I would certainly follow up with a complaint to the service manager and keep going up the food chain with your complaint.

I don't think you should have to pay for it if they broke it.

If nothing was done to the cable (service wise) for the first 5,000 miles, it's unlikely that it would break.
In nine years it probably should have been adjusted and lubed, but they broke it, not you.

 

for an 05 to have that few miles on it, the cable could have gotten rusty and finally just broke. kinda doubt the service dept had anything to do with it, bad luck bad timing, and since you will be the recieptiant of the new cable, you will have to pay, unless you refuse and want to put it in yourself, in which case you ill need to tow it out. sorry to hear that for ya. sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug

 

An 8 year old bike with 1,000 miles should have been checked out by the dealership prior to selling it. Seems they would have, or should have, checked to make sure cables that had been barely used would be lubed well prior to selling. Had it been, there is no way it should have broken at 5k miles. I'd be having a talk with the service manager, and if that doesn't work, the general manager for the dealership.

 

I dont think you should have to pay for it. But you prolly wont win this with them. I would ask them how it broke if it was working good when you took it in. I use to always wonder why guys are always complaining about the dealer service dept. Until I took my bike in to be dyno tuned. They claimed a ton of stuff was wrong. I told them since they are 2.5 hours away just fix it. But I wanted the old parts. Well 2 months later they call and say the bike is ready. I go get it and ask about the old parts which it was on the work order to save them. Ooops must of been throwed away. Which can happen but once I got the bike home I actually caught them in several lies. Chalked it up to a lesson learned I have always done my own wrenching and this just reinforced that. Good luck.

 

It's possible they did you a favor. Better that it broke somewhere it could be easily replaced, than on the road on a weekend when you're two states away from home. Before you complain...Look carefully at the overall condition of the old one when you go there.

That's why they say it isn't good for something like that to just sit for a long time.

 

So you purchased a used bike from them, take it in for service and they want to "charge" you replacing a cable that their serivce folks snapped.

Do you have paperwork still when you purchased the bike. Nost have some of documentation saying it was inspected and serviced prioe to being put on the floor for sale.

Did it come with any warranty?

As suggested, look at the cable and see if it was defective and something they should have caught when they did their service inspection prior to selling a used bike.

In all my years I have only lost one clutch cable, on my 65, but at least I could still reach down and use the mousetrap in order to get to where I needed and repair it.

Keep us posted please. I would think that if the dealer really cared about you and wanting your service, they would make good on replacing the cabe for free.

 

Went back just now and rick2800 you're probably right. They are chalking it up to the age of the bike and the possible timeframe between a 1000 mile service (if done at all by the previous owner) and the 5000 mile service today. "There's no telling how long the clutch cable was locked up" is pretty much the response I'm getting. They did take the time to show me what they check regarding used bikes,which I appreciated, but they did say that they don't normally check the portion that snapped. I didn't get to speak with the service manager today but I will tomorrow when my bike is ready for pickup. RHPAW, I will agree, it's definitely better they found it now than my finding it on the road. At least I thought ahead and got the extended warranty. Not as much of a hit that way.

 

Simple enough to look at it and see what happened. If it was ratty enough that it would have failed on the road consider it luck that it broke there. If it looks like they kinked it accidentally and came up with a story then its their fault.

 

First, was it stock?

Second, ask them if they have a take-off they can put on for you. Many dealers have spares from people changing out bars or putting on braided cables.

Get more ants with honey than vinegar.