What’s the rationale for not releasing a manual? To force you to take into a dealer for service? It’s not like they have to make a separate manual. It has to exist for the dealer anyway right?
The $200/hr service charge most european motorcycle dealers charge. There are two things I can't do myself. Particularly, bleeding the ABS (which requires the dealer tool) and re-shimming the engine (which also requires a dealer tool).
My local stealership wants exactly $200/hr for every service. An oil change for my motorcycle is $300, a brake job is $650. Mind you parts for these jobs are in the mid-to-low XX's. It's ALL service fees. Reshimming the engine (once every 15k miles or so) costs a minimum of $1200 going up to $2000 if the engine needs significant adjustment. I've shimmed sportbikes for years and 6-8 hours worth of work is insane. I can do it in a few hours excluding the time to go get beer.
It's borderline theft. "Stealership" is not tongue in cheek. I am seriously considering trading in my motorcycle for cash (even at a loss) and re-buying an old R100GS.
I think it may depend on brands and models. When I take my specific Honda in for the scheduled maintenance, the dealer seems to apply a standard, Honda-dictated price, which is the same at all the dealerships I've visited. This usually includes the labor and replacement for the parts which the manual says need replacing on a schedule, except for fluids. If I need tires, brake pads, that's separate.
I know this is a fixed price because last time I took it in, it was a "bigger" service, where they had to check valve clearances. But apparently something went wrong when they tried to take apart something (I forget the details) so they had to work much longer than expected on it. In the end, I didn't have to pay more than I had expected, taking it in.
Now, all this isn't to say it's cheap. I was horrified with the prices: it often costs more than my Mercedes' service at a Mercedes dealership.
That depends on the number of cylinders, valves per cylinder, and so on. Your parallel twin is probably easier to service (accessability of valve covers, valve mechanism). Some designs require the removal of the gas tank and even camshafts (eg Suzuki V-Strom).
(Old) Ducatis are also a pain with the desmodromic valves (i.e. springless valves). Some of their valves have 0,0 clearance and the mechanic needs to hone down shims to an exact fit. Also the reshimming needs to be redone on older Ducs after only a few thousand kilometers/miles, or annually.
In contrast, BMWs older air/oilcooled boxer engines are a joy to service, easiest accessability (cylinder heads stick out sideways), only 3 tools needed for adjusting valve clearances (two types of Torx/allen keys and a feeler gauge set), 20mins of work or less depending on your routine.
MY 90 minute number includes pulling the fuel tank, valve cover, camshafts and other body panels from my Suzuki. It's pretty quick if you're familiar with the procedure. I can have that bike torn down with all body panels and subframe off in about 10 minutes if I'm in a hurry.
Ugh, pulling and especially re-inserting the camshaft shouldnt be done in a hurry. At least from my experience with the V-Strom's V-engine. Needs to be cooled down and insertion of the camshaft needs proper care (no dinging of the bearing shells) and one must make sure to not skip a tooth at the geartrain/chain.
I mean, I take my time with the cams, but it's not rocket science. There's timing marks to help line everything up and I snap a pic with my phone before taking them out.
Yep, you can bleed it physically but the system will refuse to re-activate the ABS until you trigger something in the ROM. Absolutely insane. You can't get even order the tool directly from Triumph to do it because you need to be some kind of verified auto mechanic for them.
Even the oil change was a pain. I had to quite literally crush the dealer oil filter and break it off in pieces with a pipe wrench because it was shaped in such a way you needed a special tool to get a grip on it. I called the dealer, the tool was $180 and would take 3 weeks to ship. It only worked with Triumph brand oil filters (probably white labeled semi-custom K&N's) and they wanted $60 for a filter (vs. $14 for a K&N at the local bike parts store).
Even my best universal clamps + duct tape + sandpaper couldn't hold a grip on the stupid filter. Several trips to the local auto parts store trading wrenches back and forth until I said fuck it and went to Home Depot. Lucky for me a K&N oil filter fit exactly (dummies still used a standard thread for the oil filter port)...otherwise that would've been somewhat hard to explain. Even the crush washer for the drain plug was 10x as expensive... ended up taking the old one to Ace and finding a replacement for 10 cents. The only thing that was about equal in price was the recommended oil which I was able to score on sale at Walmart but otherwise would've been a wash.
As you can tell I can not stop complaining about this stupid thing. Do yourself a favor and avoid Euro motorcycles.
Honda is pretty decent. Suzuki doesn't sell service data but the info you need is readily available from Clymer. Royal Enfield is fantastic for service data.
Most Japanese bikes are very user friendly. Even the newer ones aren't terrible to work on. If you want the easiest mix of technology and ease of repair shoot for a Japanese motorcycles before 2014-ish.
Not condoning the prices your stealership charges, but consider:
Have you spent thousands of dollars out of your own pocket for the tools you use at your job? Do you have to maintain a commercial brick and mortar location? How much are your services worth?
> have you spent thousands of dollars out of your own pocket for the tools
Yes, but it is not my job. I would estimate my tool's at around $5000 or so. Collected over a little under 2 decades of riding.
> Do you have to maintain a commercial brick and mortar
No. But a Japanese bike shop has the same tools and brains as the stealership and charges half as much.
It's well known dealers upcharge for everything. If you don't believe me, find the best 3rd party shop in town and simply compare hourly rates. You may even ask them to itemize a modestly challenging job (CV boots for a car, maybe) that would need a skyjack. I would bet dollars to donuts the dealer price is 1.5x-2x more.
"Special" motorcycles (e.g. euro motorcycles in America) are NOTORIOUS for absurd dealer upcharges. It wasn't until ECUs started becoming smart that this was a problem. I could service a 90s-0x's BMW, for example, for pennies on the dollar to BMW's specification in my own garage. This is why Right To Repair is so important. Car dealers are the tip of the spear in the fight against it because they lose quite literally millions because of people like me. It's one of the reasons I will never own an EV as long as I live. They are (especially Tesla's) money printers on 4 wheels for the dealer.
My Triumph, for example, has no fundamental reason I need to plug in and tell the ECU I bled my ABS. No reason AT ALL. They do this because if you do the work yourself they can still charge you an hour (~200 dollars) to plug their tool in, re-enable your ABS, and give you a finger wag about doing work yourself. This is the John Deere-ization of consumer vehicles. This isn't unique to Triumph. Many consumer brand cars have the same problems. They even build in anti-tampers (such as the oil filter I had to literally break into pieces to remove). Modern vehicles are hostile to the consumer. The auto lobbies would tell you this is because the "advanced technology" but in reality it's used exactly like John Deere does. That is, to screw the consumer out of every single penny for even the most modest of trivialities.
Less than 3. Job's simple when you don't charge by a book. I am not even particularly adept at it. Just familiar. Someone with thousands of bikes under their belt could probably reshim an engine in an hour.
A legitimate reason is to move the service data online so it can be continuously updated and accessible from a web browser instead of the chunky Windows app they were using before straight out of 1995.
But other manufacturers who do this make the data available to consumers via AllData or similar services. BMW does not, presumably to make more money on service.
For modern vehicles, the dealers really don't use manuals anymore. They connect their proprietary diagnostic computer, it runs all the tests and figures out what is wrong, and tells the mechanic what to replace or adjust.
You can sometimes find bootlegs of these computers (generally a "tough" Windows laptop with software and connecting cables). They usually don't have the latest and greatest version of the software, but if your car is older/out of warranty it's generally covered. I don't know if they get them from a recycle stream or dealer mechanics sell their old ones or how it works.
The computer diagnostics don’t tell the technician how to do the replacement. The service manual has all of the procedures, parts lists, and special tools necessary for the job.
This doesn't make any sense. Many regular issues are not diagnosable by computer. I have legacy access to some current BMW service data and it does not behave the way you describe at all- I only have to whip out the scanner for certain electrical and computer issues, and to update service schedules.
Everything on a modern car runs through the computer. Climate control, entertainment systems, windows, lights, seats, various driver aids such as cruise control, lane-departure, blind spot warnings, hands-free driving, automatic/antilock braking, traction control, etc. as well as the engine and transmisison. Sure, something like a failing wheel bearing would still be diagnosed by the mechanic, but they need the scanners for most of the problems on a modern car.
You're right, but just to have fun with the example you gave- some wheel bearings now incorporate a wheel speed sensor. So even those might, in fact, be first diagnosed by the computer, depending on the failure mode.
