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Re: Mirrors & gauges (warning long msg!)



Many thanks to Ross for the explanation.  I can see that this is a tricky one to find a good long-term fix for.

BiKE mag (June 1999) had an interesting article which listed all the recalls so far this year (UK).  Recalls are for 'safefy affected' failures. Others are handled normally through changeout at next regular service, often without telling the client/owner.

Honda had recalled the CBR 600 for a 0.02% failure rate of the camchain due to a fault in assembly.  They obviously felt that the bikes immaculate reputation for reliability would be damaged if they did not do this, and that the recall would pay for itself over the longer term through restored sales levels for this model.  BMW seem to have the same attitude to recalls.

The good news is that Triumph was THE only major manufacturer not to have a safety recall on any model in the first half of 1999.  I reallly hope it stays that way and that this helps sales. In fact, in the same issue it mentioned that Triumph had 48% improvement in sales, mainly due to the Sprint ST (~480 units in UK) since '98 - the biggest rise of any m'fr.

Certainly focus on fixing problems such as the fuel guage, which are both prominent and frequent is very important.  But other low incidence failures such as the valve train wear / clearances and radiator leaks could point to a serious problem in manufacturing (tolerances, alignments etc.) which might lead to serious problems for many owners over the long-term or even safety recalls.

I work for an agency that procures and flys satellites for weather imaging.  If we ignored the tiny changes in behaviour that we observe during testing and flight the satellites would probably fail before we had time to figure out how to solve an upcoming problem, and each costs about $70M :(

I can see why it is often better (in PR terms) to handle non-safety issues through the regular dealer/service network, and not even inform the customer perhaps - the fuel guage is a good example, even if it gets irritating after a wait of 4-6 months.

However, as BMW and Honda suggest, the customer has a right to expect that a bike sold as a Sports Tourer will be very reliable, and last a long time. The VFR and air-cooled twin Beemer motors are known to last 100,000 miles without a rebuild.  Even if just 2% of bikes (and I think it is more like 5-8%) of bikes exhibit valve clearance erosion down to zero gap by 10,000km / 6,000 miles then it is unlikely these engines will last more than 25,000 miles.  We, the owner, or the poor sucker we sell the bike onto will of course have to shell out for the new engine or head rebuild. 

To add insult to injury Triumph then tell us that this cannot be considered a warranty claim 'since their tests show no evidence of this'.  As Ross stated below the tests would take months (i.e. 10,000km of wear on many machines) to reproduce the problem. I can only assume that Triumph dont consider this problem serious enough to have done the tests. I know, because this is how we lifetime test every component on a satellite.  It is painful and costly but it works!

Perhaps I have got this all wrong, but that is how it looks to me?

cheers
Jonathan

- ------------------------------------------
Jonathan Schulster
MSG Ops Prep, Eumetsat
+49 6151 807648

>>> Ross Clifford <ross.clifford@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 13/08/99 18:02:01 >>>
Dear All,

As mentioned in my previous fax I will forward further details on the
subframe when I have them, I also want to clarify the situation on the fuel
gauge and where we are with it at present.

<snip>
So where are we now?, we are currently testing a new fuel sender. As soon as
the sender has passed we will then forward it onto production. Since the
first production we are on our 3rd issue of the senders but as yet until the
final test have been completed we will not issue the change until we are
fully confident.

This all sounds simple but the whole process take months as follows;

1.  As a concern is flagged up a quality investigation starts (As some of
these faults have not been displayed on our mileage bikes, they appear on
customer machines as the miles pile on and can take months to show).
2.  Once the fault has been tested and traced design engineers are involved
to develop a fix.
3.  Suppliers then manufacture a modified part for testing (This can take
3-6 months).
4.  The new part then needs to be tested and signed off by Triumph
(Timeframe obviously depends on the test needed).
5.  Approved part ordered for production and spares.
<snip>
So at the moment we are at the testing stage, even if all goes well we will
still be looking at some months for replacements!, we are working flat out
on a fix since we first noticed the issue, but unfortunately some of the
timeframe is out of our hands. As I said earlier it is our No.1 priority and
as soon as we have a fix I ill let you know.

Many thanks
Ross



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