Yamaha YZ85 HELP, suggestions, comments? Sorry..LONG

[Theresa]

Hi. I am new to this board and only found it after searching the net endlessly for help with my son's bike. We got him for his 13th birthday a 2004 Yamaha YZ85. He had a Yamaha bike previously but it was an older used bike. We bought this brand new the beginning of September. Since he was started in school at that time and also involved in football he only had time for riding on the weekends and maybe a few minutes or so in the evenings. He has less than 50 hours on this bike. He has never raced it...although that is what he want's to do next summer. We have acres of trails out back that he and his friends ride on. The weekend before Thanksgiving when he was out riding it it came to a complete halt. It clunked and that was it. He couldn't even push it home because it was locked up. We waited a couple weeks while he worked off the price of a repair bill for his dad. We finally took it in last week to a shop. We didn't take it to the dealer where we got it because they have a horrible reputation in their service department. We have been told by several reliable dirtbike riders to not take it there ever to have it worked on. We have friends who have had excellent comments on their Suzuki dealers service and they work on Yamahas so that is where we took it. Got a call the other day and they said it's bad, it's very, very bad. We went to look at it today and I have pictures of the parts. The repair technician said in all his years of working on bikes he has never seen anything like this. It basically exploded inside. I have pictures of bits and pieces of gears, cracked cases, bent parts. (He also used to work as a tech for the dealer where we bought the bike and left for reasons he didn't want to get into). Anyway, since they are not a Yamaha dealer they couldn't offer us much help in contacting the manufacturer, but said they will repair the bike if we want to. Only thing is there are two pages of parts that need to be replaced and a bill for parts alone is $1,200.00!! Add in labor and it's almost half of what we paid for the bike!!! He said there is nothing my son could have done even intentionally to cause this kind of damage. He suggested we go to the dealer where we bought it and see what they would be willing to do, so that is where we went next. What THEY did was basically blow us off, saying it could be caused by any number of things, including his foot slipping of the foot peg when shifting! When told how much time he has had on this bike and how long he has had it they said they can tell by the amount of paint wore off, where it's wore off and the nobbies on the tires....I guess so incase we are lying about the amount of time he's been on it. Basically what they said is there is nothing they can or will do and we are just out of luck. We are sick over this. The thought of spending this much money to have something fixed that we feel never should have even happened at this point really has us upset. We bought this particular bike because we were led to believe it could withstand a lot of wear and tear because it's a race bike. Does anyone have any suggestions or comments on what we should do? ARE we out of luck?

[FFRacing11x]

Would it be possible to post the pictures and/or parts list. Was it the transmission? Or the crank? Was there any maintenance done to the bike? Just trying to get an idea of what happened.

[char393]

I've never bought a new bike...but there's no sort of manufacturer's warranty?

I almost forgot. Welcome to the site Theresa. This is a great group of people here....very helpful and very knowledgeable.

[cowboyona426]

Pictures would be a big help... man I hate to hear something like that Get some pics if you can and the parts list and we'll see if we can drum up some advice.

[motocrsser83]

Wow, I'm sorry to hear that! I think Yamaha only offers a 90 day warranty, if you race the bike it gets voided. IN your case this would not apply. My brother scratche the cilinder wall racing and took it to his dealer and they took it apart and looked at it, they told him he would need the new cilinder. So the deler rang up yamaha, and they shipped him the parts and paided the labor. You might want to look in to this, hopefully if your warranty is not up Yamaha will cover it.

[Woody_393]

Ahh man, that sucks! It's too bad that dealer is being complete dorks. I would maybe try and take it to another Yamaha dealer and see what they say.

Keep us updated and yes, get us a list of the parts.

[HiG4s]

Try another dealer, or contact Yamaha directly.. They might at least help you out on the cost.. Also get a written statement from the mechnic theat first looked at the bike before going to Yamaha. The biggest problem is these are cutting edge racing machines and have only a 30 day warranty, If it is past that time they don't have to do anything. Still that being said contact Yamaha, they may stand behind the product.

There are also plenty of good mechanics and shops out there that are not dealers that have lower prices on both parts and labor. FFracing, the first person who responded, is from MI and knows his stuff, he might know of a good private mechanic with better rates in your area.

[FFRacing11x]

Yeh...ME

[HiG4s]

Originally posted by FFRacing11x
Yeh...ME

I didn't want to speak out of turn of turn, and wasn't sure if she is from anywhere near Flint..

[Dell30rb]

Call Yamaha Directly and ask them.

Lets see the pics!

Usually when a bike seizes like that, the worst that can happen is you will need a new piston/cylinder/crank.

And that will only total about $400.

He had 50 hrs on the bike? With the stock topend? You can run about 6 months MAXIMUM on an 80 piston. When the piston gets old, it will rattle in the bore and either seize or shatter and then seize. Sounds like the latter was the cause. If the piston shatters in the bore, then little peices of piston can punch a hole in your cases, and mabye, get into the gears. This is very rare, but it does happen.

[FFRacing11x]

Let's see when she responds...I am sure between all of us we can get her going in the right direction and help her with some options.

[Yardpro393]

i would do as these guys have said contact american yamah directly. send the photo's of the bike, the purchase reciept, and a letter from the mechanic that looked looked at it. they will probably help you out.

or ffr could easialy handle the repairs

[FFRacing11x]

Until we hear some more facts, we are only speculating on the problem. I would think a defective part would have surfaced sooner, if in fact the 50hrs run time was accurate. It very well could have been caused by lack of maintenance. That much time on an 80 is alot without it. Was the oil ever changed? Was the topend ever done? What were the tech's qualifications that diagnosed the problem? I found that alot of dealer bad raps are caused by the customer not getting the answer they wanted, whether it was the truth or not. The 65s and 80s are often the most neglected and abused bikes out there. Let's wait till we here back from her before we speculate too much.

[Yardpro393]

yes, you are right tryce about the 50 hrs being alot. i missed that part.
at 50 hrs the bike should have at least one ring swap. and be close to the second.

also was the air filter cleaned religiously? it should be cleaned after a few hours of riding. most of do it after every day of riding.
the transmission oil is the same. it should be changed after two or thee tanks of gas.
next Q would be what ratio were you running the fuel at? and have you rejetted for the cold weather.

80's are highly tuned machines, and require more maintenance than any other two stroke.

[Yardpro393]

one other thing, i agree with there being bad dealers. the few we have here are treeible. i would never take any dirt bike to the dealers here. when i bought my bike the tech that was oiling her up didn't know about the crf filling process ( measure, don't go by the fill hole). he was also trying to tell me how much they had changed since 01 and pointing out all the "new" stuff, telling me this was like this in 01, then it was like this in 02 now it's like this.....well since the crf didn't come out until 02, i was very skeptical.

[CRacer]

Yeah, I had a bad experience with a dealer as well. You'll get through it.
Although 50hrs. is a pretty long time on a set of stock piston/rings I don't think it should've seized as long as clean air filter, good gas/oil mixture, and frequently changing the oil. Usually with 2 stroke/liquid cooled race bikes, the smaller the bore the more often you need to replace piston/rings.
When you started the bike did it considerably smoke and was it hard to start?
What gas/oil mixture were you running?
A little more info on things like this as well as a parts list should help out alot more.
Good luck

[ddfh_4_life]

Not to say that long of a interval on a topend is fine, because its not, but I think I had well over 60 hours ony my '02cr80. I did only do trails and feild riding. But I tore it down and did the topend, and with the new one in, it was like it was the day I got it. I Always changed my tranny oil and cleaned the filter though. One other thing though, I ran it 50:1. Dont worry, I am not neglegent with my 125 now. Anyways, give American Yamaha call and see what they say. Then, if they blow you off, tell em hondas better anyways. Then look through some parts places like yamaha of troy. Try to buy the parts before taking the bike to a mechanic. It should save you some money, and youll get the bike back together. Also the mechanic will like ya better, I know a few guys who like having the customer bring the parts...

[Theresa]

Wow, thanks for all the responses everyone! A lot of your questions I can't answere and will have to have my son do that as I am "only" the mom! I can and will post the pics and give the link soon. I don't think there is a way to post them here, so I will have to put them on my website and that can be a slow prcess from my computer, but I WILL get it done. I have a parts lists that is two pages long that I can scan and add with the pics also. Thanks again everyone!! Oh, and by the way, we are in SW lower MI in the Benton Harbor, St Joe area.

[FFRacing11x]

We will be waiting

[audacity]

sure there is a way...click on that "browse"

SEE!