'03 wr450f letter to yamaha

[willy_fitz]

I will be seeing my connection at Yamaha Canada tomorrow night at the club's Christmas Party and will get you the correct people to talk to. I don't feel comfortable releasing his name without first talking to him but I will try and get an answer for you and if he is ok with it I will post the number I have for the Toronto main office. Your dealer should already have this number.

Willy Fitz

[willy_fitz]

I had an opportunity to speak to my dealer's rep at our club's christmas party last night and asked him how other Canadian riders can get their problems corrected. Step one is have the dealer contact their Yamaha service rep. Have them inform the service rep that there is a service program iin place to upgrade the 03 with 04 parts. If the service rep has any problems or questions have the rep contact the Toronto area Service Rep. I was given permission to release my contact's name to other service reps in Canada only.

As I understand it the person I am in contact with had some problem with his superiors at first getting the program in place and in the end he does not have the authority to make the decision on whether your bike will be repaired under warranty. He is however willing to discuss with other Canadian service reps the process he went though to get the ugrades and to help out if he can. It appears that it is in the hands of the local service reps as to whether they do the upgrade as they are the ones who tell the dealers to do ahead and help the customer.

I'm sorry I could not give you a more definitve answer but this is the best I can do from my end.

Willy Fitz

[Drtbykr]

I sent a letter to Yamaha Canada ( I bought the bike anyway, I hope it is a positive experience, the motor sounds WICKED!)

Here is a quote from a portion of their return letter.

"Earlier this year we identified a problem that may occur with the woodruff key holding the generator rotor and issued a bulletin to the dealerships in March advising them of the procedures to correct the problem on the units in their inventory and requested they contact any customers with units and have them returned and the procedure done.

Our factory in Japan also changed the procedure on 2003 units that were imported subsequently. I hope this answers your questions and alleviates any concerns you have.

Scott Harrison, Supervisor, Consumer Relations"

This won't tow me out of the woods but at least I have some documentation if a failure of some sort occurs related to the starter gear.

She's a [@#$%&!] to start right now, I don't have the drill down pat. Once she goes though, like I said, the motor sounds SWEET.

[Bigd450]

Willy_fitz I appreciate you doing what you did. I will be talking to my dealer tomorrow and get them talking to their servcie rep and see how things go from there I guess. Is there only one servcie rep in toronto? Thanks for your help. ?

[willy_fitz]

The service rep is the one for the Greater Toronto area (GTA). If your rep has any problems getting hold of the right person (he shouldn't but you never know) have him send me an e-mail and I will get him in touch with my contact.

Willy Fitz

[Belgian WR250F]

I hvae followed this thread with great interest lately.

Allthough I don't have a WRF 450, I was interested by this problem.

A friend of mine has a WRF450 03 model and I warned him about these problems.

Anyway, last night I was reading Motoverte, the biggest French dirtbike magazine. They have a section for readers letters and since they have so much connections they always let manufacturers reply to get both sides of the story.

So there was this French guy who has had a 450 Wrf for three months now done about 1000 km.

He complains about the starter who has destroyed itself as well as the engine case. The dealer had told him to order the parts and just pay for the repair.

The Magazine contacted Yamaha France about this and their reply was basically this:

Your Yamaha is a racing bike in France so no warranty whatsoever.

Your bike is the only bike with this problem.

The parts were in backorder since they normally never break.

The interesting part is that this guy had met about then other people all over France with the same problem, and they all got the same reply from Yamaha France.

It's this BS attitude of Yamaha in Europe that made me buy a new KTM.

[PBWR450]

I've been following this issue closely since this is the first brand new bike I have ever bought. I have'nt had any starter problems but I did remove the idler gear a few weeks ago to be safe.

What rips me more than Yamaha denying a problem is that they state no warranty because it's a "racing motorcycle". I mean please, with a few grand in mods yes but straight off the floor this is NOT a racing bike IMHO.

I certainly hope the auto companies don't take up this same BS denial of warranty. "Sorry we cannot fix your brand new Durango under warranty because it's a racing SUV"

[endurodog]

The warranty is pretty standard stuff from all the motorcycle manufactures. They understand that they are going to have these bikes abused by a lot of people.

What is pretty sad is the lack of Yamaha even to admit the problem. The could at least be honest and say "yep there is a issue but it's out of warranty". Even that would be wrong but at least honest.

The red machine is starting to look pretty good.

[PBWR450]

The red machine is starting to look pretty good.

I hear you man. If time permits next week I will be going to look at the new TE450 Husky. If anyone knows someone interested in a WR450 with 140mi. on it send me a PM.

[Indy_WR450]

I would think the 04 WR450 is a better deal then taking a CRF450 and converting it for offroad trail riding, flywheel, lights, gearing, 19" to 18" wheel, etc, etc. I have had very good luck with my 03WR450 and if they fixed the starter gear/ woodruf key the 04 is going to be one hell of a bike! I am starting to think that we are going to have to dual sport our bikes to really get to off road trails in the future. it seems like more and more connections are needed on streets or fire roads to get from one legal area to another. At least that is the way things are going in KY. Luckily I can slap on a street plate and they dont bother me with the headlight and tail light. I have noticed that ORV enforcement is up everywhere. ?

[blueballs]

My WR is in the shop for the fifth repair. 1) Woodruff key broken. 1A) Called me to bring the bike in per the service bulletin. 2.) Woodruff key bent enough to prevent the motor from running. 3.) Shop tech must not have tightened the starter gear attached to the back of the fly wheel allowing some of the bolts to back out and chew up my coil/stator. 4.) This time I took the bike to a different dealer after it lockup and quit running. The new tech claimed that the last tech did not loctite the fly wheel resulting in a broken center case and pages of other parts. 5) While on my fourth ride since the last repair I stop the motor to rest, when I tried to E-start it would not turn over. When I tried to kick start it the starter was stuck engaged. It’s back in the shop again. Yamaha has paid for the repairs, but how many more times must I be towed out of the woods. I'll tell you now! NOT ONE MORE TIME!!! I want a reliable $7,000+ dollar motorcycle! Not the piece of s^&*&^ I'm stuck with now. It's almost a week and I still have no word form the dealer confirming what failed this time. I will push this up to the top of Yamaha USA management. My last resort will be a lawyer!