Hi Everyone, I'm about to head off on a 3 week trip round Europe on the Blade, I will be doing roughly 4.5K miles across about 11 countries. This means I have a week and a bit to get my bike serviced. The last service I had was done by PDQ in Burnham/Slough and cost a little over £800. This was 12k mile service and included new chain, sprocket, air filter etc... Now they were ok but quite pricey and I had to take it back again for them to take another look at the ABS as it didn't seem right after the first time. Since then I have changed the oil and other little bits by myself, but as I have just reached 18k I want a professional to service the bike and make sure its in top form before the trip. Can anyone firmly recommend a mechanic who will do a great job in the West London area and get my bike prep'd for the trip? Chiswick Honda is already off the list due to past experiences, so any tip offs on good mechanics would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for you time an I hope some of you will come back with recommendations on fireblade wizards that treat their clients bikes at if they were their own (Not asking to much am I?) Cheers!
IMO if you have only done 6K since the eye watering service (was getting a 911 serviced for half of that!), then all you need is the common sense items that will cover your 5K, ie oil and filter, brake pad check, chain check/adjust, tyres......what else would you need? All simple home maintenance jobs.
Well looking at the 16K service I should get the valve check done. Plus I have been getting some increasingly worse vibrations that other people on the forum has said could be down to the cam chain tensioner. I would do oil and pads etc normally but 1 I don't have much time left as I will be out of the country next week for work and 2 I would not want to encounter a problem and be stuck without the tools before the big trip. Thanks for the advice though and I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought the price was too high.
Arthur unfortunately doesn't have and time to do the work. I might give mototuner a shout to see if they can fit me in. Thanks for the recommendations. Mr OCD, they are little to far afield for me but thank you for the response.
Holy Cow mate, so apart from a general service and C&S what did they do to lift 800 notes out of your pocket?
They did some fault finding Well I have an acumen gear indicator that stopped working properly and they spent time trying to fix the problem (couldn't find the fault just said it was broken), its also an ABS model so they had to spend however long bleeding the system. That meant labour time/cost built up which made the bill so high. Any way you look at it, it's a lot of money.
Your right, it's painful, but the ABS bleed explains quite a bit, depending on their labour rate, it's fast be becoming the open cheque book of Blade ownership.
what tyres do you have on at the mo coz 4.5 k wear will be more that the legal limit on sports rear tyre. if the brake pads have not been changed, check to make sure there is enough meat on them. The air filter should have been changed @ 12k service. I don't think you need to do a 16k service before you but if you have specific problems , then obviously resolve it well in advance. whatever you do I would strongly suggest you ride for a good couple of hundred miles after any work has been done and before you set off. all the best
Larry and the team at PDQ are not the cheapest but rather them than Cheesdicks honda. I paid around that for CS and big service at the CheeseDicks on my 600 Hornet. As I said when we spoke (In Uxbridge Halfords) the ABS bleed requires a little OCD, prep the night before then the bleed itself then a few special moves to ensure it's done right. No one but me bleeds the ABS. I had the valve check done and all were in spec so nothing was done in excess of 40k and still running strong
Yes I remember well Slick, I have ended up bitting the bullet and just taking it back to PDQ, as you mention rather them then Chiswick Honda. I will take it in Saturday and pick it up Wednesday/Thursday. I tried contacting Arthur recommended above but he was busy and the other two were a little more out of the way and PDQ will give me a curtesy bike. If I had more time and space I would do more bits myself but as it stands I am working 10 hours a day and would rather spend the spare time I have at the moment planning the details of the trip. Next time I get it serviced I will try Arthur if he has time as I have a feeling he is the kind of mechanic I want. Failing that and depending on how PDQ do this time around I may make some time to do some more bits myself. Bonjo, just to let you know I put fresh michelin pilot road 4's on last weekend so should be ok on that front, thanks for your advice. : )
