Yamaha not doing a thing for balancer problem

[olddufus]

When my Yamaha dealer 20 was winterizing my boat, he mentioned the problem Yamaha was having with a lot of balancer gear assemblies breaking down. I had him replace it and he told me that it had been coming apart for a period of time..
I called customer service at Yamaha and they asked me to send the invoice and would check into a full or partial reimbursement. I sent it and was called later and told that Yamaha would not honor a reimbursement as my warranty was 20 months past expiration.
I can understand that for a normal repair but when Yamaha has admitted problems with this in many motors with low hours and have even reimbursed for up to 3 years after warranty expiration according to a thread, I find it totally wrong and unethical to treat this as if it wasn't their fault and treat customers differently at different times.
I only want to put this out to hopefully get Yamaha to pay attention and help customers by doing the right thing.
thanks

[rodbolt17]

I will fault the dealership.
they should not have informed you of anything prior to them calling Yamaha.
not all balancers failed.
they typically give 20-50 hours of notice before catastrophic failure.

they don't wear.

they whine then hand grenade.

[olddufus]

Actually the dealer told me he could feel a vibration in the motor and could hear it.. But to me , it wasn't that noticeable..
Over all it is better than having to redo the whole thing..

[boscoe99]

The "right" thing to do can and often is the subject of great debate. What is "right" to one is not necessarily "right" to the other. It is really just a business decision on Yamaha's part.

I agree with Mr. Bolt that the dealer should not have stated what he did. The dealer mechanic really has no idea how big of a problem the balancer issue is. Now that particular dealer might have come across a rash of failed/failing balancers, but in the grand scheme of things only Yamaha Japan knows the real extent of the problem. And they are not talking.

If the dealer really wanted to be helpful he could have gotten on the phone and called Yamaha US himself to advocate for you. If he got some consideration for you then well and good. You and he would have been pleased. He apparently dumped the burden on you.

And then after Yamaha US looked into the situation they decided that no goodwill help would be forthcoming. How old is the motor? How many hours are on the motor? Do you have service records indicating that it has been well taken care of since it was first put into service? Are you the originally owner? Did you come across to them as a good customer for Yamaha or did you come across as someone who was disrespectfully begging for something that was not contractually owed to you?

Have the balancers had a higher than expected failure rate? I believe that Yamaha will agree that they have. The design has been changed to hopefully make them last the normal expected life of the motor. But of all of the F150's that have been sold is it really a statistically high failure rate? Don't know. Many many F150's are running just fine without ever failing a single balancer.

In the grand scheme of boating the cost of the balancer is almost inconsequential. It retails for $368 from boats.net and should not take more than an hour to install. On a 5 year old motor (20 months out of warranty) or a 8 year old motor (three years out of a YES contract) that, to me, does not seem like a big burden to bear.

Stop being a dufus. The old part can't be changed.

[olddufus]

I agree with you 100%. Even the dufus and old part.
My only impression that made me fire up was
1) There was a problem and Yamaha failed to do anything and
2) I was under the impression that bearings or whatever start to go bad way early in the engines life..

I am the second owner for the 2008 with low hours and transferred the YES warranty to my name.

I appreciate you guys setting me straight. .

[boscoe99]

I agree with you 100%. Even the dufus and old part.
My only impression that made me fire up was
1) There was a problem and Yamaha failed to do anything Yamaha has spent time and money to redesign the part and offers it at a reduced priceand
2) I was under the impression that bearings or whatever start to go bad way early in the engines life.. It was the gear teeth that are wearing prematurely. Some failed early and some have never failed.

I am the second owner for the 2008 with low hours and transferred the YES warranty to my name. This means the motor is maybe over seven years old. In my view (some/many will disagree), a motor needing a new balancer after all this time is not that out of the ordinary.

I appreciate you guys setting me straight. .

And one other thing that you did not know. Yamaha "policy priced" the replacement balancers. What do I mean by that term? Yamaha decided to lower the cost of the balancers so that anyone that needs one can get some benefit. Otherwise, the cost of a new balancer would be much much higher than it is today. Yamaha may very well be selling the balancer at a price that is below their cost.

Get out and enjoy that motor. And remember that it is on a BOAT. Break Out Another Thousand.

[RayBersch]

Fault the Dealer?

I agree that the dealer should have called Yamaha, perhaps not first, but certainly at the old guy's urging before he agreed to the repair. What I have learned is that when a mechanic remarks that so and so manufacturer has a problem with a particular part I now always ask to make a call or check the records to see if the repair is covered either under warranty or some special part replacement program.

I have also made it a practice to ask if there are any current warranty or repair programs applicable when I make the service appointment (cars, boats....) - that puts the dealer on notice but, depending upon the reply, could also give me a heads up to watch for something in the future.

The one bad part about being old is the stark realization that had I known then what I know now I could have saved a lot of money when I was so much younger.......oh, well. The other bad part is knowing that any money I save now is likely going to go toward medical expenses anyway so I might just as well spend it on my boats while I can.....

Ray

[Nautical]

All depends on how it went down..The mechanic may have heard the noise and vibration and suggested replacement and that the balancer was mostlikely the culprit because we have had numerous issues with them. Getting Yamaha to cover well it is a possibility as they have done so in the past on some engines out of warranty.. You can give them a call and hope you get the right guy . The mechanic may have been too busy to stay on the phone line and be on hold trying to advocate warrantying something that he knows is way out of warranty. Its a shot he presented to the owner.. For me its like brakes on my truck, when they start to squeal I replace them...same with this balancer. Both take about an hour...

[boscoe99]

Yamaha US has a pretty generous out of warranty policy. But, like anything, it has limits. 20 months was obviously beyond the limit.

Also, from what I gather the balancer had not actually failed. Might have been failing but the failure had not happened. Now would it fail in then five minutes of use or in the next 15 years. No way of knowing.

Now was the dealership trying to scare a customer into getting a part changed so as to make some money or was the dealer truly concerned for the customer? Not for me to say. Now if the dealer was truly concerned for the customer he could have sold the customer the balancer at the dealers cost and he could have charged him direct labor costs and not the fully burdened shop rate. Again, a business decision on someones part.

Nothing in life is simple is it?

Now where in the heck is that Zeno fellow with some down under comments for us up over folks.

[rodbolt17]

dunno.
but the balancer failure rate that I have seen, up to and including 3 on my F150.
units made prior to about mid 2010, it's about 100% failure.

I am pretty good at getting stuff like that covered,at least the part.

if I make little headway I give out the 800 #.

lets not even talk about V8 rotors.

the -03 balancer is iffy, try to get the -04.

[pstephens46]

Anyone like to debate removing balancer on a permanent basis? F150B style...

[olddufus]

My only comment at this point is my motor is a 2008 with normal hours or less with seasonal use. If there is a 100% failure rate for 2010 and earlier, then Yamaha does have some kind of obligation to make it right.. My cost on the part was a little less then $400 so maybe that is their way of doing that..

I know one thing for sure, If I didn't pay attention to the mechanic when he mentioned that something was wrong and didn't do anything right away and my motor blew and had a bill in the thousands and even this long after warranty, I think even you would have a different take on whether Yamaha had done the right thing.

[boscoe99]

Anyone like to debate removing balancer on a permanent basis? F150B style...

This has been beat to death. Many commercial users in the Louisiana area particularly have removed the damn thing. I would if I owned an F150.

[zenoahphobic]

What exactly fails?

[rodbolt17]

the nylon driven gear is the typical failure.

but the fail rate is about 100%.

that's why I drop a dime for my customers.

when they first started failing they were over 800 dollars.
now just under 400.

when the V8 rotors started failing they were just over 900 dollars.
now 269 or so, free if you own a V8.

google class action lawsuit F150 or V8.