Yeah, right...
Snuff:
I read the post on the first service and went back to new posts and saw yours so I'll drop it here (like a pigeon relieving himself while flying above your head).
Honestly, other that changing my own oil and probably like (Wilbur) changing my own tires, I'm a little intimidated by by internal service. I have a shop manual and a big roll around box full of tools (when I keep it neat I can actually find the right tool), but I'm still intimidated by the electronic wizardry of the R3.
My problem is with the demise of my dealer last year (NorthCoast), the closest dealer is a little more than 60 miles away, try 120 miles. I do have a Saviour though. One of the guys I used to work with owns a bike shop. This guy, his name is Adam was always a gear head and he quit my ex-employer and opened the shop (ThunderCycle). He sells no new bikes, just works on them. Anyway...
I was visiting with him 2 days ago. Adam is good to visit with. For one thing he smokes Marlboro Red's (same as me so I can always bum a few) and he's always up on local politics and, he's the Regional Rep for ABATE in Michigan so I get to hear about all the local crap against bikers in general. Adam related to me that he's always busy. It seems as though most of the local dealers (Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki) don't like to work on older bikes. Adam told me that if a bike is older than 8 years, the dealers basically refuse to do any work and refer the customer to him. I guess because we live in a 'throw away society' you ride 'em a few years and get a new one.
We got talking about the Rock and my T100 and the dealer dilemma I have and Adam said he'd take care of my services especially when I related to him about the cost of the 10K service on the Rock. He told me (and this is interesting and I believe he knows what he's talking about) that when you use synthetic lubricants like 4T and Amsoil that have a high Moly content, valve train wear is minimal, especially the rubbing wear between the shim and the the cam lobe. To that end, what he does is gage the valve train wear without opening up the top end, but rather doing a cylinder compression check. He told me that the normal difference is 10-15 percent between cylinders but that he tightens that up to 5-7 percent. If the cylinders aren't more than 5-7 percent difference between them, there is no need to open the engine up and with synthetic oils, he finds that at 10K, there is really no wear. He told me that if I wanted a feeler gage check on the valve train, he'd do it but he'd do a compression check first. With my dealer problem, I'm going to have him do the 10K check unless someone here tells me different, I'm going to go with what Adam says to be true.
Besides, I have no issues with the EFI, no idle problems, nothing. I don't want the revised tune injected in my ECM and I especially don't want or desire to pay almost a thousand bucks for a service at 10K and not really know whether the Triumph technician at the dealer actually opened up the valve cover and gaged the wear or did a compression check like Adam said he'd do and then charge me for everything whether they did it or not.
We all know that for 'liability reasons' (there is that old catch all again), you can't physically be in the shop area to actually see what's being done. I can sit in Adam's shop and smoke his Marlboro's while he fiddles with my bike as he has no 'liability issues'.
To that end, I ordered him a shop manual too. Might as well make his adventures with the Rock as painless as possible.