05-04-2019, 06:22 PM
Well I had the fork oil changed today and ended up spending essentially the whole day at the dealership, except for the 1.5 hour I took for lunch and a bit of shopping with the wife.
The service adviser had quoted 2 hours which, with the oil and parts and supplies, should have cost $287. After 3 hours he admitted that he had misquoted the job and that it should have been 2 hours labour per side but he was still going to charge me for 2 hours. I guess they must have slowed down after that, or it was giving them trouble, or since they were not making money off the job it got put in the slow lane, but I did not get it back until 4 PM and I had booked it in at 9 AM. I will be checking the time and price with my original BMW dealership where I know and have full confidence in the master technician, and am 100% sure that he would not have taken that long.
The adviser did say that they have a $500 tool to do the job and since our forks have a "cartridge" exchanging the oil requires some pumping of each fork to evacuate and to fill. I just checked my Haynes manual and this does not seems to be entirely correct, but there is some pumping required to get the oil to settle properly. Also, by reading the process in the Haynes manual the job indeed seems to be longer than 2 hours but not as long as 4 hours, but it is quite involved. A special tool is indeed required to be bought or made, so overall I am glad I had them do this job.
Anyway I ended up paying about $330 for the job. Do I feel a difference? Too early to say but I believe that there is less compression and rebound when stopping at a traffic light. I just hope that I don't see any oil weeping again. When I got home I did see a tiny bit of oil smear on the RHS fork so I wiped it off and will keep an eye on it.
The service adviser had quoted 2 hours which, with the oil and parts and supplies, should have cost $287. After 3 hours he admitted that he had misquoted the job and that it should have been 2 hours labour per side but he was still going to charge me for 2 hours. I guess they must have slowed down after that, or it was giving them trouble, or since they were not making money off the job it got put in the slow lane, but I did not get it back until 4 PM and I had booked it in at 9 AM. I will be checking the time and price with my original BMW dealership where I know and have full confidence in the master technician, and am 100% sure that he would not have taken that long.
The adviser did say that they have a $500 tool to do the job and since our forks have a "cartridge" exchanging the oil requires some pumping of each fork to evacuate and to fill. I just checked my Haynes manual and this does not seems to be entirely correct, but there is some pumping required to get the oil to settle properly. Also, by reading the process in the Haynes manual the job indeed seems to be longer than 2 hours but not as long as 4 hours, but it is quite involved. A special tool is indeed required to be bought or made, so overall I am glad I had them do this job.
Anyway I ended up paying about $330 for the job. Do I feel a difference? Too early to say but I believe that there is less compression and rebound when stopping at a traffic light. I just hope that I don't see any oil weeping again. When I got home I did see a tiny bit of oil smear on the RHS fork so I wiped it off and will keep an eye on it.
Regards,
Grumpy Goat
2016 BMW R1200RS
2023 Triumph Tiger 900 Rally Pro
Grumpy Goat
2016 BMW R1200RS
2023 Triumph Tiger 900 Rally Pro