I had new tyres put on Dakar at a well known dealer. Whilst the front wheel was off, they also recommend fitting new front brake pads, as mine had about 1K left, which I agreed to. Job done, the owner took my bike for a quick spin to check & came back declaring everything is 100% & warning me about slickness of new tyres & not to grab a fistful on the front brake & glaze the disc.
On my way home & literally 10km after leaving the dealer I had an unforseen situation where I needed to execute emergency brake, but the front brakes did not respond at all... nada, niks, f*kol!!!
A huge swerve & rear brake could not save my ass - it was pure dumb luck that there was no traffic where I bailed to, sh*t this could've been nasty...
Getting off the bike & quite shaken, have a look at the pics to see what I found... the bottom caliper bolt on the Bremo was gone and the top one so loose that I could turn it by hand
- as soon as I got home, I took pics & phoned the workshop. (see attached; this is the position the brake unit was in when I had my near-miss!)
The workshop owner promised to come out to my house first thing the next morning, which he did, with the tech who worked on my bike. The tech could not explain how he failed to tighten the bolts, apart from mumbling that he "checked it twice." The workshop owner did nothing to boost my confidence by naming two other well-known dealers in Cape Town & claiming that they "have done worse things" to his bike :eek7: before hastily adding that "of course this does not excuse what happened here" (obviously saw my dismay).
So the tech fits a new bottom caliper bolt, tightens both and the w/s owner rocks the bike to check the brake works and says "Please don't let this scare you off from servicing your bike with us, from now on we'll triple-check your bike" and off they go.
Confidence shaken, it takes two weeks before I take the bike for a spin... Front brake feels spongy and unresponsive at times. Off to Le Cap who disassembles the front brakes, shows me how & where the disc has damaged the brake pads when the caliper bolt fell out, files down the sharp edges gouged on the brake pads & re-assembles. Gladly paid Le Cap's R270 labour fee for a job well done.
So now another 2 weeks have gone by (fitted the tyres a month ago today) and my mind is still not at ease... how often does something like this happen?? Is my case an outlier, or do workshops screw up more often than we know ??? In a car, at least there's airbags & safety belt... on a bike, ATGATT & tar
I guess the only way to quantify the risk is to ask who else have had close calls after a bike service?
On my way home & literally 10km after leaving the dealer I had an unforseen situation where I needed to execute emergency brake, but the front brakes did not respond at all... nada, niks, f*kol!!!
A huge swerve & rear brake could not save my ass - it was pure dumb luck that there was no traffic where I bailed to, sh*t this could've been nasty...
Getting off the bike & quite shaken, have a look at the pics to see what I found... the bottom caliper bolt on the Bremo was gone and the top one so loose that I could turn it by hand
- as soon as I got home, I took pics & phoned the workshop. (see attached; this is the position the brake unit was in when I had my near-miss!)The workshop owner promised to come out to my house first thing the next morning, which he did, with the tech who worked on my bike. The tech could not explain how he failed to tighten the bolts, apart from mumbling that he "checked it twice." The workshop owner did nothing to boost my confidence by naming two other well-known dealers in Cape Town & claiming that they "have done worse things" to his bike :eek7: before hastily adding that "of course this does not excuse what happened here" (obviously saw my dismay).
So the tech fits a new bottom caliper bolt, tightens both and the w/s owner rocks the bike to check the brake works and says "Please don't let this scare you off from servicing your bike with us, from now on we'll triple-check your bike" and off they go.
Confidence shaken, it takes two weeks before I take the bike for a spin... Front brake feels spongy and unresponsive at times. Off to Le Cap who disassembles the front brakes, shows me how & where the disc has damaged the brake pads when the caliper bolt fell out, files down the sharp edges gouged on the brake pads & re-assembles. Gladly paid Le Cap's R270 labour fee for a job well done.
So now another 2 weeks have gone by (fitted the tyres a month ago today) and my mind is still not at ease... how often does something like this happen?? Is my case an outlier, or do workshops screw up more often than we know ??? In a car, at least there's airbags & safety belt... on a bike, ATGATT & tar
I guess the only way to quantify the risk is to ask who else have had close calls after a bike service?
