Rapidly mounting costs of owning a PCX!

[London-PCX]

Quick update - now been told that Honda (who received photo's of cracked casing) have apparently offered to provide parts for free .... and SC has now quoted me £700 to fit part and complete the service as originally taken there for.

After picking myself up off the floor I enquired about the cost of JUST fitting the part and was told 7hrs @ £55 ph.

Now not only in mild pain from falling off chair at the thought of having just under 33% of the price of a brand new PCX (some dealers have 0 miles 2012 model in stores @ old price of £2200) lying around ... but also now busy updating my CV and looking for quickest way to get basic bike mechanic certification as £55 per hour certainly kicks the teeth out of pretty much most earning bands in any Blue Chip organisation I have ever contracted for aside from our infamous Banking Analysts and Global Heads of Department and members of Executive Committees.

Still no indication whatsoever from SC in terms of any responsibility, apology or (heaven forbid) even attempt to meet halfway ... just a solemn "hello Sir - well, we cracked your crank case trying to loosen up your centre stand, so could you now please turn around and curl yourself over that barrell in the corner - pot of grease optional, but chargeable".

Over to Honda UK and/or legal advice.

[London-PCX]

Logged a call with Honda UK yesterday afternoon and just got a call back from them.

As expected, they are saying that they have made their goodwill gesture by offering the parts for free and that they have spoken to dealership service centre, who will make sure that they "do my job as soon as possible".

Apparently (and this is from Honda ... who, by bouncing this at me on behalf of the dealership are CLEARLY going to take their side) ... the casing was corroded, hence it "giving way" like it did.

Naturally, the dealership profits on a £2200 bike is probably barely worth the cost of the telephone calls and paperwork in registration etc ... so is a bit pointless expecting "customer support" in terms of agreement that the dealership are skinning me on this.
Let's face it - 1 x mad customer providing profits of probably a hundred quid or so VS a dealership who potentially sell many hundreds of Honda bikes is a no brainer in terms of where your alliances will lie.

Now I am absolutely sure that it probably was corroded and am not going to elude otherwise.
BUT, as it spent the first 2 full years of its life in a brick garage whilst at home and has only been parked in my driveway for the past 5 months underneath a bike tent/igloo (garage is being converted into part of house extension).
Mon-Fri it is parked in a sub level (ie. one level down from street level) NCP car park which is right under my workplace.
I clean my bike using Muc-Off and warm water from a hose pipe at work, where the company I work for has a Chauffeurs hose/tap and drain grate right next to where we can park our motorcycles - now I probably don't clean it as often as I should or could, but that is a subject for a different debate.

As originally stated, it has been standing unused aside from weekly idles, for a month due to the puncture and the fact that I am on my Varadero whilst doing my DAS since the puncture.

Maybe there is a point surfacing that corroded crank cases that become dodgy after less than three years might become issues for the many UK PCX owners who park their bikes out on the street 365 days a year?

I dearly love my PCX - but I really did not think that "major overhauls" like this would be deemed possible within a few years - almost like PC's and laptops, where it becomes aceptable to have to just buy another one for £1000 every few years.

OK - hissy fit boots back off for a while - please help me get my head around this ... what would you do?

Try to do the job myself?
Get the bike and parts taken to a garage that will charge a fair price for the job?
Suck it up and pay up and remain (hopefully) one of the few PCX casualties as a bad luck scenario?
Negotiate a trade in price "as-is" with dealership against a new PCX - this way they can try to discount the price on the work to be done against their own resale value PLUS the profit of the new bike?

Cheers

[Alibally]

My opinion for what it's worth is that yes the stand was seized, but breaking the engine casing trying to free it is down to the garage. If its been regularly service by them and I can't recall anything in the owners manual about lubricating it between services then how's that your fault. If Honda is going to pay the contribution but paying for parts can the garage give you some goodwill on the labour as it was them that broke it in the first place. It's not as if they haven't had plenty of cash off you already as you're servicing looks to be a lot more expensive that everybody else's . Maybe is just London prices.

[Alibally]

Rear wheel off is a doddle, takes minutes.
Undo & remove the two exhaust header nuts, undo the silencer bolts, undo the wheelnut, undo the three A-bracket bolts.
Wiggle the wheel off.

And slacken off the little mudflap thingy behind the airbox

[you you]

Ali is right. No amount of corrosion should cause these problems

[gn2]

And slacken off the little mudflap thingy behind the airbox

Not necessary, the wheel can come out and go back on with it still bolted in place.
Which is just as well because the bolt holding mine on has seized solid.

[Alibally]

And slacken off the little mudflap thingy behind the airbox

Not necessary, the wheel can come out and go back on with it still bolted in place.
Which is just as well because the bolt holding mine on has seized solid.

Yes your correct but its much easier if you do. More so refitting it than removing.

[gn2]

I found it easy enough.
Certainly a lot easier than trying to get the bolt out...

[you you]

Thanks to all for advice etc - clearly been had for past few years.
Got just about every tool in existence in sheds, grew up with a father who had me helping him strip motor car engines right down to big end bearings etc ... but for some entirely unfathomable reason, with the PCX being my first motorcycle, I have begrudgingly taken the bike back to the same service center every 2500 miles, biting my lip when swiping the debit card and foolishly telling myself that I would "regret" figuring out how to do it myself and/or going "cheap" ... but for the love of all things living --- £55 - £65 makes a mockery out of what I have been forking out.
And to make things worse, hearing these figures makes me an even bigger sucker for just sticking with them!
Sheez - my tyre replacement invoices show 2 - 2.5hrs labour and was told they have to take entire back end fairings etc off to get to wheel etc.
This is becoming a bleeding Watchdog case!
Many thanks to all as once I get through this center stand thing my PCX world changes AND the title of this thread becomes mis-directed slander!
Perhaps I can ask a moderator to rename it to "Rapidly mounting costs of being screwed".
Cheers till Monday

It could be worse.

I've serviced my bike twice at the total cost of nowt

[brains_t]

PM'd you

Received and responded - thanks!

Did you get my voicemail, left Friday am?

[rebrab842]

This post inspired me to join, but ive been reading the posts on this site for over 2 years.My pcx 125 i bought new 2.5 years ago purely as a commuter tool,although i dont neglect it i've never took it in for a service at all. Its done 11200 miles mainly at full throttle ive done 3 oil changes myself at 600 miles,5000 miles,and 10000 miles, did the valves at 10000 miles and replaced the spark plug at 5000miles. I'm on my 3rd rear tyre the irc's only last about 4000 miles on the rear and 10000 on the front but will be changing to the city grip next time as they seem to be a little harder wearing.Total servicing costs and tyres add up to about £350 so far. Its over due an air filter and plug and 1 more rear before 3 years is up. Just to conclude its an awsome little bike.

[London-PCX]

Many lessons learned for me over the past week, but hopefully coming out of it a little less naive I guess.
Dealership has offered me an excellent trade-in offer on the PCX "as is" so with the extra I need to put in to get a brand new PCX vs the repair costs, it is worth the extra for me to take up their offer.
Overall agree with all sentiments that PCX is awesome scoot and obvious take home experience is to look to keep maintenance costs down a tad for a win-win.
Cheers.

[patgrimshaw]

Guess what... I have a pcx125 2.5 years old. 20, 000 miles on clock. Seized centre stand. Happened to change the rollers on variator and noticed some oil near the bolt for the stand. I couldn't be bothered to get underneath the scoot to sort the stand out so I took it to the garage and they said it's leaking oil from the crankcase through corrosion. When the undid the bolt it loosened and began to leak more quickly. I bought a new one figuring I must be unlucky and now will be having old one delivered free of charge back. Is this the part (crankcase cover)? http://www.partzilla.com/parts/search/H ... parts.html I ask because I want to try to do it myself and fix the old bike. I guess its ambitious but I have nothing to lose by trying...

[Larry David]

you must have BMW Park Lane doing your servicing !

£55 last time for me. Price around ffs

£47 here

[maddiedog]

Took the PCX to service centre for service this morning as well as rear tyre replacement and mentioned the jammed stand - a pressure wash, brush clean and attempted lubrication allowed fairly easy on/off stand, but when "off" it still had about 2 inches to be entirely "off/up" and that required extremely difficult pulling by hand ...
Anyway, long story short, service centre called eralier to say that in trying to loosen up the stand, the engine crank casing has split and now have oil leak.

This is a known flaw with the PCX, and is NOT your fault. I've read this whole thread, and your dealer that's been servicing your bike is a sleazeball -- I'd RUN AWAY as fast as possible and find a new shop.


I didn't sign any nondisclosure agreements or anything when my crankcase was replaced, so I'm ok to tell you about everything that happened. First off, I should preface this and say Honda is awesome and handled my issue completely free of cost to me, covering all parts and labor, even though the only functionality impaired was the ability to use the centerstand.

I always I put my PCX up on its centerstand, it's more secure. I'm a 155lb, was 23 years old when it broke, and am by no means a bodybuilder or anything. One day, I put the PCX on the centerstand as usual, and it just kept going. The bike went up and back onto the centerstand... And then kept going. I barely caught it before it fell over. The engine's lower casing cracked where the centerstand mounted on the left side, letting the stand go limp. The spring flew off spectacularly. Mind you, I don't sit on the bike with the centerstand on (although that doesn't necessarily mean a sumo wrestler hasn't while the bike was parked outside of a store), and had never grinded the centerstand on the ground from cornering too hard. The cracked casing was only on the exterior -- no oil leak occurred, and I'm unsure how the heck the stand mount breaking could cause a leak.


The shop should cover your repair, especially because it sounds like they were the ones who caused the issue by trying to fix it, unless I misread one of your posts.

[snake]

bump

London-PCX, I'm due my 2500 mile service, did you find anywhere cheaper in the Big Smoke? I've called Scooters Limited on King's Road, who want to charge £120, which is better than £200 but still way more than the other fellas on here, although I realise they're outside London. I do intend on learning to do as much as I can myself, but won't have time before this service interval.

Thanks.

[gn2]

£120 is roughly what I paid and I got a loan bike for the day.
Which was nice.

[snake]

Cheers gn - was that all inc? Because this price is assuming no additional work will be done over an oil change and general lube etc. No loan bike here, but that's OK. I've just got a £100 offer from a place in Leytonstone, so will prob go with them.