Grouch Posted November 5, 2013 Posted November 5, 2013 Surprise surprise my bike has gone from needing a simple repair and gear shaft to £700 min of work. The starter motor has collapsed. It was in a poor state so can't question it. New ones are £300 but I've seen a used one on eBay for £50. Will I be ok using a second hand one? It needs a new battery because it was stood for 5 months. The battery was brand new a few months ago, surely it will charge or is this correct? Thanks
finnerz89 Posted November 5, 2013 Posted November 5, 2013 Don't see why you can't use a second hand motor, other than the fact it might pack up the same as your original one and it won't have any guarantee or warranty. However 250 sterling is a lot of money! As for the battery, you might be able to recover it with a trickle charger, but those set you back about the same amount as a battery!
Grouch Posted November 6, 2013 Author Posted November 6, 2013 Think ill chance it and buy the motor. I'll buy my own battery from eBay for £25 as well. Not getting fucked over.
Noise Posted November 6, 2013 Posted November 6, 2013 £700!? what else needs doing then bar the battery starter and that lever? are they rebuilding your whole bike or some thing? I don't see why the second hand starter wont work, its worth a go for £250 more in your pocket plus you can fit it your self and save on the labour.
dt502001 Posted November 6, 2013 Posted November 6, 2013 When this all started you had a whole motor for 250 used,you should have taken my advice then and swaped the motor out and learned how to fix your original motor youself. 300 starter 50 battery 60 shifter shaft 10 gasket 15 oil ---- 435 total parts what is the hourly rate at this shop cause for 265 in labour they must be charging 87.00 per hour and layering the price of each job seperatly to come up with 3 hrs labour Anyone who knows what they are doing could change out the shaft in a hour and a half,the starter has to come out any ways and be put back in, so realy there should be no charge for that, short of soldering on a new cable end. Surely there must be a company who rebuilds starters near you and could do it for much less,ask REX SPEED SHOP grab the used 1 and rebuild your old one so when the used 1 craps out you can just swap it. The battery why didn`t the shop put it on charge when the bike arrived they`ve had the bike for 2 weeks, a 7 month old battery should come back to life,normaly a battery can be run flat 5-6 times befor it sulfates beyond use. I don`t know Groucho but it sounds like you getting the shaft all right.
Grouch Posted November 6, 2013 Author Posted November 6, 2013 The second hand starter is fifty pounds, I'm buying my own battery for twenty quid as well as they charge 40. It needed a new gear shaft Welding a little bit in the case that snapped off? The sump plug thread had knackered so that needed redoing. So 700 minus 270 now.
Feronius Posted November 7, 2013 Posted November 7, 2013 To get labor cost right I would get to another nearest garage explaining what work needs to be done and getting printed quote. All work should be done within one hour including tea and biscuits. Did your bike was picked up by them ? If so, ask them if they charged for that, but as I said go to another garage first ,then after that you'll have better Idea of how fair your garage is calculating fee.
slice Posted November 7, 2013 Posted November 7, 2013 FFS Grouch if you didn't have bad luck you would have no luck at all. Go with the used motor and get the battery fitted, don't go to another garage just do these small bit's yourself, we will all help out if you need it. Just "ASK BEFORE" you do anything in case there is problem don't start till you have the job sorted out in your head first. Good luck mate.
Grouch Posted November 7, 2013 Author Posted November 7, 2013 To get labor cost right I would get to another nearest garage explaining what work needs to be done and getting printed quote. All work should be done within one hour including tea and biscuits. Did your bike was picked up by them ? If so, ask them if they charged for that, but as I said go to another garage first ,then after that you'll have better Idea of how fair your garage is calculating fee. The problem is garages are limited in my area and to be honest these guys are ok, I trust them. FFS Grouch if you didn't have bad luck you would have no luck at all. Go with the used motor and get the battery fitted, don't go to another garage just do these small bit's yourself, we will all help out if you need it. Just "ASK BEFORE" you do anything in case there is problem don't start till you have the job sorted out in your head first. Good luck mate. I bought the starter motor for £50 and its fine they tested it. I also bought a new battery for £22 saving me £18 as they were going to charge me £40 for one. Went to get the bike as it was ready.Only to find it won't shift down gears. So now they have to open it up again ffs. I was so happy seeing the bike running. I was stood there waiting to ride off but NO!
dt502001 Posted November 7, 2013 Posted November 7, 2013 Grouch they should have checked the shifting befor putting it back together and most certinaly befor calling you and telling you it was ready. The motor dosen't need to be running to check the shifting,you don't even need the clutch installed to check this,Hell they didn't even need the shifter shaft to check if the tranny shifted the shift drum can be rolled by hand through all the gears,and before even telling you what was wrong they should have checked this first ,so they best not be charging you again for thier cock up. It shouldn't take them more than a hour to pull it appart and fix it so you should have your bike back today
jimmy Posted November 7, 2013 Posted November 7, 2013 Hey Groucho Firstly I admire your resilience, if it was me starting out (relatively speaking) and all that shit had hit me, I would have chucked bikes, so well done for sticking it out. Now is the time to start learning about bikes mate. Enough folk on here have offered to help on numerous occasions and advice was given to enlist on a bike mechanics course at college. It probably hurts to add up the cost over the last 18 months, but weigh that against the cost of a night school course and I bet you would have been quids in both monetarily and self satisfaction wise, so come on mate take the plunge now
Grouch Posted November 7, 2013 Author Posted November 7, 2013 I do want to learn Jimmy but I'm doing a full time degree and work full time. I don't have a minute to myself. P DT, yeah I will be pissed off if they try charging me.
Speedshop Posted November 7, 2013 Posted November 7, 2013 We can strip and rebuild starters, we charge by the hour. I will say we do good job rather then 'cheap'. That doesn't mean expensive but my techs will want paying at the end of the week for the work they've done so we charge for our experience, knowledge and time to ensure they are paid! So if you have a starter that needs sorting and a good replacement is silly money then we can help. Ebay is the place for cheap and you pay your money and take your chance there As an aside we've just had a batch of Lucas E3 dynamos in, I'd forgotten just how labour intensive dynamos can be to get right. Its been many a year I've had to undercut commutator insulation and actually machine parts! Hard work, but somehow satisfying when the customer comes back amazed they now all work after being told by other companies they were scrap.
Grouch Posted November 7, 2013 Author Posted November 7, 2013 We can strip and rebuild starters, we charge by the hour. I will say we do good job rather then 'cheap'. That doesn't mean expensive but my techs will want paying at the end of the week for the work they've done so we charge for our experience, knowledge and time to ensure they are paid! So if you have a starter that needs sorting and a good replacement is silly money then we can help. Ebay is the place for cheap and you pay your money and take your chance there As an aside we've just had a batch of Lucas E3 dynamos in, I'd forgotten just how labour intensive dynamos can be to get right. Its been many a year I've had to undercut commutator insulation and actually machine parts! Hard work, but somehow satisfying when the customer comes back amazed they now all work after being told by other companies they were scrap. So how much would it cost to rebuild a little 125 starter motor? Surely it wouldn't take too long?
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