Brake and Fork Seals bill

Scooter has been getting harder to wheel out of the garage so thought I'd have the brakes looked at by my local dealer.

Just had the dreaded call, needs 3 new pistons in the front caliper, plus seals. Then it also needs an exhaust gasket and 2 fork seals. Obviously fork oil and brake fluid too.

She already has had new pads to the rear today

From memory the breakdown was £34 for each large brake piston, £20 for the smaller one, (£88 running total), £24 for exhaust gasket (£102 rt), fork seals £22 (124 rt)

Add about £190 labour (approx. 6 hrs) and we're at £314 plus todays bill at £86 (£400 rt) plus the fluids and bits and bobs.....

Estimated final bill going to be around £500.......  

What milage do you have on your swing? 

GTscootz wrote:

Just had the dreaded call, needs 3 new pistons in the front caliper, plus seals.  

For all of you hesitant or too lazy to flush your brake fluid every 2 years, there's the reason.

Don't be too hard on the lad, GT Scootz bought his 04 model last year and the brake fluid has probably never been changed anytime in the last 10 years by a dealer, or it's previous owner(s).

Meldrew wrote:

Don't be too hard on the lad, GT Scootz bought his 04 model last year and the brake fluid has probably never been changed anytime in the last 10 years by a dealer, or it's previous owner(s).

It wasn't my intention at all to be hard on the OP.
I'm glad you pointed out how one could view my statement, Meldrew.
Sorry, if that's the way some interpreted it.
It was meant strictly as a maintenance heads-up to all the uninformed, or lazy, or cheap owners out there in Silverwing land.

Jeez, it's not all that difficult to replace the caliper pistons & seals, or bleed the system for that matter. There are any number of You Tube videos explaining how. But if you are mechanically challenged and/or predisposed to have the dealer handle the work then you can take comfort in the knowledge that they are going to rebuild the existing caliper rather than sell you an expensive new one.

The fork seals though are another matter. Certainly something that can be done in your own garage, but a PITA never the less

Tim

bigbird wrote:

Meldrew wrote:

Don't be too hard on the lad, GT Scootz bought his 04 model last year and the brake fluid has probably never been changed anytime in the last 10 years by a dealer, or it's previous owner(s).

It wasn't my intention at all to be hard on the OP.
I'm glad you pointed out how one could view my statement, Meldrew.
Sorry, if that's the way some interpreted it.
It was meant strictly as a maintenance heads-up to all the uninformed, or lazy, or cheap owners out there in Silverwing land.

Hi bigbird, It's quite a while since I changed brake fluid on a scooter, I've had my Silver Wing three years now and I'll have a go in the Spring. So your post has prompted me and maybe a few others to get on and do it...eh!  

Morning all,

The scooter has about 41000 miles on the clock. To be honest, the weather is too cold over here for me to be out of an evening spannering. My garage can just about fit the Silverwing in it, certainly no room in current state for maintenance access.

I don't mind the £200 labour charge.....they do look after me up there, the £300 parts bill was the shocker

thought about this----and I usually get rid of bike at or near 50,000 miles but bike/scooter modern brakes(disk) ridden in rain/wet and salt a lot caliphers/pistons taken apart/ fluid changed yearly seems to work out better----taken care of, stuff seems to last a long time---my experience piston retraction is problem---bike stuff maybe designed to different standard than cars? good luck with fix.

For the record, I purchased her back in August at 39k miles. The bike shop have had her in 3 times for 2 new rear tyres and a tyre plug. Hopefully she'll be with me for a few years yet. I do around 600 miles a month in all weathers. Looking forward to improved suspension anyway

GTscootz wrote:

>>I don't mind the £200 labour charge.....they do look after me up there, the £300 parts bill was the shocker

I just checked with my usual internet source for OEM parts (Partzilla.com) and came up with a total of $124.05 as a list price for the parts you've mentioned, and a total of $92.16 at the discounted price. Of course there will be shipping charges added to those totals, but it still seems that UK parts prices are pretty darn high.

For all that it's worth, the entire new front caliper I mentioned in an above post is shown at $442.29 list, and $291.90 at discount.

Dunno how those prices translate into UK £s though.

Tim

Hi cosmic jumper ,everything is expensive in the u.k.its not called rip off Britain for nothing ha .