Coolant dripping.

I noticed a little coolant under my Silver Wing. Got down and looked underneath and it appears to be dripping from the louvers on the plastic panel under the scoot. Anyone else experience this? My ride is a 2012 with 17K miles on it.

My service manual describes the procedure to get under there, lots of plastic has to come off, natch! Figure it might be a good time to replace the coolant, anyway.

The good news is I remembered purchasing the extended warranty from Honda!!! So perhaps after the holidays I will let the dealer remove all the plastic?

That happened when I first bought my 2006 with 515 miles on it. Bought it 2 years ago. Folks at the Honda Powers Sports store had to place the hose as they said a mouse bit through it.

Make sure that the source of the leak is not the weephole at the bottom of the water pump housing.  If that IS the source, you probably have a bad waterpump or seals...

Riding with warranty=nice. Let Honda worry about it.

I had my front brakes lock up when reversing down my driveway. Had it towed to Honda repair center. They said that the master cylinder for the front brakes were overfilled and charge me $100 to diagnose the problem and charged me another $100 for flushing the fluid. I have the extra warranty, but they said that it does not cover diagnostics, and the brake fluid is a service item. Since I purchased my 2013 Swing new, they said that either the factory and/or the dealer overfilled the master. I questioned the mechanic as I did not know that a master can be overfilled. He said that it can and should not be overfilled. I am going to write the dealer and Honda to see if they will cover the cost. I have only 5500 miles on the bike.

Easyrider wrote:

I had my front brakes lock up when reversing down my driveway. Had it towed to Honda repair center. They said that the master cylinder for the front brakes were overfilled and charge me $100 to diagnose the problem and charged me another $100 for flushing the fluid. I have the extra warranty, but they said that it does not cover diagnostics, and the brake fluid is a service item. Since I purchased my 2013 Swing new, they said that either the factory and/or the dealer overfilled the master. I questioned the mechanic as I did not know that a master can be overfilled. He said that it can and should not be overfilled. I am going to write the dealer and Honda to see if they will cover the cost. I have only 5500 miles on the bike.

Hm, so much for: Riding with warranty = nice. I think it is outrageous that you should have to pay for a mistake made by the manufacturer or the dealer at their pre-delivery service. And $ 100 to flush an ounce of brake fluid is pathetic. I have recently completely flushed front and rear brakes; took me less than 20 minutes. Even if they will eventually refund you; I am sure your trust will be shaken. I have lost faith in the dealership workshops long time ago since they frequently miss service items and often do not torque critical bolts correctly. I am lucky to have an independent mechanic close by who is a bike nut and takes pride in his workmanship.

I hope you will not have any more problems in the near future

I still prefer warranty riding......but after 60 years of doing this......good dealers are few and far between.

Suspect brake issue=wheel cylinders not retracting----bike ridden in salt? power wash used? or not ridden daily? I feel sorry for people who cannot at least have idea of what is wrong and how to correct it.

As to coolant drip----I use light and see where it is coming from....then either fix/tighten myself, but if waterpump let them do it and replace with proper part.....and hope they don't charge.

I made an appointment for Monday! Will keep you posted. My service writer said my warranty is a GOOD thing, we shall see!

[quote="john grinsel"]

Suspect brake issue=wheel cylinders not retracting----bike ridden in salt? power wash used? or not ridden daily? I feel sorry for people who cannot at least have idea of what is wrong and how to correct it.

John,
I considered doing the repair myself, but was concerned that I did not want to take it to Honda shop after having taken the calipers, pads, and pistons apart. I have done brakes on bikes before and would not be afraid to tackle this problem. I just did not anticipate the charges while on warranty. As it turned out, it was not mechanical, but the fluid. I got six months guarantee on the fix. I keep testing the brakes before and during my rides. Time will tell.

Just my thoughts on Dealers and Insurance companies: You buy from a salesman, but when you have an issue or a claim, you speak with someone else.
Salesman= big smile, wonderful day, never felt better, and on and on.
Claims guy=what good morning?, you don't have coverage, pre-existing condition, not our fault, your fault, no, you can't talk to the salesman, this is a different department. What Merry XMas ????

I consider myself fortunate in that I have not had one problem with my 2013 Swing ABS which I purchased new with 3 miles on the odometer.  That was in May, 2015, so it hasn't even been one year that I've been riding it.  I've put on 7,000 approx. miles since then.

So far, I've been using the local Honda motorcycle dealership in Glendale to do the first few oil changes and servicing (600, 4000, 8000 miles), but plan on going back to a smaller shop that I once used for a previous smaller scooter.  They do repairs on all sizes of scooter and motorcycles, and best of all, I trust the two owner mechanics to do the work correctly.

LA Scooter Service
10945 Burbank Blvd, North Hollywood, CA 91601
(818) 861-4640

I knew that purchasing the extended warranty was probably not a good idea from my days of Sears Extended Warranties and all that baloney.  After reading a few of these posts, I think I've made the right decision.

cotetoi wrote:

Just my thoughts on Dealers and Insurance companies: You buy from a salesman, but when you have an issue or a claim, you speak with someone else.
Salesman= big smile, wonderful day, never felt better, and on and on.
Claims guy=what good morning?, you don't have coverage, pre-existing condition, not our fault, your fault, no, you can't talk to the salesman, this is a different department. What Merry XMas ????

And there Cotetoi you have nicely summed up purchasing since the beginning of time.
The difference between departments is the level of sincerity.
The salesman is totally insincere when he smiles and says 'good day' whereas, when the service bloke tells you to bugger off he absolutely means it!

Yet another good reason to spend ~$75 (roughly = 1 hour shop time) on a Factory Service Manual and DIY so you know things are done right

Tim

Amazing how quickly things drift off-topic! LOL

UPDATE: Situation resolved and problem fixed! Honda determined it was a loose/bad hose clamp. But as I suspected, that is not covered by warranty! It took an hour to correct but the dealer split the difference with me and charged 1/2 hour labor. Considering all the plastic involved I can live with that LOL.

A simple fix, a minor issue...now go RIDE that thing!!

Jinglebob wrote:

A simple fix, a minor issue...now go RIDE that thing!!

58 miles to my dealer and 58 miles back home... I already did

Just as I have long believed. Extended warranty=worthless. If bike has not been apart, looks to me like that way from new,

I've repaired and serviced a lot of Honda bike brakes when I had my shop in Tacoma, WA. I specialized in rebuilding neglected GL1100s but worked on all the GL models. You can't over fill a Honda master cylinder. Period. The most common causes of brakes on these bikes, and the SW has almost identical brakes, is frozen calipers and plugged relief ports in the master cylinders. The calipers have to be free to move side to side to even pressure on the pads since only the pad on the outside of the disk moves. It moves outward from the wheel cylinder pressing on the disk and shifting the caliper body outward from the wheel which presses the other pad against the inside of the disk. If the caliper becomes stuck from corrosion in its mount it can bind the wheel. A quick inspection of the pad thickness viewed at the end of the caliper will diagnose this problem. When a caliper is frozen one pad will be much thinner than the other.
The other cause of wheel lockup is the relief port. This is a very tiny hole between the master reservoir and the master cylinder bore. It looks like a dead ended hole in the bottom of the reservoir but actually has a tiny hole from the cylinder to the reservoir. This port allows trapped air to escape from the brake system into the reservoir. If that port is closed pressure can build up in the brake circuit and cause a pad to drag on the disk and build up heat which will expand the fluid in the caliper causing the pad to tighten on the disk. The relieve port prevents any pressure to build up in the caliper or brake lines when the brake lever or pedal isn't pressed.
My bet is that the cylinder port may be plugged. If so the problem will soon repeat. I used to clean the small port with a wire whisker from a wire brush held in a vise grip. It's very small but important not to enlarge the hole or there will be less volume of fluid expressed from the master cylinder when the lever/pedal is pressed.