Yeah you have to have alot of ***** to tell someone they owe you $500 for a carb cleaning. although most people will lay down andpay cause they dont know any bette,r but you tell that tothe wrong personand then tell them thay cant have their bike till its paid they wouldnt hesitate to kick your a$$ then take thier bike.

 

I've never worked on a Triumph carb before, but $500 for cleaning ANY carb is too much. Even at $75 an hour for two hours that doesn't add up to $500...

Water in the gas won't make the float stick - garbage will. I had a problem with a sticking float earlier this year. Sucks when you're parked at a scenic spot with no tools and gas is pouring out of your carb through the filter and you can't stop it cause you never turn the petcock off and when you try - it fails too. Anyway, the fix action was to remove the tank and flush it out along with cleaning the carb. I also replaced the petcock. The prevention method to keep this from happening again was I installed a fuel filter between the tank (petcock actually) and the carb. Replaced the petcock too...

What a novel concept eh? I don't know why in the hell Harley and every other company doesn't put in a fuel filter at the factory. Anyway - I haven't had a problem since and don't expect too...

 

Here's a tactic for you ...

Be ready to pay for the work. As you're getting ready to pay ask them to have the manager and service manager meet with you. Tell them you appreciate their hard work and that you're sorry it came down to bad gas. Tell them that you're now preparing your claim to other sources to cover the damage. Then hit them with this ....

Have them provide a detailed report outlining why it was turned down for service work. Explain to them that since it's not warranty work, and since they seem to think it was simply bad gas, you're left with having to find the party liable through other means. Since they claim it was bad gas then you've got a product's liability claim against the gas producer and their chain of distributors. But you'll need to be able to say what caused the harm ... and that's where the dealer comes in.

Make sure they understand that if they are so sure it's not a warranty issue (i.e., a fault design in the float or other carburation system) then they must also be so sure that it's someone else's fault. As such, they will likely be called upon to provide written statements, affidavits, and depositions on the cause of the problem. Tell them that to sustain a claim against the gas wholesaler, retailer, and gas producer you'll need their cooperation. "Gee, I'm so sorry but you may have to appear in court to testify as well."

Of course they won't like this ... and chances are they may even decide to "cover it" under warranty anyway ... but if not you'll at least need their information for the lawsuit against the gas company.

Now don't get me wrong ... I'm not advocating that you go around slap-happy suing people ... but if you've got $500 in loss and it ain't your fault someone should pay.

 

Dealer service departments sure get a lot of mileage out of the "bad gas" thing. The last time I had a tank of bad gas was in 1969. Although any gas with ethanol in it is "bad gas".

 

Here's a little update:
Wife spoke with the dealership today, and asked for the invoice, and work order to be faxed to us. We received the work order and found that they are charging $250 for parts, and $250 for labor. This quote included floats, and some other items... Now this pissess me off since when I spoke with the service manager who also did the repair job, he told me it HAD to be the gas since he only had to replace the air filter!!! Now they mentioned that they will send it in the morning to try to get warranty approval. I was ready to split the load with them too until I saw the work order and found out that they straight up lied to me about the work that was done. And, a little more Florida law has been revealed to me by the old amazing internet. Turns out that they are not allowed to do ANY work without first contacting with a quote unless the owner (us) signs off on prior authorization. They tried to say that my friend who dropped the bike off for us signed authorization for them to do the work.. Well again... Florida repair law took that into account also.... Will keep you all posted on how this turns out....

 

its going to get warrantied ,

 

my buddy has a yamaha outboard. in sept 06 boat wouldnt run over 3500 rpms
even though he had warranty the dont cover fuel filter issues seems as though the
ethanol is causing the filter to fail and blocking the fuel system.june 07 same problem another $500.00

 

if its warranty they keep the parts for the factory.
if its customer pay, you are entitled to the old parts. all of them. get the gas, filters etc. no parts no pay.

good point in another post about the fuel co.
they dont want to be trashed by the dealers. you prob used a cc to fill up last and have the reciept. that could be a way to go.

I once was confronted by mobil when we blaimed it on gas, they were willing to do the tests for the cust, a loial mobil cust.
keep all avenues open.
the state dmv is the cheepest and most effective.

but no parts to 250 worth of parts wtf

 

Impala rather i cant read or you cant write, but i think i got your point and 250 is way to much for those for parts the carb itsself probally does nt cost that much

 

I don't think you owe anything for parts - only for labor for cleaning the carb IF it was dirty gas. None of the parts in the carb would be damaged by dirty gas, and water in the gas wouldn't have caused the problem with a sticking float. The only thing that needed to be done was to take the carb apart and clean it of any debris. Like I said before - same thing happened to me and I didn't have to replace anything.