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A few weeks ago, I crashed my poor bike. At that time, I was out with a group of biking friends enjoying a ride in the warm Hari Raya morning. I decided then that it was the best opportunity to repaint my bike since it was something I had always wanted to do anyway. Another good reason was that a friend had gotten his new bike (he replaced his Hayate with a Yamaha YBR) and wanted to have that repainted as well. So off we went to the motorcycle shop that advertised a repainting service. I decided to go for darker tones and had my bike repainted in black and grey. I thought it was a good idea to get my bike serviced at the same time since they were going to have to remove many of the parts for repainting anyway. All was settled for a relatively large sum of money…though I thought it was worthwhile since they promised a tip-top job.

Fast forward eight days and it was time to collect the bike. They delivered quicker than they promised and that is always a good sign. I tried to contain my excitement and eventually made it to the shop a day later to collect my baby. I saw it from a distance and liked the way it looked. The dark tones made it look more rugged and handsome. I was getting more excited with each step…until I finally got near enough for an up-close inspection.

You know how it is with paint jobs…and here’s a quick primer if you don’t. Basically, you need to sand down the parts you want to paint in order to remove the old paint. Then you clean it so that it is smooth and dust free. This is important so whatever you spray on it will stick well. Then you spray a layer of primer on it, making sure to lay it on evenly and thinly. Let that dry thoroughly and put on another layer. After that, you may want to sand it a little more and dry it before you start spraying the desired paint colour. Again, you spray on thin coats, one at a time, ensuring that each coat is thoroughly dry before the next is layered on. This will give you a final paint job that not only looks good but will last.

Unfortunately, what I see up-close showed me that this wasn’t the steps taken to paint my bike. The paint was splotchy, some parts thick and other parts thin. The old paint wasn’t sanded off. The bike parts were not taken out fully before the frame was painted. The swingarm (which wasn’t supposed to be painted) had parts that are now stained by the black paint making it look ugly. The handlebar was painted only a single coat, again with no sanding of the old paint. The tank and plastics were painted but with no shine.

It should not be a surprise then that I was disappointed with the work done. However, I did miss my bike very much and was prepared to take it home. Now they relocated my IU to the spot where my right hand mirror attached to the handlebar via the use of a bracket. That looked good. However, the way they screwed that onto the bike was bad. The screw wasn’t turned in fully and protruded. There were scratches on the paint job there and it wasn’t touched up.

They did not replace the probation plate that I had on the bike and I had to tell them to do so. When I asked them to do that, they told me I could not attach it using cable ties because it would cause the paint job to mar because the paint wasn’t fully dried. This got me frustrated. Why ask me to collect my bike when the paint wasn’t dry? Then they told me that it was dry but underneath it may be wet. What a lousy excuse! Then they asked me to stick the plate onto the front cowling. Now if the paint wasn’t dry, wouldn’t sticking that onto the cowling cause that part of the paint job to mar? Sheesh! I had to make a really big fuss before they rectified the situation satisfactorily.

Now comes the more interesting part. When I was finally ready to pay for a job that was BADLY done, they had the nerve to charge me more than a hundred dollars ABOVE the original quote!! At that point, I went nuclear. Suffice to say that eventually they offered a slight discount and I paid S$400 for a BADLY done paint job and a servicing. Apparently they changed the motor oil, adjusted the pedals and levers etc. Well, off I went hoping never to return.

Fast forward a week and I was on my way for dinner, riding happily along the SLE in the direction of Woodlands. Suddenly, my bike lost power and stalled. I pulled to the side of the expressway just after the chevron markings of exit nine. There, my bike refused to start and I had to get it towed to the bike shop. Obviously, I did not go to the shop that I was pissed with.

The next morning, I was there when the mechanic opened up the bike to check on the engine. Here is where I found MAJOR issues with the service that those fellas did for my bike. For starters, the engine was practically DRY. There was no oil on the piston head. They told me that they poured in a full litre of FRESH oil but all we could drain out was this.

I don’t know about you but I do wonder how a full litre of fresh oil can turn into less than a cup of thick, black and dirty gunk! Now I can fully understand that this might happen if I had ridden the bike extensively after collecting it and the engine was having bad problems to begin with. But I had ridden less than 100km after the service!

My mechanic proceeded to remove the parts of the engine. The next discovery was the piston itself.

See how one part of the piston is nice and smooth but right at the top left of the picture there is a bad abrasion?

This piston was completely dry and badly deformed. In fact, it was badly jammed in the block and taking it out was a big chore.

That hole in the middle is where the pin secures the piston onto the rod. That pin should be able to slide out relatively easily. However, there was simply no way we could get the pin out. It was essentially jammed tight. This meant that the rod had to be replaced too since we could not remove the piston.

We proceeded to inspect the block (the part of the engine that houses the piston and that is where the combustion chamber is).

It looked OK from the outside. The good news is that we were able to get the piston out of it in the first place. I witnessed the entire procedure. This mechanic was removing the parts with the gentleness of a brain surgeon. He was a class act to watch!

The block, unfortunately, wasn’t gonna give me any good news. One look at the inside made my heart sink like a boulder in the deepest ocean.

The damage to the block were deep grooves that stretched the entire length of the chamber.

So I had to change the block, the piston, the rod, the pins, the gaskets and some other bearings which cost me another huge sum of money. When I called and told the original shop this news, you know what they told me? “We told you when you collected the bike that you engine had a sound”. Now IF they think my engine had a strange sound, and IF that sound was something they thought was serious enough for this to happen, why release the bike to me? Why not, at the very least, warn me that this could happen? Bottom line, that is a standard cop out answer! I was even asked to bring my bike back to them so they could rectify the situation. Now any sane individual would have to seriously pause here because bringing the bike back to the shop that (to my best knowledge) caused the problem in the first place is just insane!

Get this, I was then promised a visit, which did not materialize…twice! I was promised a repaint…but did not get any call (it has been two weeks ago now). I seriously think that this shop isn’t serious about the service that they render, nor the promises that they made.

That was a LONG rant…and if you read up till here, I hope you will not fall into the same situation as me. The good news is that my friend’s bike was painted OK and he was happy with the result. Now, how they fixed his side boxes is another story altogether which I’ll not relate here. Call me if you are interested to know more.

So what did I learn at the end of the day? Well, I learnt that the friendliest sales person that isn’t backed by a quality staff doesn’t do my bike (nor the shop) any good. I learnt that the next time I want my bike repainted or repaired, there is at least one shop that I should avoid. I learnt that I have just been suckered by the oldest game in town!

So next time you want to respray your bike…ask around. Make sure the person who sprays it knows what they are doing. Don’t get the same person who sprayed it to also service your bike. If he was an expert in spraying, he won’t be an expert in servicing! And above all, be warned about this particular shop!

Now when I bought this bike, I had the feeling that I wasn’t going to sell it off. Sometime in the last few weeks, I thought it might be a good idea to sell it off and get another bike. But after all the repair has been done, I have grown so much closer to my bike…and I know I could never sell it off. This reminded me of Marley…you know…the cute labrador in the movie “Marley & Me”. And THAT is how my bike got a name.

Contact me personally if you want more information.

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