Carb floats/Stealers

[1BigDog]

So, I combined my float adjustment story with my soon to be experience with my local stealer.

 

Float adjustment first: After cleaning the bodies of the carbs and they sure were grungy, I opened up the float cover. Now remember that this bike has sat for 2 years now but did fire right up a few months ago. More on that theory later. Following Gooses instructions and some phone help from Muffinman I was able to measure my floats. All were in tolerance. Two were spot on at .034 and two came in at .032. I adjusted those two to .034. Not having those fancy sliding calipers and other instruments of measurements I made my own "tool". I took a Q-tip, cut off its head and took my digital caliper and spaced it out to .034 and marked it with a thin line. Using Gooses reference points I measured the floats, all angled properly as instructed. On thing different was I used a 16 0z bottle of water for my prop, not a block of wood. Serves two purposes. One, it holds the carbs at the right angle and two, you can take a swig of water whenever you need to.

Back to the two year lay up and what I found inside the float bowl. I found nothing. Just a light dusting of residue from the gas. Came off with some carb cleaner and a Q-tip. No grungy stuff, no nasty buildups either. Same for the float area. Nice and clean. I was amazed. I expected to see tons of gunk in there. Not the case. I can only attribute that to the fact that I have used Sea-Foam on a regular basis, try to use the same brand and station for gas and also use Star-Tron fuel additive. Overall im pretty happy with what I found.

 

Now for the stealer. I figure ill go ahead and replace the float bowl O rings while its apart. Part Shark has them for 5.27 each with msrp of 7.95. Looked up the parts fisch for my local dealer online and he showed 7.95. Called them up to see if they had them in stock and they did. Asked him to set them aside and ill swing by soon. How much each? I asked. He says 10 bucks each.....Hmmmm, 7.95 on your own website and your gonna charge me a premium? I said to myself. Ill see what he says when I show up there later with a print-out of his page. He really defined the term stealer. Ill see soon enough.

[Snaggletooth]

Never ends does it? Had one of the local dealers here that were pulling the o-rings that came with the OEM oil filters and putting them in a ZipLock and charging extra for them.

 

Got to keep your thumb on them boys all the time.

[Cougar]

He will tell you that it is cheaper to order on-line no over head cost

[MiCarl]

I've seen dealers here do that too.

 

The parts web site isn't really theirs, it goes to someone selling on the internet for MSRP. It's got no relationship to what they do in their store.

[Guest]

So, I went to the dealer. Beach Blvd Yamaha here in Jax. They had the gaskets so I bought them at 9.99 each. I asked the parts guy why their own website had them at MSRP of 7.95 and your charging me 2 bucks more. He told me the website actually has a lower price, not msrp. When I checked their site, along with Part Sharks site, it shows a 7.95 msrp price. I said so I could have ordered it online and saved 8 bucks by picking it up here. He said that they only ship parts out when ordered online and the cost to ship these gaskets would have been 12 bucks. Dam, a small Priority mail box is only 5.95. I told him thats one of the reasons why we shop online so much. You manipulate the prices so much we end up paying higher prices overall. I left with no thank you for buying here from the parts guy. At least if your gonna screw me, be nice about it .Now if I had ordered these from Parts Shark it would have cost me 21 bucks and maybe 8 bucks shipping from them but it would have taken a week and I wanted to get the carbs back on this week so I sucked it up and paid the price. Guess my beef was that they charged that 2 buck premium over MSRP. Thats what really pissed me off.

[XV1100SE]

I'd be looking to see where your next closest dealer is.

[Guest]

Next closest dealer is worse. One of the reasons why I buy online almost exclusively.

[MiCarl]

Here is the thing guys:

 

If the dealer has something on his shelf it might sell right away, or sit for months or longer. A large warehouse doesn't have as sever of a problem because over a large geography demand tends to even out.

 

The dealer ties up space and money having items in stock. He needs to charge a premium to survive. You can think of it as a convenience fee.

 

I still doubt your dealer fulfills internet orders. They are likely referred to a large distributor that in turn sends him a sales fee. You can probably shop from the same distributor (different web address) and get the parts for 40% below the site linked to your dealer.

[etcswjoe]

If I even hint I saw a part cheaper my dealer will match it and still give me the military discount.

[Guest]

Carl, I understand what you are saying but charging 20% more over MSRP? For an O-ring? Not gonna fly in my book. I used to get a 10% discount on parts from the previous owner of this business so I bought plenty of stuff from them. About 1 year before he sold it he stopped the discounts. He gave me a BS reason and I have stopped going in there for anything. I found out from someone who used to work there that they didnt like the fact that I was very knowledgeable on the part prices and service issues and had challenged them at times.