Yamaha R6 - Im Impressed | GTAMotorcycle.com

Yamaha R6 - Im Impressed

gav.man

gav.man

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I got to work on a 2003 R6 and was pleasently surprised. I have worked mostly on suzuki's and kawi's and have owned yamaha's in the 80's.

First off there was the fit and finish. The clutch lever had a bronze bushing, my suzuki doesn't!

Second, to drain the antifreeze, you unscrew the drain bolt! The others you have to rip hoses off...

Third, it bike uses qwick release buttons for the undertail and cowling. Nice touch.

I can go on, but lets just say the whole time I worked on it, i didn't swear once.. That is rare! I know what I'm buying next time.

Anyone else have something to add?

Cheers
 
The 2006-onward R6 (in stock form) has a bazillion little pieces of bodywork and the mechanical stuff is all crammed in there, just like all the other recent-generation sport bikes. They are all ignorant to work on, for anything beyond basic servicing.

Honda bodywork tends to all lock together with tabs. You can remove all the screws, and the panel still won't come off, unless you know exactly which way it needs to be bent, poked, and prodded to release the locking tabs, and half the time the locking tabs break anyway.

I hate the electrical connectors used on most late model bikes, too. It's often not readily apparent which way the connectors have to be squeezed or pried in order to get them apart.
 
Brian P said:
The 2006-onward R6 (in stock form) has a bazillion little pieces of bodywork and the mechanical stuff is all crammed in there, just like all the other recent-generation sport bikes. They are all ignorant to work on, for anything beyond basic servicing.

Honda bodywork tends to all lock together with tabs. You can remove all the screws, and the panel still won't come off, unless you know exactly which way it needs to be bent, poked, and prodded to release the locking tabs, and half the time the locking tabs break anyway.

I hate the electrical connectors used on most late model bikes, too. It's often not readily apparent which way the connectors have to be squeezed or pried in order to get them apart.
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why is this? do the designers go out of their way to design something overly complex? isn't ease of use the logical way these days? all those products u see on infomercials, they all promote how easy their products are to use. why can't bike manufacturers do the same?

all helmet manufacturers promote how easy it is to change the shield and liner in their helmets. while bike companies go "hey look! our fairings are the most difficult to remove. it's a feature!"
 
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ducati rider said:
why is this? do the designers go out of their way to design something overly complex? isn't ease of use the logical way these days? all those products u see on infomercials, they all promote how easy their products are to use. why can't bike manufacturers do the same?

all helmet manufacturers promote how easy it is to change the shield and liner in their helmets. while bike companies go "hey look! our fairings are the most difficult to remove. it's a feature!"
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Maybe it's because you are unlikely to use the service department at Honda to get your shield changed?
 
ducati rider said:
why is this? do the designers go out of their way to design something overly complex? isn't ease of use the logical way these days? all those products u see on infomercials, they all promote how easy their products are to use. why can't bike manufacturers do the same?

all helmet manufacturers promote how easy it is to change the shield and liner in their helmets. while bike companies go "hey look! our fairings are the most difficult to remove. it's a feature!"
Click to expand...

Because if you dont poke it, its less likely to break, and the fit and finish looks better if somethings held on 5 different ways versus 1. Older bikes, **** falls off all the time and body panels rarely go back on straight or line up perfectly. Newer bikes? Not so much.
 
ducati rider said:
why is this? do the designers go out of their way to design something overly complex? isn't ease of use the logical way these days? all those products u see on infomercials, they all promote how easy their products are to use. why can't bike manufacturers do the same?

all helmet manufacturers promote how easy it is to change the shield and liner in their helmets. while bike companies go "hey look! our fairings are the most difficult to remove. it's a feature!"
Click to expand...

The problem with the 2006-onward R6 is that the stylists had an idea with that extra piece of bodywork angled down at each side, but to make it happen with injection-molded parts, it had to be a separate piece, then add trim panels to cover up the spaces to the other bodywork (and also to be a different colour), and it all adds up. I'm sure there WERE discussions about how much this was going to cost. Evidently, the stylists won that discussion.

The late model GSXR's have plenty of bits and pieces with the stock bodywork, too.

As far as ease of maintenance ... Anything beyond ease of basic maintenance is low on the priority list these days. People demand smaller, lighter, more compact, but more power, and of course at low cost. The result is a whole lot of stuff crammed into not very much space. Vehicles (not just bikes!) are designed to go down the assembly line easily. That (manufacturing and assembly cost) is priority #1 above all else. If everything is put together in a certain specific order, the bike goes together easily. If you want to fix it afterward, it has to come apart in exactly the reverse order. Clips and tabs (and those pesky electrical connectors!) just pop together easily when you are putting them together. Getting them apart afterward can be quite another matter. But that's far lower on the priority list than cost and ease of going down the assembly line.

If you think bikes are a pain to work on, try automotive interiors. Nobody wants to see exposed screw heads ... but that means *everything* goes together with clips, which keeps the assembly-line bean counters happy, too. But good luck ever getting it apart afterwards without breaking something - hopefully only the clips, which hopefully you can still get when the car is 15 years old ...
 
It's not just the newer SS bikes, on my ninja 650r, you have to practically take apart the whole front end of the bike just to get one of the fairings off ...
 
bobjohnson said:
Because if you dont poke it, its less likely to break, and the fit and finish looks better if somethings held on 5 different ways versus 1. Older bikes, **** falls off all the time and body panels rarely go back on straight or line up perfectly. Newer bikes? Not so much.
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Bodywork of a CBR1000RR or a VFR1200 is top notch in fit and finish, but they're a PITA to re/re... Honda designs it to look and fit well, not to be easy to take apart.
 
On any sportbike, you are going to have to remove fairings anytime you do work on them so I appreciate the quick turn fasteners which use the same sized allen bit and how the panels fit together. The things I dislike about working on my R1 (I assume the R6 is the same) is that changing the stator requires removal of the flywheel. I have no idea why they decided to put the stator behind the flywheel instead of the generator cover like everyone else.

gav.man said:
I got to work on a 2003 R6 and was pleasently surprised. I have worked mostly on suzuki's and kawi's and have owned yamaha's in the 80's.

First off there was the fit and finish. The clutch lever had a bronze bushing, my suzuki doesn't!

Second, to drain the antifreeze, you unscrew the drain bolt! The others you have to rip hoses off...

Third, it bike uses qwick release buttons for the undertail and cowling. Nice touch.

I can go on, but lets just say the whole time I worked on it, i didn't swear once.. That is rare! I know what I'm buying next time.

Anyone else have something to add?

Cheers
Click to expand...
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