Questions
10-07-2012, 06:08 PM
All,
I decided I should have posted this here instead of in the general RT forum. Hope I did not break any rules.
My wife and I just bought a new 2012 RT Audio. In our first few rides before the 600 mile service we noticed a rather odd noise like metal scraping at different times. When present, it did not sound speed or engine RPM related and would come and go almost at random. It would usually start when I was accelerating and then continue, sometimes for many miles. It is definitely not the noise many have discussed associated with the holes in the brake rotors. The best I could do to isolate it was that it seemed stronger in the front left side but I could not tell more than that. I was not overly worried because everything else was working great and it did not sound destructive. Two days ago, I took it in for the 600 mile service, a 90 mile ride over some mountains to my dealer. As I was rolling down our long sloped driveway (no braking) I heard a relatively loud scraping coming from the left front wheel. Again, this was not the slight noise you hear from the rotors when lightly braking. It was strong and sounded like metal on metal. I got off and looked things over but saw nothing that could be causing it. It stopped at the bottom of the hill so I decided to continue on to the dealer so they could look at it.
When I was pulling into the dealer's lot and hit the brakes, I heard a loud clunk coming from the left front wheel. It would happen every time I hit the brakes and was even louder when I reversed and then went forward. I had never heard this before. The dealer said they would look at it. When I picked the bike up yesterday, they said everything was fine and could find nothing except the minor ticking noise the rotor holes made. I did not like the answer but they did say they pulled the wheels and saw nothing. As I started to drive away, I again heard the loud clunk in the left front every time I hit the brakes. I stopped and asked the tech to come out and listen since this was definitely not the normal brake ticking. He looked me in the eye and basically said that was the nature of the beast, deal with it. When asked what it was he said probably loose pad. So I suggested the pads should not be loose and he once again said "nothing wrong, they all do it".
I left in frustration. I suspect that there is indeed a loose pad or damaged caliper as I can't come up with any other explaination. I am reluctant to tear it down myself to look because I don't yet have the service manual to give me bolt torques and setup data for the wheel sensor. I also don't know what it should look like to be able to tell what may be wrong.
I would appreciate any ideas or insight you may have as to how to proceed and what the cause might be. I am a retired mechanical engineer with 30+ years of experiece designing high speed machines and have worked on all my bikes for 45 years so I am not afraid to work on things. I just want to be careful how I approach this to not get into warranty issues. It seems my dealer is not going to be much help.
Randy
I decided I should have posted this here instead of in the general RT forum. Hope I did not break any rules.
My wife and I just bought a new 2012 RT Audio. In our first few rides before the 600 mile service we noticed a rather odd noise like metal scraping at different times. When present, it did not sound speed or engine RPM related and would come and go almost at random. It would usually start when I was accelerating and then continue, sometimes for many miles. It is definitely not the noise many have discussed associated with the holes in the brake rotors. The best I could do to isolate it was that it seemed stronger in the front left side but I could not tell more than that. I was not overly worried because everything else was working great and it did not sound destructive. Two days ago, I took it in for the 600 mile service, a 90 mile ride over some mountains to my dealer. As I was rolling down our long sloped driveway (no braking) I heard a relatively loud scraping coming from the left front wheel. Again, this was not the slight noise you hear from the rotors when lightly braking. It was strong and sounded like metal on metal. I got off and looked things over but saw nothing that could be causing it. It stopped at the bottom of the hill so I decided to continue on to the dealer so they could look at it.
When I was pulling into the dealer's lot and hit the brakes, I heard a loud clunk coming from the left front wheel. It would happen every time I hit the brakes and was even louder when I reversed and then went forward. I had never heard this before. The dealer said they would look at it. When I picked the bike up yesterday, they said everything was fine and could find nothing except the minor ticking noise the rotor holes made. I did not like the answer but they did say they pulled the wheels and saw nothing. As I started to drive away, I again heard the loud clunk in the left front every time I hit the brakes. I stopped and asked the tech to come out and listen since this was definitely not the normal brake ticking. He looked me in the eye and basically said that was the nature of the beast, deal with it. When asked what it was he said probably loose pad. So I suggested the pads should not be loose and he once again said "nothing wrong, they all do it".
I left in frustration. I suspect that there is indeed a loose pad or damaged caliper as I can't come up with any other explaination. I am reluctant to tear it down myself to look because I don't yet have the service manual to give me bolt torques and setup data for the wheel sensor. I also don't know what it should look like to be able to tell what may be wrong.
I would appreciate any ideas or insight you may have as to how to proceed and what the cause might be. I am a retired mechanical engineer with 30+ years of experiece designing high speed machines and have worked on all my bikes for 45 years so I am not afraid to work on things. I just want to be careful how I approach this to not get into warranty issues. It seems my dealer is not going to be much help.
Randy