Mechanic Wanted in Florida

[DickB]

I'm in Lake Placid FL and dealers are 2 hours away. I went to one dealer because of a problem with my Ryker's VSS kicking in way early on left turns only. I was charged $170 to be told there was no problem. This was after I pointed out a service bulletin dealing with such problems that called for a Steering Update Kit.

I do as much work as possible myself on vehicles, so I installed the Update Kit myself. The last steps are to recalibrate the Steering Angle Sensor (SAS) and yaw sensor. I called another larger dealer in the other direction to ask about getting that done, and the tech knew exactly what I was talking about. It seemed clear to me this second dealer had a lot more experience - I have been back there for tire mounting and balancing.

I decided to bite the bullet and get a BUDS, in large part to avoid all day trips for service (more if I would need to trailer the vehicle in) and fixed the left turn issue myself. Oh, and the dealers had a month-long backlog on appointments - another reason for DIY. In addition to the Update Kit, I diagnosed a bad SAS with BUDS (it would not hold a zero setting - it would have likely caused at least two trips to a dealer to find that) and fixed it with a used SAS at a fraction of new cost.

I got a 2014 Spyder RSS a while back, which threw a yaw sensor fault shortly after I got it. I fixed that with a used yaw sensor and BUDS. BUDS also works on my Sea Doo Spark, so I figure I have paid for the BUDS in time and money. With a 10-year-old Spyder and at least some dealers who likely will not work on it, it is also a peace-of-mind thing for me.