False Promises

In an earlier post I mentioned that the dealer that I had bought the Triumph cruiser from had made quite a song and dance about all their second-hand bikes coming with a “full dealer service”.

However, this seems to mostly have consisted of glancing at the bike sideways and then stamping the service log as done. Very little actual work appears to have taken place.

I mention this because the front brake had been feeling rather stiff lately so I planned to take it apart over the weekend, give it a good clean, and fit some new pads to see if that made things better.

On taking things apart, it was obvious that not one bolt had been as much as loosened, most didn’t look to have been touched since the bike left the factory.

Yup, this definitely looks like a brake caliper which went through a rigorous dealer service less than three months and about 1k dry miles ago, doesn’t it?

First things first, clean everything and remove the pistons and carefully scrape away all the surface deposits to see if they could be salvaged or would need replacing.

They turned out to be not as bad as I had feared, and they actually polished up quite nicely once all the crud was removed. So, no need to replace them for the time being.

The rest of the caliper bits were de-greased and cleaned up before being reassembled with new pads and some clean brake fluid, after which they felt much, much better.

And the moral would appear to be, no matter what promises are made to you, always check things for yourself.