I bought my first fazer and it had failed an MOT from ride on. 2 failures. One for the fork seal (fair enough) the other for the, get this, steering being excessively notchy.
Just read that back..
"Steering excessively notchy"
Not content with the job i had to do on the veracity of the term "notchy" in relation to its application on a legal document, i did wonder if the tester had a ruler or gauge for the "notch" level. I had to further wonder where on the scale of "Notch" was the demarcation of fail/unfail. Suffice to say, my efforts were only rewarded with teh realistion that "I'll be fucked i'm taking it there for an MOT"
So what was this "notch" i hear you ask.
Um......Well, "bearings seem smooth" i thought. "No play when pulling the forks" I reasoned.
But theres something when i go to full left lock. Theres a noise or something. Metal on metal.
Well it turns out the radiator guard was sticking out a bit and the fork was tapping it when you hooked it all the way to the left.
Funnily enough, i never fixed it and it passed several other MOT's afterwards.
So the moral of the story is, if you are going to let the apprentices loose on the MOT's, at least check over what they are flagging. They would have failed it for fuck all had the fork seal been sound. I'll never take a bike to get fixed there. Heard plenty of horror stories from other folk. Their training department is fantastic. Sales i wouldn't know. Parts is ok, but expensive. Although, to be fair, they aren;t alone because it seems that bike dealers are just diddies in general. Stevie Brierton is good tho. If i am needing anything done that i can't do myself, i take it there. Parkhead, just off dalmarnock road. Cannae mind the address, google it