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Magnet broken off rotor and wrecked my stator

8.3K views 14 replies 12 participants last post by  jscottj  
#1 ·
My SV1000S K5 (owned by me from new) is in the dealers after a problem with the charging system. They replaced the R/R but it still wasnt right.

I have just been informed by the dealer that a magnet has come off the rotor and smashed the stator up. They have never seen anything like this before. The bill is going to be...... anyones guess, depends on where all the little bits have gone I suppose, but just rotor/stator/RR is going to be around ÂŁ700!!

Has anyone on the forum heard of this happening before?

My bike is out of warranty, Suzuki customer services said I am very unlikely to get any 'good will' help because the warranty ran out over a year ago, and I did the last (intermediate) service myself.

I am in the UK, so under UK law I am thinking of taking a case against Suzuki under the Sale of goods act 1979 based on this failure being a manufacturing defect and the bike they supplied me with was not of satisfactory quality to be fit for the purpose it was intended for.

Any help, advice, comments would be gratefully accepted
 
#2 ·
This is not a new problem, it has happened to others.
This is a very good how to fix the problem yourself HERE
Here is another one that had it happen HERE

There maybe others on here that have had this happen and they will probably be along and say so.
 
#3 ·
I think you stand more chance of a handcrank off the pope than win a case against suzuki over the sales of goods act, for something like this.

Fillings drop out of your teeth but do you think of suing the dentist that put it there?

Shit happens but there are plenty of inexpensive ways of repairing this problem available on this site as listed by Ken.
 
#6 ·
No..........
 
#8 ·
Thats how it started with me. I had a flat battery a couple of months ago, the recovery guy said MF bike batteries only seem to last about 4 years, so not suspecting anything else could be wrong I replaced the battery, and all seemed fine until last week when I had a flat battery again.

This time the lights had gone dim even with the engine running so I knew it wasnt charging, R/R most likely culprit.

I didnt notice any strage noises from the engine, apart from now I really think about it there was a very brief rattle, I thought a cam chain had just momentarily worked the tensaioner back or something. The engine then ran absolutly fine until I switched off and then the battery was to low to start it back up again.

I think I might as well fix it up with a second hand stator and flywheel from a breaker, and then sell it or trade it in.... Not for another Suzuki though!!!
 
#9 ·
Well, same issue here... I had an accident in november 2010.
Due to personal circumstances and a lot of issues, a decent testdrive on my fixed bike only took place in june 2012... power loss, max speed around 150kph.
After several attempts of my own to find the issue - "must be some sensor"... I decided to bring the bike in to a repair shop august 2013... and 11 months later, they found it!

Suzuki called it an incident.. bike being almost 9 years old now.. have fun and bye-bye.. And it has not even run 65.000kms... where it should easily do 200.000 (!)

I suspect the accident I had was the last push to get the magnets loose. Sooner or later they would've gone loose anyway. I hope no splinters of the magnet are running around bad places internally in the engine. Because then the damage is beyond repair.

A lawyer told me that I needed to proof it was the fault of the manufacturer.. claim it at the dealer or Suzuki. So I'm now hunting experts to get a report on this.

Note: your case is the first one I found after hours of searching the internet. If it's a general issue, there should be more of those incidents.

Have you succeeded with your case? Or was it all in vain?

(p.s.: I'm a Dutch native, so there may be some misspellings in the text above)
 

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#10 ·
A recommendation to possibly give adequate early warning for rotor magnet migration: Fit a voltmeter.

These can be gotten on E-bay for about $6 US postpaid. Mine is about 1.5" by 3/4" and a two wire mount. I wire the black (-) wire to the frame and the red (+) wire to the low beam circuit. I rarely use high beam.

Short of removing the alternator cover at regular intervals, this is the best (and cheapest) early warning device I can think of.

Ralph