This is the first review I've written and I'm pretty disappointed that it has to be a negative one. Especially since I like patronize mom and pop shops.
I brought my bike to cycle stop after telling them that I had a dead cylinder on my yzf-r1. This is almost always due to one of the following: bad gas, bad spark plugs, dirty air filter, or a dead ignition coil. Instead of checking each of these and properly checking the firing by test driving it, cycle stop just replaced the air filter and spark plugs and charged me three hours of labor. The end cost was ~$450.
Once I picked up the bike, I could tell within five miles that a cylinder was still misfiring due to a throttle blip and intermittent power below 5,000 rpms. Within 5 days, the cylinder was completely dead again. This showed that they didn't bother to properly test ride the bike and that the bike had immediately fouled the plug due to a bad ignition coil. When I called the mechanic at cycle stop, his only reply was that I hadn't paid him to diagnose the problem (What did I pay for then?).
It's one thing to be thorough and try to solve a complicated issue but fail. It's another to not know what you're doing and to not check the usual suspects. This weekend I dug into the engine and tested the ignition coils, a well know culprit. It took me less than 3 hours in my backyard with a basic tool kit, much less time than cycle stop charged me for professional labor. The number one cylinder ignition coil had a resistance that was 20% out of spec.
Lo and behold, replacing it made the bike run like a charm. Considering that cycle stop had to remove the bad coil to replace the spark plug and they didn't even bother to check it, I can't understand how they claim to know what they are doing.
The shop owner seems nice and I hate to give a bad review to a small business owner, but I can't help but warn others against have diagnostic work done here. read more