YCC-S Build Years

A tangent from a discussion Fred W and I were having in another thread about when the YCC-S version of the FJR (FJR1300AE in the USA, FJR1300AS in the UK) was really made.

Fred W said:

mcatrophy said:

Fred W said:

That was also the point in time when they decided to quit making an auto clutch version.
T
Coincidence?

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Fred, they never stopped making them. I had a new one in 2010 and another in 2014. They merely stopped importing them into America. They are showing them on the European web site for 2016 as well.

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I am not sure that what you say is true. I recall that there are different "rules" for what constitutes a particular model year in various countries, and that "left-overs" can be sold as a current model year in some.

And no, I'm not just being a US-centric snob here. I really do believe that Yamaha pulled the plug on the AE (or whatever letters denote the auto clutch version in your location) because it was a dismal marketing failure. That is not to say that there was anything particularly wrong or bad about the design. Just that the marketing/sales dweebs failed to convince the masses that this was what they wanted, and it ended in a bad financial accounting.

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I agree about the marketing failure bit, it has never sold well here (the 'A' version isn't exactly a big seller, the 'AS' is even worse).

The "AS" model has been on sale in the UK all years since its 2006 introduction, however their web site now shows specifications for years 2010, '13, '14, '15 and '16.

Downloads for the Owner's Manuals also miss out 2012 and 2014:

Web page Blow-up of year list



That may reflect when changes were made to the specification even if only colours - we never had the 81 mph cruise control restriction on our '13 .

In the USA the VIN must contain the date code. This is not mandated in the UK and my VINs don't show the dates. However, I firmly believe my '10 was assembled in 2010. When I took the front mudguard off to fit an extender, I could see the date mark from the mould. The margins show year dates labeled "06 07 08 09", months 1 to 12, all this in a matrix. There is a punch mark in the place where January '10 would be if the original mould date matrix had had the marking for that year. Just about visible in the picture below (very difficult to photograph black marks in black plastic ).
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I saw other similarly stamped date codes on other pieces of plastic, but not photographed.

I can't say what year my '14 was made, it may well be a left-over '13. Next time I have any plastic off, I'll look for the date mark.

As for 2016, it's shown on the UK site without a price, but it is shown on the Netherlands site priced at €22499 (a little over £17000 or $24580 at today's rates), so presumably they've made some 2016's.

I've been updating every 4 years, not from any "rule", simply a coincidence in our situation. However, I suspect I won't be changing mine for a 2018 whether or not it's still available, simply because of my birthday count .

Plastic pieces aren't necessarily the best guide for the age of a bike. If you went to an injection molder to have something like a fender made, the cost per part gets lower and lower as you buy more, so a three year run of bikes +10% may be ordered up front to keep costs low.

I was working on either an 08 or an 09 and found one plastic part that had been modified by hand to fit a little differently than it had been cast, which would tend to support the notion of big batches being produced.

audiowize said:

Plastic pieces aren't necessarily the best guide for the age of a bike. If you went to an injection molder to have something like a fender made, the cost per part gets lower and lower as you buy more, so a three year run of bikes +10% may be ordered up front to keep costs low.
I was working on either an 08 or an 09 and found one plastic part that had been modified by hand to fit a little differently than it had been cast, which would tend to support the notion of big batches being produced.

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All I was saying was that the plastic part was made on a certain date, so the bike was assembled after that date. Shows it was made in 2010, not left over from a previous year.

I can only offer you perspective from 35 years in the North American OEM auto and the Federal requirements for a VIN number..... it is highly regulated for all vehicle assembly (you can imagine all kinds of things if it wasn't). The last 8 tell you Model Year, Assembly Plant code, and six digit serial number, i.e., if you have EA000010, you have a 2014 built in that manufacturer's plant A, the tenth unit. I not so sure it is legal to assemble ahead of time, as VIN plates have to be installed on the frame at the time of assembly. For cars, that VIN number is stamped on the body frame as well. The country and manufacturer are identified in the first part of the VIN.

In a modern assembly plant, the build homologation, while involved, isn't all that difficult. The bill of materials is known for every vehicle and option, computerized, they would simply ensure that the necessary parts are at line-side for the build, and if so, release sales orders into the system. A bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea. To build AE or AS FJR's the unique parts are mostly likely all that's required, likely batch built to reduce possiblity of error, etc. Mostly what I'm saying is, no need to build ahead of time, the sales folks usually won't release orders for what they can't sell, but they may build some small quantity they can't sell in that model year if demand turns out to be soft.

Just to really confuse you, auto manufacturers typically start their model year the prior summer, not unusual to find 2016 Dodge/Ford/GM's built starting in July/August 2015....... but that's high volume assembly compared to FJR's.

RaYzerman19 said:

I can only offer you perspective from 35 years in the North American OEM auto and the Federal requirements for a VIN number..... it is highly regulated for all vehicle assembly (you can imagine all kinds of things if it wasn't). The last 8 tell you Model Year, Assembly Plant code, and six digit serial number, i.e., if you have EA000010, you have a 2014 built in that manufacturer's plant A, the tenth unit. I not so sure it is legal to assemble ahead of time, as VIN plates have to be installed on the frame at the time of assembly. For cars, that VIN number is stamped on the body frame as well. The countjry and manufacturer are identified in the first part of the VIN.
In a modern assembly plant, the build homologation, while involved, isn't all that difficult. The bill of materials is known for every vehicle and option, computerized, they would simply ensure that the necessary parts are at line-side for the build, and if so, release sales orders into the system. A bit more complicated than that, but you get the idea. To build AE or AS FJR's the unique parts are mostly likely all that's required, likely batch built to reduce possiblity of error, etc. Mostly what I'm saying is, no need to build ahead of time, the sales folks usually won't release orders for what they can't sell, but they may build some small quantity they can't sell in that model year if demand turns out to be soft.

Just to really confuse you, auto manufacturers typically start their model year the prior summer, not unusual to find 2016 Dodge/Ford/GM's built starting in July/August 2015....... but that's high volume assembly compared to FJR's.

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I'm not sure of your point. I was trying to show which years the FJR1300AS (or AE) was made.
As I said in my first post, the VIN on my bike doesn't contain a date code, it's not mandated here in th UK, Yamaha have chosen not to put it in. This is the VIN plate on my 2010:

(click on image for larger view



If I put it into an on-line VIN decoder, I get this:

The VIN you entered (JYARP13E000001064) has an invalid check digit. The check digit is a value encoded into the VIN in order to protect against ...

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So that's no help .
Decoding by hand, all goes well until digit 9, the check digit. My guess is it's not been calculated, just left as zero.

Digit 10 is the year of manufacture, I quote from a decoding site:

Position 10The 10th letter or number of the VIN tells you the model year of the vehicle. Note that this may be different from when it was manufactured, as many automobile manufacturers start to produce next years model this year. Find the model year by matching the 10th digit of your VIN to the table below:

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And, guess what, zero isn't in the table.
The quote above does suggest the VIN date may not be the real date of manufacture.

The rest of the VIN is manufacturer dependent, but should contain the serial number.

Just checked the VIN of my 2014, it is similarly lacking after the first eight characters.

So I'm left with deriving the manufacturing date by less obvious clues.

My point was that modern systems can be used for builds such as the AS homologation at any time, not necessarily pre-built. However, given that your VIN has no specific model year or plant code, one can only speculate on when it was built. It may be an exemption, a generic code, EEC specific perhaps, but speculation nonetheless. The only qualified source to answer that is Yamaha, and it might be possible to find out via your local dealer, if Yamaha will share that info.

I stand by my belief that my 2010 was, in fact, built between January 2010 and July 2014 when I took ownership.

mcatrophy said:

I stand by my belief that my 2010 was, in fact, built between January 2010 and July 2014 when I took ownership.

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I agree. I don't understand why there is so much interest in explaining VIN codes to you, which are obviously different in the UK compared to in North America.

Sure they probably build them in batches, but yours was obviously built after 2010 and before you took possession in 2014.

I thought your use of the date code on the plastic was clever and showed excellent attention to detail.

RaYzerman19 said:

My point was that modern systems can be used for builds such as the AS homologation at any time, not necessarily pre-built. However, given that your VIN has no specific model year or plant code, one can only speculate on when it was built. It may be an exemption, a generic code, EEC specific perhaps, but speculation nonetheless. The only qualified source to answer that is Yamaha, and it might be possible to find out via your local dealer, if Yamaha will share that info.

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Homologation? OK, I'm out of this conversation. Maybe I'll just go watch the Blues @ Red Wings. I understand that.

El Toro said:

mcatrophy said:

I stand by my belief that my 2010 was, in fact, built between January 2010 and July 2014 when I took ownership.

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I agree. I don't understand why there is so much interest in explaining VIN codes to you, which are obviously different in the UK compared to in North America.

Sure they probably build them in batches, but yours was obviously built after 2010 and before you took possession in 2014.

I thought your use of the date code on the plastic was clever and showed excellent attention to detail.

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I don't know how you would know it was built after January 2010. If it's a 2010, it would be built from approximately October 2009 to about early September 2010. American VIN plates include the date of manufacture. That's how I know my bike was built in April 2007.

Comparijg US VINs to European VIN requirements is useless.

HotRodZilla said:

...I don't know how you would know it was built after January 2010...

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'Cos that's what the front fender mould markings show, explained (apparently somewhat inadequately ) in my first post in this thread. My guess is they wouldn't build the bike unless the whole kit of parts was available.

mcatrophy said:

HotRodZilla said:

...

I don't know how you would know it was built after January 2010...

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'Cos that's what the front fender mould markings show, explained (apparently somewhat inadequately ) in my first post in this thread. My guess is they wouldn't build the bike unless the whole kit of parts was available.

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Ah...I forgot you posted that. Good theory but wrong, and here's why:

With new technology, I haven't had to do it for a while, but we used to run into cars or motorcycles where we couldn't figure out what year they were. A "trick" was to look for the date on plastic moulded parts, say, 2010. The problem with that was this: If Ford made the same body style car from 2006 to 20013 and didn't change the lights, or plastics, a 2011 car would have plastics on them with the 2006 code, because that's when they originated. The date the specific piece of plastic was made was not displayed, at least not how we could read them. That basically gave us a date range to start sifting through. The dates stamped varied by manufacturer, and sometimes were year by year, but VERY seldom.

Your 2010 date stamp on your plastic does not mean it was made in 2010. It means that piece was made for 2010 model year bikes, even if that piece was made in September 2009.

I would suspect very few pieces of any vehicle have the exact same build date. The build date is attributed to the frame and maybe the motor, but everything else was pre-made and was simply taken out of a stock pile of parts to be bolted to a specific machine.

HotRodZilla said:

mcatrophy said:

HotRodZilla said:

...

I don't know how you would know it was built after January 2010...

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'Cos that's what the front fender mould markings show, explained (apparently somewhat inadequately ) in my first post in this thread. My guess is they wouldn't build the bike unless the whole kit of parts was available.

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Ah...I forgot you posted that. Good theory but wrong, and here's why:With new technology, I haven't had to do it for a while, but we used to run into cars or motorcycles where we couldn't figure out what year they were. A "trick" was to look for the date on plastic moulded parts, say, 2010. The problem with that was this: If Ford made the same body style car from 2006 to 20013 and didn't change the lights, or plastics, a 2011 car would have plastics on them with the 2006 code, because that's when they originated. The date the specific piece of plastic was made was not displayed, at least not how we could read them. That basically gave us a date range to start sifting through. The dates stamped varied by manufacturer, and sometimes were year by year, but VERY seldom.

Your 2010 date stamp on your plastic does not mean it was made in 2010. It means that piece was made for 2010 model year bikes, even if that piece was made in September 2009.

I would suspect very few pieces of any vehicle have the exact same build date. The build date is attributed to the frame and maybe the motor, but everything else was pre-made and was simply taken out of a stock pile of parts to be bolted to a specific machine.

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I come from the aerospace industry where traceability is much more important than any marketing time strategy, or whatever reason Ford or whoever may choose to do predictive markings. A proper date code would relate to everything that went into that product, one obvious example being the batch of plastic. Any faults occurring later could then be investigated properly. Yes, there could be a database relating the apparent date code with the batch.

There are punch marks for November and December of 2005. I don't think any Gen 2 bikes were made for sale in 2005. Also there are several punch marks corresponding to different months throughout each year, unlikely they'd be changed that often to predict which month they expected the bike to be sold, much more likely I would have thought to be for when they ran another batch.

While you may well be correct, and I would be prepared bow to your expert knowledge, I am yet to be convinced that these marks don't simply represent the part's manufacturing date.

Based on my experience, you want something a lot more reliable than plastic date codes. Preferable is something unique to the AS homologation, such as an ECU where a label is affixed or lazer etched on the part at time of its manufacture at the supplier. Shipping/storage/usage of that part is some point after that.

Perhaps the engine number but more likely the frame number contains a year code.

Looking back at the original post I think the date stamp n the plastic does indeed prove that a date stamp of 2010 proves that the "AE" "AS" was not discontinued and theta all of the current models are left overs.

Wasn't that the point ?

I am with mcatrophy on this one.