LAAMservations and Whimsical Ruminations

[Bill Lumberg]

I got my long awaited LAAM seat in today. I had to go to the dealer first to have some left-out fasteners replaced. I suspected that the bike had been reassembled by an 8 year old epileptic with an Ouija board. But I can be a bit judgmental. They were a little defensive, I was short on patience. I just wanted the shit put back on, and their pride in their workmanship and protests that it could not have been their omission fell on deaf ears. But they took care of me, and apologized. And then I called the head mechanic the wrong name on the way out, and he's been my go to guy through a months long warranty problem. WINNING! The bike is in temporary whiplash reprieve, waiting on parts from Yamaha corporate. It will, if ridden, progress to whiplash/unridable over the next few weeks. But by that time, surely the Chinese version of Hogwarts will have sent the long awaited throttle body assemblies in by Owl. Getting some parts from the mothership is like SpaceX ordering up new booster parts.... What?? you want more of those? We just now custom made the first one to build<em class='bbc'> your </em>rocket. Call us in the fall..... All that said, even the jacked up bike was glorious to ride. It looked better, smelled better, handled in a more worldly fashion, all as a result of being shelved for so long. I'm confident that it's SAT scores would have been higher if queried today than before the long storage..<br />
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Anyway, back to the LAAM. Took a long time. But if you want a custom seat at low (for custom, anyway) prices, have another seat and chill. So I got home from the dealer, and unboxed the seat. I specified leather-look vinyl. Carbon fiber look is fine, but it's not my favorite. The interesting part, and the part that makes this unboxing review useless to 99.97% of all readers is that, I dumped the shitty stock seat a long time ago. I went with the Yamaha Comfort Seat (which, incidentally, comes ine carbon fiber look vinyl). <br />
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I've done a SS1K on the comfort seat, and ridden it for over a year of regular riding. It is superb. A little hard, but superb. Okay, that's bullshit. It is hard like trigonometry is for normal people (not you, Hud, Ionbeam, or you other jackasses around here, I said normal people). The comfort seat is a little higher than the original. A little wider. Much more saddle shaped. Sooo, I got off the herky-jerk machine after an hour on the comfort seat, swapped to the new LAAM, and headed back out. Herky-jerks aside, it was an enjoyable, if brief, jaunt. At one point, I spontaneously proclaimed "great Odin's raven, this is a delightful custom seat!". This caused the nearby soccer mom, at the small park where I was doing figure eights and stops, to summon her children to her SUV. She then spirited them away, unbelted, perchance to sample the tasty offerings at the nearest McNugget emporium. I silently wished them safe travels from my plush cushioned perch.<br />
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The LAAM is interesting. Strikingly attractive, it is softer than the comfort seat (despite my jokes, if you can get through a month of riding on the comfort, it becomes a little more accommodating, losing some of the cinderblock allure present when brand new. Actually, broken in, it's great). It (the LAAM) is wider at the ass (my wording, deal with it) than the comfort seat. The LAAM is actually narrower at the front of the seat than the comfort seat (the part you are concerned about when you are, hopefully, flat-footing the bike). With a LAAM, the potential concern for those with 32" and shorter inseams (and something Seth questions you about), is will you be able to comfortably work the bike with your feet down. Any custom seat is a little bit higher than the original seat. So is the Yamaha comfort seat. I had already had many miles of being used to the comfort seat's wideness at the front, and it's thickness/increased height versus the original factory seat. So when I put the LAAM on, it wasn't any higher than what I was used to. Maybe even a hair lower. And it was easier for this 32" inseam habitual Danner Acadia wearer to flatfoot than it is with the comfort seat. It kind of felt like the LAAM was missing the front part of the seat, since I've become accustomed to having extraneous comfort seat pressing against my thighs the whole day long.<br />
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I think the comfort seat is such an improvement over the original seat, it's worth the money and then some. As I become accustomed to the plusher and far more richly appointed LAAM, I have no doubt it will represent a leap in comfort over the, well, comfort seat, as the comfort seat did over the original factory seat. I'd order the comfort seat again. I'd order the LAAM seat again. The improvement from OEM to LAAM would surely make one's head nearly explode. I'm surprised anyone has survived it.

 

[dcarver]

Wouldn't it be easier to just put some fat on the backside? Maybe more donuts?

Congrats on the seat.. and does this mean your bike is back and fixed?

 

[Bill Lumberg]

Nope. It is not fixed. Things have been touch and go with Yamaha Corporate. I had to leave it at the dealer for an extended period of time. For diagnostics with yamaha's tech line, and then, about the time I was ready to park it in my garage for the long wait for parts, they decided to send the tech to check the bike. So, all that out of the way, with weeks left until the projected arrival of the parts from Yamaha corporate, I finally took it home for storage. Turns out my ridden-in-all-weather-fuck-danger bike that has always been garaged unless I'm actually on it, sat outside in months of rain and sun at the dealer every day. So, to make a long story like a monopoly game, no, it's not fixed at all. It fuels like the throttle is being handled by a drunken nun with a stun gun in one hand. But even that is nice after being earthbound so long. Part arrival date is evidently being determined by a stalwart gentleman using dowsing rods. It has ranged from October 22, to September 7th, and back to September 23rd.

 

[wheatonFJR]

Bill, admit it, yer drunk, aincha?

Glad one part of yer bike works. Here's to a great end of your FJR story.

 

[Bill Lumberg]

How does one respond to someone's good natured assertion that you are drunk? Pretty much says it all. <img src='https://www.fjrforum.com/forum//public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png' alt='Posted Image' class='bbc_emoticon' /> I wish I were wheaty. I wish I were. I'm too stupid to sound smart naturally, and too sober to actually be clever. God forbid, I'm working on a spreadsheet from work right now on my deck. I'm simply 3/4 ignorant on a good day. And I may find time to get that way (drunk) next week in the unholy pit that is the French Quarter. I just want to get the job done without having to call RFH to bail me out. He's a busy enough man, as it is.

 

[Mr_Canoehead]

Bill, the good news is the TB Assembly has been shipped. The bad news is that it is in a Yamaha container on a Hanjin container ship:

 

[El Toro]

When I read your story, it makes me realize how lucky I was back last Fall when my "new to me" '08 AE was being fixed with Mama Yama's help.

The dealership stuck with it. I had bought the bike from them, and they took it personally ... their good reputation for fair play was at stake.

On the less bright side, the dealership did not have any significant resident FJR knowledge, so they were pretty much flying blind.

On the very bright side though, they were persistent on the phone. They ordered parts from Japan like there was no tomorrow.... always one expensive part at a time. Guided by Yamaha's phone support, every 7 or 8 days a new multi-hundred dollar part would show up from Japan.

The drill was: order, wait for delivery, R&R the part, test on the bike, ... and sadly, most often the last step was to get advice from the phone support about what to try next since the part had not fixed the bike.

So ... This Kabuki Dance was no fun ... but the whole ordeal took something like maybe 6 weeks, and it ended happily when they finally were smart enough to realize that their swap of the ECU for a non AE model which made things worse, did not mean that my ECU for the AE model was OK. When they finally R&R'd the ECU with the correct part, the problem was fixed. Granted, this could have been done in the first week or two ... but all's well that ends well, and this rigamarole provided an incentive to buy an '09 too.

My point in this ramble is that your ordeal seems to be dragging out far longer ... and although you say the dealer has been working the problem, it sounds to me like they're tired of it, and would like you to just go away.

We come back to the idea that a good dealer is worth the weight of several FJRs in Gold.

And a bad dealer is like one of those vexacious daughters in law that are often part of stories in the Book of Genesis.

 

[wheatonFJR]

Bill, the good news is the TB Assembly has been shipped. The bad news is that it is in a Yamaha container on a https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2016/09/07/hanjin-shipping-seeks-us-bankruptcy-protection/89948440/]Hanjin container ship[/url]: :bleh:

That is just plain mean Mr canoeface.

 

[Kelvininin]

Trig isn't hard. reverse laplace transforms? now that shit is hard.

Nice review, Seth does put together some great butt cushions.

 

[art miller]

Interesting tales of woo and praise. Praise on the part of Laam seats. Thanks to our friend HotRodZilla, I will soon be riding in comfort on the Laam seat he just sold me for a very fair price.

Bill, I sure hope your bike gets fixed correctly ASAP!!