[gururajrv]

Seriously disheartening to see how big bikes are treated like any other bikes. Can’t blame the company but the dealership for sure.

Trust me when I say this - be it big brand in 2 wheeler / a big brand in 4 wheeler, companies hardly have any control over the dealerships at all. Take ordeals faced and recorded by members on this forum - you can find problems from any brand be it indian / foreign, it’s the dealership mentality all that matters in after sales area of ownership with vehicles. It’s sad there’s no governing body against dealerships that would’ve kept such scenarios under good watch or even under a leash!

I hope the bike is back in its shape and is running as it was before ignore this and ignore giving any more chances to that dealership before they ruin the heart of the bike.

May be ride to a different dealership next time even if it demands you riding for few hundred kms! I know it’s hard but couple of hundred kms on the clock would save you from losing lakhs paid on the bike and saving peace of mind which is invaluable!

Ride safe, Neil!

Regards

RV

[Yieldway17]

Reading all these reviews of poor service experiences provided by almost all the premium motorcycle brands across the country, I wonder why people even give them business and some repeatedly.

The motorcycles themselves are almost always great definitely out of the factory and are extremely desirable but unless they come with lifetime maintenance free operation (which is impossible) why even bother with to put up with this poor ownership experience?

Sometimes heart overrides the mind but in these cases, my mind will say a hard no to go with these brands and instead settle for an inferior product which I know either will be provided decent service by the brand or at least have reliable FNG options. These experiences read like a nightmare to live with after spending lakhs of rupees.

[jkdas]

Seems Triumph guys met Niel last day. Hope Niel updates the details here.

I too own a Triumph bike ( actually my second bike from Syama).

[neil.jericho]

Surprise surprise, posting my experience on TBHP and the posts being taken to a separate thread by the mods, magically woke up the Triumph Cochin dealership folks who, just a few short days ago, were happy to brush off my concerns by saying that my bike was behaving normally. I am genuinely glad that this time they were proactive in reaching out to me, instead of waiting for me to write to Triumph India regarding the lack of support from them. Anyways, they wanted to meet to discuss my concerns and prove that they have used actual Triumph HD4X coolant, so I asked them to come over on Saturday itself. We ended up having a 2 1/2 hour long discussion on various topics, let me sum up the key points.

For context, I have created the below table to summarize how we got here, this should help explain the journey to everyone in a simple format.

Coolant used - Original or not?
The dealership team opened a bottle of new Triumph HD4X coolant in front of me and poured the contents of it into a plastic bottle for us to do a side by side visual comparison. They also poured some of the contents of the coolant into the cap so we could compare it to what Jaggu and I shared earlier. Honestly, I was very relieved to see that it looked close enough to what we extracted from my bike, the contents from my motorcycle being slightly more dark could be due to the some of the gunk from the radiator. I am convinced that the Triumph team has used the original coolant when they replaced the old 2 1/2 year old coolant, so that puts to rest all concerns that we had regarding what was poured into the bike's radiator at the dealership.

Process followed at the SVC
The team had completely drained the old coolant from my bike and replaced it with the new HD4X coolant. No flush was done as that is not part of Triumph's official process for coolant change. That probably explains why the radiator cleaner when mixed with the few days old HD4X looked positively black in colour in the pan.

Stalemate
The discussion hit a dead wall for a while as the Triumph team felt that I had not adequately represented the efforts from their side as part of my update related to the 2nd of November in the opening post. They mentioned that they had done a lot of work towards comparing my bike and the other bike side by side and they had found that my bike was working perfectly fine.

My point of contention was that I had mentioned their comparison and the thumbs up from their technical side but they still did not catch the heating issue!

What about the heating issue?
So as per the Triumph guys, my bike was running fine at the end of stage 3 and stage 4, as per their technical diagnosis. They kept sticking to this.

I asked if the fan running on for 3 hours on a continuous ride, on a loop with less traffic, on a cloudy day with no sun, meant that my bike was running fine. They agreed that the bike wasnt running fine in that case.

I gave specific highway sections where I rode my bike at 70-80 kmph, in 5th gear for 10 minutes and asked if the fan being on continuously, was normal. They agreed that it wasnt.

I asked if another customer called and asked them if the fan running on for 3 hours on his / her biker was normal, what would they say? They agreed that they would say that it wasnt.

But still, they felt that my bike was behaving normally as per their diagnosis.

I will leave it to you to draw your own conclusions from these contradictions.

So, only glaring technical misses?
With the depth of their technical analysis capabilities firmly established by now, I feel that the biggest mistake from the dealership side was to just shrug their shoulders at the end of Stage 4 (which was on the 4th of November) and just tell me it is what it is and ignore the fact that the issue wasnt resolved. I can understand that it might have been a tricky situation for the gentleman at the center of this decision, after all his technical team was (incorrectly) telling him that the bike was fine and here I was, going back to them for the 3rd time saying that the bike was overheating and it was something that their team had inadvertently introduced. But, as I explained to him, he could have just said he will take it back once more and then reached out to Triumph India or maybe some other dealerships, and tried to find out more from a technical perspective to bring this to closure, both for them and for me. Instead, he took the easy way out and to me it was clear that the dealership had washed its hands off the heating issue and hence we are where we are today.

What next?
I have promised to update them on the findings of my RCA. In fact, I had promised them the same even on the 4th of Nov, though they had already made it abundantly clear that they were not going to do anything more for me at that point of time. I am concerned that the other bike (belongs to an owner in Trivandrum) used for comparison has a major heating issue and the dealership is unaware of it, I have tried to make them understand this.

The dealership also wanted to ride my bike to check if the heating issue has dissapeared.

Anyways, I have not had time to do enough riding of the bike, both before and after the meeting. I did a 60 km ride today morning (slightly sunny and humid conditions) and I can safely say that the bike is running much cooler in Stage 5 as compared to everything that the dealership felt was normal between stage 2 and 4.

I feel that I am on the right path to fixing this, it is a shame that I have to waste my time in doing all this testing and diagnosis, instead of the dealer doing it in the first place.

Summary
I paid over Rs 26,000 at the last service in September. In the end, the dealer just let me high and dry with my overheating bike. I really wish they didnt wait for me to post it here on the forum (or anywhere, for that matter) and solved this like professionals.

P.S - in light of the above mentioned facts, I will be requesting the mods to change the title from Cochin Triumph dealership caught blatantly cheating me! to a more appropriate one, such as Triumph Cochin - Repeated service issues.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

P.S - in light of the above mentioned facts, I will be requesting the mods to change the title from Cochin Triumph dealership caught blatantly cheating me! to a more appropriate one, such as Triumph Cochin - Repeated service issues.

My best guess on why they really reached out to you is just to have you change the title of this thread to be technically/politically correct - they really don't care about the publicity, shame and technical incompetence from being unable to diagnose and fix the overheating issue nor are they going to do anything about it.

I think it's just time you moved on with getting the issue fixed and having the vehicle serviced elsewhere going forward.

[shan_ned]

Neil, I still think not to change the title. The reasons are :-

1) The Cochin Svc tried to cheat you by saying that they replaced the coolant when you dropped your bike for the first time. In fact they even tried to give you some stupid logic and mislead when you asked them about the coolant replacement. If they had admitted their mistake during your very first visit, then it is a different issue. It’s only after you went public, the manager came and accepted the mistake.

2) When you dropped your bike third time due to overheating (after they replaced the coolant during your second visit), they again tried to mislead you by saying the bike was running normally. Even a dumb guy will tell you that there is a problem if the fan is running continuously. You test rode the bike and immediately found out the overheating. On the other hand, they had enough time (and that too with technicians) to test your bike and they still claimed that it was running with no overheating. Being a dealer and owning a service
Center for more than a couple of years, their technicians must be experienced enough to know if a bike has an overheating issue or not. Rather than admitting the issue, they came out with a very weird explanation that your bike was running cooler when compared with another Street Triple. Is this the way how they diagnose a problem for overheating ?. Is it that they do not have enough experience to know or find out about engine overheating with street triple ?. Street triple is one of the bikes which run cooler than any other bigger bikes. So it looks more of an attempt from their side to hide their incompetency in doing RCA and that’s what forced them to lie once more that your bike was running fine.


So how many times do they keep telling lies ?.
I understand that they approached you to help you out. Again they did that only when you went out public. So this is still a classic case of cheating and misleading (Intentional) a customer.

[AMG Power]

Wow!!

From

Calling them rogues, frauds, liars, blatant cheats:

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

Not only have they been caught lying again, they have deliberately put in substandard junk in my motorcycle and fraudulently claimed that it is an original Triumph product. What sort of rogue, we will continue to do what we want behaviour, is this? dealership.

To

a casual dismissal that you are "relieved"?

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

I was very relieved to see that it looked close enough to what we extracted from my bike, the contents from my motorcycle being slightly more dark could be due to the some of the gunk from the radiator. I am convinced that the Triumph team has used the original coolant when they replaced the old 2 1/2 year old coolant, so that puts to rest all concerns that we had regarding what was poured into the bike's radiator at the dealership.

The amount of damage, mud slinging and false claims you have made against an innocent dealer would be enough to launch defamation suits against you by Triumph India and its dealer. If this was in the US, this wouldn't have been the end of it.

Based on what's happened so far, in all probability the rest of your assumptions would also be wrong and just another error on your part.

Don't know what's worse, such blatant false accusations against an unsuspecting dealer or the actual act of not changing the coolant even if that had happened.

[krishnaprasadgg]

I really did not want to comment on this post before Neil gets a chance but here goes.

Originally Posted by AMG Power

The amount of damage, mud slinging and false claims you have made against an innocent dealer would be enough to launch defamation suits against you by Triumph India and its dealer. If this was in the US, this wouldn't have been the end of it.

Lol. That's rich.
Maybe you should read the thread and the supporting thread made by Jaggu where the previous ordeal suffered by Neil has been recorded to understand the blatant lying done by the "innocent" dealer, this coolant issue is just a part of a bigger screwup by the dealership in the very same service job.

If the lying with regards to the heating issue wasn't enough Neil has already mentioned very clearly that the dealership on multiple occasions has taken steps to cut corners or waste material by this "innocent" dealer (engine oil) which the customer paid for, and then lie through their nose stating it's a prescribed procedure only for TI to confirm that it is not, the same thing happened with the first coolant replacement change.

Also on every single occasion, the dealership has come forward and accepted there only after the problem being posted online. So much for honesty.

And what is the whole point of the "if this was in the US" has to do with anything?

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Based on what's happened so far, in all probability the rest of your assumptions would also be wrong and just another error on your part.

I'll let Neil get to that comment.

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Don't know what's worse, such blatant false accusations against an unsuspecting dealer or the actual act of not changing the coolant even if that had happened.

If it isn't clear yet, the problem was never if they replaced the coolant or not the main issue is the bike still having an obvious heating problem even after 3 visits to the svc for that reason and the dealership claiming nothing is wrong. The issue of dirty coolant was a related issue.

What about the heating issue?
So as per the Triumph guys, my bike was running fine at the end of stage 3 and stage 4, as per their technical diagnosis. They kept sticking to this.

I asked if the fan running on for 3 hours on a continuous ride, on a loop with less traffic, on a cloudy day with no sun, meant that my bike was running fine. They agreed that the bike wasnt running fine in that case.

I gave specific highway sections where I rode my bike at 70-80 kmph, in 5th gear for 10 minutes and asked if the fan being on continuously, was normal. They agreed that it wasnt.

I asked if another customer called and asked them if the fan running on for 3 hours on his / her biker was normal, what would they say? They agreed that they would say that it wasnt.

But still, they felt that my bike was behaving normally as per their diagnosis.

I will leave it to you to draw your own conclusions from these contradictions.

I don't know about you but this is what I would clearly say that the Dealership was and is continuously lying when they say they have sorted the issue.

Cheers
Krishna

[AMG Power]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

understand the blatant lying done by the "innocent" dealer,

I guess you didn't read the last paragraph where there's a request for the "lying" and "cheating" part to be removed.

Originally Posted by neil.jericho

P.S - in light of the above mentioned facts, I will be requesting the mods to change the title from Cochin Triumph dealership caught blatantly cheating me! to a more appropriate one, such as Triumph Cochin - Repeated service issues.

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

this coolant issue is just a part of a bigger screwup by the dealership in the very same service job.

What coolant "issue" ? There was no "issue" with the coolant.

[shan_ned]

Krishnaprasad, We all can clearly see the tactics employed to shield the dealer. We also see an indirect threat and bullying. This only goes further to say what sort of dealer is present in Cochin. Neil has been open and honest enough to document all the details.

A simple question - The bike had no overheating issue before the coolant change. After the dealer did some thing to change the coolant, the overheating issue started. Now, what did they do to create the problem ?. Even though the bike was returned back to Svc for a through investigation, why was the coolant condition not checked ?. We know how darkish it was. We still do not know what actually the dealer did on the coolant replacement. If they made sincere attempts to accept the problem, this thread wouldn’t have come.

I suspect that the dealer is indulging in character assassination.

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by AMG Power

I guess you didn't read the last paragraph where there's a request for the "lying" and "cheating" part to be removed.

That is something Neil feels needs to be changed AFTER the service center decided to give him more context on something. Which means they weren't proactive on it before. Instead of calling the OP a liar I'd say he decided to change his opinion after more context was laid on him. Which is only logical if you ask me.

Originally Posted by AMG Power

What coolant "issue" ? There was no "issue" with the coolant.

Ok, let me be more specific this time

* The bike was running considerably hotter than when the bike was presented to the svc for service.
* The indication of muddled coolant in the reservoir after the first coolant change
* The color of the coolant at the point of the draining process, and then finally after a proper radiator flush and new coolant(brand here is not important) the bike considerably cooler

And all this while the svc admitting that the bike heating up like this is not normal but somehow there is nothing wrong with the bike's cooling system or with the thing they did. Is the contradiction in the words of the dealership not clear or do you still feel the OP did the screwup on his side? It's pretty clear to me who is in the wrong here.

If you can't solve an issue, own up and say that I can't figure it out, and say either you won't be able to help further or tell that you will need some time to discuss with TI and help you fix the issue. The approach of yes it shouldn't behave like that and then also saying no there is no issue is not the smartest way to do things.

Originally Posted by shan_ned

A simple question - The bike had no overheating issue before the coolant change. After the dealer did some thing to change the coolant, the overheating issue started. Now, what did they do to create the problem ?. Even though the bike was returned back to Svc for a through investigation, why was the coolant condition not checked ?. We know how darkish it was. We still do not know what actually the dealer did on the coolant replacement. If they made sincere attempts to accept the problem, this thread wouldn’t have come.

Couldn't have summed it up better.


Cheers
Krishna

[AMG Power]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

bike heating up like this is not normal but somehow there is nothing wrong with the bike's cooling system

Engines running hot do not necessarily indicate a problem with the cooling system. Even if the cooling system is okay engines can still overheat due to various reasons - improper oil circulation, more than normal friction inside the engine due to wear and tear, grade of oil used, improper oil levels, oil pump failure / oil pump working erratically and more.

Additionally be it cars or bikes, the coolant does not have the property of cooling the engine but is more an antifreeze and has a higher boiling point to prevent evaporation. So the change of coolant cannot increase engine temperatures unless the change has resulted in some other damage such as the coolant circulation valve being damaged or a thermostat malfunction (that would be a problem with the cooling system).

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Engines running hot do not necessarily indicate a problem with the cooling system.

Then it might be magic then that once a proper flush/coolant change done the right way seemed to have contained the problem to a great extent.

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Even if the cooling system is okay engines can still overheat due to various reasons - improper oil circulation, more than normal friction inside the engine due to wear and tear, grade of oil used, improper oil levels, oil pump failure / oil pump working erratically and more.

Now if your theory is to be examined then if the bike has "improper oil circulation, more than normal friction inside the engine due to wear and tear, the grade of oil used, improper oil levels, oil pump failure/oil pump working erratically and more",

Why was it not bought up / diagnosed by the svc techs when it came in for the yearly service anyways, bike was taken in by the techs 3 times and "examined" and yet they failed to find any of the other reasons why the bike is heating up more than usual. Surely they are competent enough to understand if that there was a potential issue like this then. As per their expert opinion, nothing else is at fault here, doesn't that again just point more towards the fact that the coolant change might not have been executed properly?

If I were facing this issue, what I'd first do is to properly flush /purge the system to make sure there is no gunk in the system(which there was when OP got it drained at another shop as the folks at Cochin didn't want to do it again) even though maybe TI doesn't mention this in their service manual? Isn't that how you troubleshoot a problem? Or am I just getting ahead of myself?

Originally Posted by AMG Power

Additionally be it cars or bikes, the coolant does not have the property of cooling the engine but is more an antifreeze and has a higher boiling point to prevent evaporation.

Coolant passes through the coolant passages in the block and takes the heat away from the engine/block and passes through the radiator where the air passing through/fan cools the coolant down and the coolant makes the cycle again, it's not rocket science. It's easy to understand that if you use muddles/dirty coolant or if there are air pockets in the coolant system the coolant efficiency reduces.

Antifreeze is a term used in Western or European areas where they potentially use the vehicles at -0 degrees C or lower and engine working at below optimal temperature is also detrimental(there very much is a concept of a cooling system being too efficient and causing damage to the vehicle) to the machine and the coolant freezing over is a problem, hence the term "Antifreeze"

Originally Posted by AMG Power

So the change of coolant cannot increase engine temperatures unless the change has resulted in some other damage such as the coolant circulation valve being damaged or a thermostat malfunction (that would be a problem with the cooling system).

Cannot? Are you sure about that? I understand if you don't want to experiment on your own vehicles this, but just search on youtube to see how different the engine heat management vary on the same load on the same engine that runs on
a. manufacturer prescribed coolant
b. just distilled water used as the coolant
c. coolant with higher boiling & freezing point is used

And then if you can still come and state for a fact that changing a coolant cannot increase engine temperature then clearly the wide amount of different coolants with different boiling/freezing point offered in the market is just snake oil being sold


Getting back to the topic at hand, from the OP's side, it's very clearly mentioned that the bike is not boiling over instead the cooling mechanism (the fan) is working overtime as opposed to the usual way it did pre this coolant "change", also to note that once the flush/coolant change was correctly done by an FNG the coolant system is not running on overdrive as before.

I don't see why this is so hard to understand or you seem to overlook this simple fact being raised again and again by multiple members.

Anyways, I have neither the time nor the inclination to indulge in this topic anymore. So take what you want to take out of it. No hard feelings.

Cheers
Krishna

[AMG Power]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

Then it might be magic..

Anyways, I have neither the time nor the inclination to indulge in this topic anymore.

Neither do I. Let's leave it to magic to sort things out.

[neil.jericho]

Folks, at the outset, let me first thanks everyone who has replied here on the forum as well as everybody outside of it, who have been a tremendous help and support to me in some way, shape or form over the last few weeks. I know it is improper etiquette to not reply to everyone who has taken time out to reply here (and even on the Tiger 900 thread where I planned to post in detail on the Tiger 900 Rally Pro but havent been able to yet), but I have absolutely had my hands full with this heating issue and trying to resolve it at my own time and cost. I cant even count the number of hours that I have lost with the dealer, testing my own bike at different stages, going to the FNG, trying to fix it and prove that I was right all along. Oh, and also trying to have a normal life outside of all this.

Since there appear to be some doubts here and elsewhere, over what are the actual improvements I found when I was forced to take matters into my own hands, below is a snapshot from 60 km ride yesterday morning (slightly sunny and humid conditions, as I mentioned)
- the temperature gauge was showing either 5 or 6 bars. It was mostly 5 bars. I have taken 2 pictures with the trip meter to prove this. I have shared this with the dealership as well.
- But even with 6 bars on the dash, when I stopped and checked, the fan was not running at all.
- The fan comes on only when I stop and leave the bike to idle for a few minutes.
- In that case, within a few minutes of riding, the fan goes off again.

All of these are very clear improvements over what the dealership feels is normal and is close to what it used to be with 2.5 year old coolant (Stage 1 / pre service). That said, these were in certain conditions, and that is why I said I need to ride it more to see how the bike behaves in varied conditions. Needless to say, I will post the complete findings of whether or not my attempt to fix this has been successful. And I will continue to keep the SVC updated as well to help them.

I understand that not everyone reading this may agree with my experiences and that many of them may have had great experiences with the same SVC. We are all entitled to our different opinions, and we are all entitled to share them on the forum and social media. But it doesnt change the facts.