I am sorry for my absence, this Christmas was intense and I actually sold my Tracer..
Here is why:
The Yamaha MT09 Tracer is an amazing all around motorcycle that provides the user a compromise between touring comfort and sportiness. For me the problem is that when I aimed to the market searching for a motorcycle, I wanted to get something that would satisfy both my Adrenalin wishes, as well as provide some long distance comfort, as this was supposed to be a motorcycle that I would enable me to take my wife for a weekend and enjoy the scenario, well a bit more than half of it worked out.
Needless to say I went to the dealers and try'd to experience as much adventure style motorcycles as possible, within my taste and budget, so some where second hand with few kms other more kms and more extras and so on, some of the models I tested:
Triumph Tiger 1200
Triumph Tiger 800
Bmw GS 1200
Bmw GS 800
Yamaha FZ600
Yamaha FZ1
Yamaha Mt09 Tracer
Honda Transalp
Why I decided for the MT09 Tracer, well there is a deeper connection between this motorcycle and a super sports, what I mean with this is that, it is defined in its character , handling and powerful torque CP3 engine, meaning I expected her to provide us nice touring capabilities and if I would desire to crank the throttle it should definitely make my arm pits sweaty.
First issue..
It was noticed when I was at the dealer buying the motorcycle, the accelerator was getting stuck due to the OEM yamaha heated grips elements. Heated grip elements changed and the issue went away, later on it became apparent there was an engineering design flaw, the right grip (the one it should actually stay on all the time), it would go colder than the left, reason why, the previous owner made a small tin foil mod which was blocking the accelerator.
Second issue..
after 2 or 3 days of riding, I noticed I was getting a sored neck, how could this be? its an upstraight motorcycle, its supposed to provide with a more relaxed ride.. well the OEM windscreen creates a stupid massive amount of upper torso wind buffeting.. even adjusting it (with the also extremelly bad designed adjustable windshield bracket) won't provide any difference, so I decided to investigaste over this matter, everyone had the same problem..
Third issue..
Speed wobbles, well I lost a bit of confidence on the motorcycle when I got a speed wobble at 185kms/h out of nothing, this lead me to reading and realizing the front suspension of the Tracer is a budget suspension and it definitely needs the user to dial in the right settings, dampening is controlled only on the right shock ... uuuh big no no, sad and disappointing, I also tested with different windscreens, no wind screen (was the best) no handguards (aileron reverse effect on steering).
Forth issue..
and to be honest the worst of all, the seat, both passenger and driver, I mean, the next motorbike I buy Im going to test it for at least 3 hours, max I could drive for about 1hr , then I would need to start lifting up on the pegs to aliviate pressure on the cocxis, a lot of users reported these issues with comfort. The bracket used by Yamaha to change seat height brakes easily, the plastic fairings right below tend to crack due to bad design of the components.
Fifth issue..
Rust.. well in order to comply with EU regulations, the process of anti rust treatment has been drastically reduced, wich in turn gives us rusty rear shocks and some other parts. My rear shock after our trip to Stelvios pass presented a drop of oxidized water coming from the inside of the assembly (notice that this shock was resprayed with ACF50 by the dealer 2 days after I bought the bike).
sixth issue..
TCT time chain tensioner failure.. replaced under warranty. Obviously the throttle bodies got out of sync.. resulting on rough idle.
Conclusion
I had this motorcycle for 8 months, I have to admit, it has never let me down, always started and never stopped for no apparent reason. Reliability is something I love about Yamaha, my 2004 R6 is the living proof of this, 50.000kms and still has at least another 20 or 30k out of her for sure.
The sum of all these issues and the fact that I mainly bought this bike as a touring and daily motorcycle, ultimately let me to gave up on her and look for something else. She will be missed!!