Yamaha tells a Whopper about the R6 and gets caught

:eek1 http://www.motorcycledaily.com/01february06_redline.htm

wow, that is unbelievable that they tried to pull that off...

That sucks for them...but it still sounds very pleasurable at 16,000rpms...

Big gaff, but not enough to ruin such an excellent package.

Oh, don't be apologists for Yamaha....that number was on the cover of every single squid/ cycle magazine on the planet...

as the article states, for them to blame this on tachometer error is pure disingenious...

Uh, lemme think. Advertising fluff ='s Cha Ching! $$$

Sad for them though. Bye bye credibility.

This year the SAE finally asked automakers who sell in the US to adhere to the standard. End result...many Asian autos were significantly OVERRATED.
Ex: Honda's V6 went from 255hp to 244hp! :huh

How? They didn't have ANYTHING connected to the engine, like say the steering pump, when testing previously. Downgrades all around. Advertising has been changed after the fact to reflect the new #'s. Hysterical.

Most companies will do this kind of crap until someone calls them on it.

I don't think it was intentional. Yamaha knows that as soon as they relaese the new bike all the magazines, speed shops and race teams are going to be all over them with all kinds of measuring equipment. Now, weather or not the engeniers said that they wer egong to deliver someting and then kept thier mouth shut when they failed to save face I don't know but as far as the parent company intentionaly trying to decieve people You don't get to be a CEO by being nieve.

ken

The Japlanders have been telling untruthes and tall talls about thier motorbikes since day one.....

Just look at the claimed dry and/or wet weights of any one of thier bikes....

They lie about weight, HP, you name it.....all a crock of Shit......

The Europeans are a little bit better, but are also not without a little white lie in advertizing....

Anything to make the sale...

If the manufacturers gave out actual specs we, the buying public would be shocked at how heavy, slow, and anemic our bikes really were/are......

I think tha Yamaha should be sued for this one though...the rev limiter is set at 16,200 rpm....no way it will rev to 17,500 unless the limiter was reset.....

They out and out lied to the public and rigged the tachs to support the lie, just to sell the product...

Yamaha can Kiss my Butt...........

:fyyff

Marketing vs. Engineering.

Who cares about the marketing screw-ups, its still a very fine machine. I sure wouldn't mind one for track duty myself. The high/low comp adjusters are certainly a nice touch not often found on street stuff.

My guess on what happened is that the engineers planned on 17.5K (or close to 17.5K with typical fudge factors) and that started the ball rolling to make this a centerpeice of the marketing campagn. But late in development, they were noting reliability/durability issues at this lofty RPM, and since the power peak is down at 14.5K (the R6 has always had the higher redline, not to make more power, but to provide for overrun capability and less shfting at the track), the warranty bean counters intervened and said that Yamaha couldn't afford so many blown engines for a feature that has so little practical value.

So a quick ECU rev-limiter reprogramming and a little tom-foolery in the stepper motor in the tach and all was well with the world. Until they got caught. Now anyone with half a brain would realize that they were going to get caught, but corporations do stupid things and people in corporations are loath to go in and tell their bosses they did a stupid thing.

On the scale of corporate false promises, this one isn't as bad as the Mustang and Miata incidents where the cars made 10+% less power than advertised, but it's still not good.

And Yamaha is handling it poorly witih the tach error explanation which conveniently forgets that the ECU and rev-limiter get their RPM signal from a crankshaft position sensor, not the tach. If they just fess'd up now, they could probably just attribute the whole thing to "specificatoins are subject to change without notice" but if there is a smoking gun that that knew about the error while they continued to advertise the bikes as having a 17.5K redline, they could be in enough hot water that they'll be forced to refund money to those who now don't want the bike.

As an aside, this whole thing illustrates just how hard the Japanese are trying to one-upmanship each other with each new generation of sportbike. And they're reaching some natural limits on the natural track of lighter, faster, and higher-revving. Personally, I think they're making some poor durability tradeoffs for dubious benefit. I have a 2001 R6 and was going to trade, but I'm having 2nd thoughts on exactly what I'm getting with the new bike.

- Mark

Go back and read the complete article in the link.............the engineers had to of known about this as they were the ones that programmed the ECU and the rev-limiter.

You say that a CEO has to be honest and not naive?...................

Well, I'll reserve my opinion of your opinion to keep tis out of JM but if you re-read my tiny, simple little post with the same zael that you read the article you will note that I conjected that the engeniers WERE THE ONES WHO SCREWED IT UP/CHANGED IT/COVERED IT UP and I never said that any one was expected to be honest. Naive no, honest.... Maybe?

As I recall, the Mazda RX8 had to change its horsepower numbers 2 or 3 times, each time dropping closer to the truth.

I could honestly care less about this error. The new R6 looks like a completely kick ass bike, and I have seriously thought about getting one. I can't even imagine revving the thing to 16K, much less 17.5K. I know for some that is a huge deal though.

I think the Europeans take the whole truth in advertising thing a lot more seriously. I know BMW, Audi, etc, usually seem to advertise their cars on the light side of the specs, because the laws are much more strict about false advertisement. If you say it will do something, it had better do it.

It'll be interesting to see what the fallout from this is. Hey, maybe someone with a 50th anniversery R6 will dump it on the market cheap because the new Honda (or whatever) revs 200rpm higher or something.

If I was buying a new bike for the track it would be the R6 hands down. Unfortunately, I'm not.

There is nuthin more funner than late braking a little I-4 into a corner, banging down gears, getting on the gas early & pegging it exiting the corner in the power band and letter 'er scream through the gears as ya get set for the next corner.

Sweet machine. I need a tissue.

We always used to joke about how Japanese horsepower ratings seemed to be taken at the wrist pin ... car's or bike's - we couldn't figure out how their rating systm worked out the issues with the rotary engines...

I hate being lied to. The bike looks fantastic, but I won't spend my money on a product that was deliberately misrepresented in this fashion. I've spent enough time on high strung 4 cylinder bikes and racetracks to know that the extra rev limit wasn't necessary, but jeebus, don't lie to us about it just to sell a bike. The rest of the bike is so damn good it didn't need the help of the lofty redline in order to have market appeal.

While certainly not the best track-only bike, Triumph's Daytona 675 is looking better and better. Certainly a more useable package in a combination of street and track than the yam-bag.

Bueller

I was at our local Vancouver Motorcycle Show last weekend, and they had the red 675.......the best looking sportbike there, by far IMHO, and you can just imagine how many sportbikes there were to look at when all the companies were well represented.

The narrowness and detail on this bike is so nice, now factor in a unique motor and a sound from above, and this should be a FUN bike to have.


Most Beemer fans already like the unique side of things, and this should really fit in that mind set.


(sorry for the segue)

Like some others have said, I dont care that it won't rev to 17,500. I DO care that they are liars. Still looks like a sweet bike though.