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New user
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has issued a recall notice for a number of 2014-2015 model-year Victory motorcycles owing to a potential crankcase issue. Included in the recall are the 2014 Victory Cross Country, Cross Country Eight Ball, Hammer Eight Ball, High Ball, Jackpot, Judge, Ness Cross Country, Vegas Eight Ball, Vision, Boardwalk and the 2015 Gunner. The 872 potentially affected units were manufactured between January 22, 2014 and April 25, 2014.
According to the defect notice submitted by Polaris Industries Inc., ?Victory has determined that some crankcases may have been manufactured with insufficient clearance between the crankshaft and crankcases which can result in too little crankshaft endplay?Engines assembled using a faulty crankcase may unexpectedly seize. This could cause the vehicle operator to lose control, increasing the risk of a vehicle crash.?
To-date there have been no reports of engine failures from the public and Victory discovered the issue during quality control assessments on the production line. Procedure dictates that all engines be ?started and ran at the end of the production line. These engines are not in chassis at this point and are attached to an engine run-up stand.? On March 26, 2014 one of the engines seized due to the aforementioned issue, and further investigation resulted in two additional engine failures in mid-April.
The defect notice goes on to conclude that ?Victory?s investigation has determined that the vendor?s quality control measures had allowed some out-of-specification crankcases to be delivered to Victory.?
Victory has begun to notify owners of affected models and are asking that motorcycles included in the recall not be ridden until a dealer has conducted an inspection and made any necessary repairs. Victory has also issued a stop sale notification to its dealer network until the problem can be remedied.
Crankcase clearance will be fixed free of charge on motorcycles found to have the defect. Owners may contact Polaris at 1-888-704-5290 for more information. Owners may also go to www.safecar.gov or call the NHTSA Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236 for details. The NHTSA campaign number is 14V227000.
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Visionary
Posts: 4278
| I think Vic will replace your hole bike with a new one. Most shop don't have techs that can tear a motor down and put it back together and Vic wouldn't want to warranty there work I bet |
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Visionary
Posts: 3773
Pittsburgh, PA | years ago, the honda gold wings aluminum had to be RE-welded and since its aluminum and a frame, there was a lot of responsibility tied to these fixes.. all honda did ,(or was required to do then) was repair the multiple welds.. major work involved. victory could either repair or just replace the motors. If honda wasnt required to (buy back) the motorcycles. i doubt victory would either. the bad PR alone... (of having to buy back motorcycles) would be a lot worse than just repairing them.... Especially in a market Dominated by another U.S. marker.. you would take a Victory motor out of their bikes pretty quickly and then either repair or replace.. |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 721
| What I fine most interesting is not the recall issue, it is the total number of motorcycles built during a period that is basically a full quarter of the year, that number being 872.
That is not even 3500 motorcycles for a entire production year and a huge decrease from 2009.
Is this a sign that even though Victory has been doing significant advertising that the brand is starting to fall back?
Perhaps this vindicates Polaris' decision to push all efforts on the new Indian brand? |
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Visionary
Posts: 2300
Georgia, west of Atlanta | I've never worked for a motor vehicle manufacturer, bit I have worked for a maufacturing facility and every 100 parts being produced went to inspection. Why did it take 872 units and a blow up on an engine stand ?? Not slamming just curious, is this normal protocol in the motor industry?? |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 1066
Peru, IN | Travelin Man - 2014-05-06 7:41 PM ...not even 3500 motorcycles for a entire production year... I doubt that's right. According to the latest NTSHA (NHTAS? NHTSA?) investigation on the Vision fenders, there were almost 9000 produced from '08-'13. That would be a little over 1000 Visions alone every year. I highly doubt 1 out of every 3.5 Victorys were Visions. Maybe more like 1 out of every 8 or 10. I'd guess yearly sales figures (across the entire line) would be closer to 15-20k/year. |
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Visionary
Posts: 2300
Georgia, west of Atlanta | Yes the number seemed extremely low to me. But the inspection thing still kinda puzzles me......
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Visionary
Posts: 8144
New Bohemia, VA | While serious, I don't see this as a big deal. I know folks still try to count the number of units sold, all Victory looks at is profit, and building a great machine. Polaris just looks at the overall units, I'm sure. To have a recall of such a small number, it is good that are agressively applying a fix. The way I understand the Victory production line, I'm surprised this wasn't caught sooner, and I'm sure their QC will tighten up to keep things like this happening again. I'm trying to make sense out of the inspection and fix, and I think I might understand it. It may be the thrust was not seated properly, but KevinX can provide that detail. |
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Visionary
Posts: 2300
Georgia, west of Atlanta | I agree. Polaris will get this fixed and six months from now it will be forgoten except by those that were effected. Just tighten up the inspection process and move on. Here's too victory selling at least 10,000 units this year........... |
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Tourer
Posts: 416
Prairie City, IA United States | No knowing how the engines are produced I am only speculating that one of several assembly lines in the engine plant was producing bad parts. This might be an explanation for the small amount of bikes recalled. |
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Victory Recall Notice for Crankcase Defect
