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Every company of any size occasionally produces products that have defects either of design or of manufacture. What's important is how the companies handle those situations. Unfortunately, Yamaha is doing what most companies seem to do these days...ignore the issue until it becomes so well documented that it has to be addressed. BMW Motorcycles is doing the same thing right now with their current generation boxer engine after the documented cases of failures became too obvious to ignore. I'm afraid what needs to be done is for the owners of models with this tower design to become organized and as a group.
The knobs were checked and tightened within an hour of the collapse. We were passing in very rough waters.So is this still an issue if you are checking them every trip and they are tight? I may be misunderstanding, but the issue was because of rough seas and vibration the knobs began loosening themselves adn eventually pulled out because they were stripped correct? I've been checking mine every trip but want to make sure that is sufficient. If they are tight I'm good?
Mine is the exact same way. It's slightly wider than the base so on my boat the starboard side I always have to pull the tower towards me (sitting inside the boat) before the bolt can line up to be screwed in.I can see this happening.
I actually had mine back at the dealer because I could not get the one side screwed back in properly. When I first lowered the tower the bolt was extremely hard to get out, obviously somewhat cross-threaded. My tower was about an inch and a quarter wider then the mount, I had to force the tower down to ensure that it was seated before installing the bolt. Took two of us minimum.
This x's a million. The tower is stout. It's the lame ass design of the threaded bolts at the rear of the base that is the issue. Had these AR style tower come with a better (thicker/beefier) base and side locking pin like the majority of nice towers out there on OEM boat this wouldn't be an issue.It is beyond me why they didn't do a cross pin like the 242X / 212X tower. This is a poor design. Look at the leverage point and how much forward weight there is for just 2 threaded connections. Sorry to read this @swatski
I agree.This is extremely disappointed with Yamaha. I expected at the least a longer investigation