woodgnome said:
why dont the U.S. bikes have imobilisers fitted ??? ???
maybe there isnt a crime problem like in the U.K. :'( :'(
Most of the bike theft in the US tends towards the sportbikes and Harleys, so I suspect the average risk of theft is lower. But I don't have any hard data.
Are there other UK Yamahas with the immobilizer (e.g., the FJR and R1)? If so, the dealer infrastructure to support the key (and getting replacement keys programmed) was already built out in the channel. Yamaha doesn't sell any bike in the US with immobilizer keys, so it would have been a significant burden on the channel for such a low-volume model.
And I don't know about the UK, but in the US, there seems to be an undercurrent of mistrust for immobilizer systems. So discussions at Yamaha USA....expensive system of marginal value that customers don't really want that would raise the price of the bike? Turf it.
- Mark