Yeah I quoted myself
That was my test ride impression from the factory demo bikes that travel around the U.S. There were two Teneres at the show and my friend who rode the other one had a similar experience. My plan was to buy my own, ride it 1000 miles or so and than see about doing something with the ECU as soon as possible, as I just felt the low gears were so gutless.
Last weekend I purchased my Tenere, first of a shipment that has been held at the stateside warehouse for awhile, apparently fixing the tank gasket from what I've heard. For comparison sake my first time out
I put the bike
in S mode and
TC1, which was the same as my test ride. Heres where I was surprised, it was a totally different beast. Throttle was far more responsive, like night and day, the flat spot that was terrible on the demo at around 4K was totally gone and the bike wanted to spin up so much quicker. Torque through the entire powerband. If the demo had run like this there would have been no doubt in my head as to whether or not I should buy one. It still feels like there's a lot more there to awaken, but my bike feels like it runs strong, the demo was a slug in low gears.
Now I've considered (both) the demo bikes were just out of tune, if that's the case Yamaha could lose sales over this. If I didn't like the rest of the bike so much that would have turned me away and I wouldn't have looked back. IF they were just that far out it doesn't make sense that it ran so well in the higher gear roll ons :question: My bike doesn't have this obvious difference and the higher gears are basically what I remember.
So here it comes:WARNING!!: INTERNET RUMOR BASED ON NO FACTS AND PURE SPECULATION! Had to get my disclaimer out of the way as I don't want this to take on a life of it's own. When calling dealers looking for a bike a number of them mentioned the gasket fix being done. One also mentioned something about Yamaha adjusting the map, now I didn't bring the subject up, he mentioned it out of the blue and I just dismissed it as a salesman maybe trying to sell bikes and he was aware of some people being dissapointed in the stock condition. And maybe that was all it was , a salesman trying to sell.
The only thing I know for certain is that I've ridden two different Teneres now, and the experience was totally different. My current ride is more of what I was expecting, and I am at the moment quite pleased. Of course if I can get some more power easily with an ECU flash I think I'll take it, but I'm in no hurry now. I think I'll watch what develops with the different tuning solutions for awhile and choose what I like best. No more complaining from me about power, this was a very pleasant surprise.
I would like to try a fairly stock bike from the earlier shipment to at least satisfy my curiosity if there is a change or if the demos were really just that bad.