Powersportsmax Shipping Experience

[Hap]

I called the Birmingham depot today and asked the operator to attach a message for the driver delivering my bike to call me 1 hour before delivery. I’ll see if that happens.
TP that sucks about your jets man! Check with all the neighbors. The mailman might have dropped them in their box.

[Texas Pete]

Just some more powersportsmax and r+l experience. They sent an automated email that the shipment is at the destination terminal. They provided once more the shipment tracing number along with a contact number to schedule a delivery. I called the contact number provided but in my particular case there was no scheduling of the delivery what they did was look up the driver and informed me that my stop is #8 on the drivers schedule and gave me an estimated time the driver may show up. They asked if I wanted the driver to call before so I accepted and provided my number.

[Texas Pete]

I now just got an automated email from R+L stating out for delivery. So far both powersportsmax and R+L freight carriers seem to be very on the ball with communications.

[Hap]

ETA on the day of arrival is very helpful. Im going to try to get that too. I’m trying to get it so I can just leave work and be there for delivery instead of taking off the whole day. That’s some good info Texas Pete! Thanks once again man!

[Texas Pete]

No call yet and its an hour past the estimate window R+L gave me this morning speaking to them on the phone.


But good news the carb jets showed up in my mailbox a day after the USPS sent me a text message saying they had delivered it to my mailbox. A friend of mine in FW suggest that USPS is scanning in packages at the post office and marking them delivered before they actually go out for delivery with the postman to boost their numbers with Amazon et al handling other companies deliveries for them under contract.

[Texas Pete]

Two hours after the R+L provided delivery time window, we have a delivery!


The biggest initial damage was the wooden pallet itself!
Whoever built it just butted up two small pieces of wood
instead of a single piece and decided to nail it together
thinking it would be structural!







The metal frame itself was in excellent condition. There
was a single bent frame diagonal brace in the front where
after removing the black plastic wrap the cardboard was
pressed in as something gave it a good bash in the front.


I quickly moved the electrical harness and light aside and
noticed the forks are already pre-installed for packing in
the shipping box. The right hand side one has a tiny bit of metal
showing where something rubbed during the bash but nothing
looked dented or serious.






The right hand side of the bike looks really nice. No initial damage
found in a fast cursory inspection in the failing light.







The left side initially looked good. But the light had
failed by this point and the garage light wasn't good.


It took me a while but I finally noticed the left plastic
under the seat had a big chunk taken out of it.


If this and the small scuff on the right front fork is all
the damage there is then I am very happy with the
state the bike arrived in! -- I was so worried not knowing
if I would win the freight lottery or not.

[Hap]

Great man! I think there is 1 bolt on each side of the seat right above the 250. Take them out and push the seat towards the back a few inches and it should come right off. Not the bolt holding the rack on but the one that’s behind it. Congratulations man. It looks great!

[Hap]

Yeah. They already have the triple tree, front forks and front brake caliper installed. Cool. You might want to make sure all those bolts have locktite and torqued good. They might already have that done. I can’t really tell how bad that gouge is on the side. But they might send you another number piece if you hit ‘em up. Just saying.

[Texas Pete]

While I wait for my front axle tool to arrive to remove the forks from the shipping frame I decided to do a more detailed inspection for damage on the front of the bike.

The shipping box had a large hole in the front so initially I thought I would see damage to the front of the bike.

I did find more damage than initially discovered, nothing major, just more to add to the tally.

In short there is more damage to the forks from the front impact than I found at first. I moved all the dangling wires and bagged parts away from the left front fork and found a much larger impact and finish removed down to bare metal.

Wondering if any mounting bracket facing forward took impact damage I got out the measuring tape and inspected the front mount for what looks to be the headlight. It has recieved impact damage and from comparing the measurments it looked like the left side got hit both backwards towards the body of the bike and upwards towards the top of the forks at the same time.


I will inspect the wires and parts that were dangling in the front of the forks for damage next.

[Texas Pete]

I did a lot of searching around the engine and the transmission looking for where they stamped the VIN number. I did not find it yet.


I did however find that the plastic air intake manifold that attaches to the engine appears to have a rubbery stretchy gasket like material hanging out of it, torn?

[Hap]

Man I hate it TP. Probably a forklift fork. Who knows. Think you might can bend the headlight brackets back right with a rubber hammer or maybe a pipe to pry them with? I don’t know man. It’s a good thing the headlight assembly wasn’t already mounted. It would have probably been in pieces. I can’t really make out what’s going on with the intake. Is the plastic cracked and part of the gasket pushed out? Or is some of the gasket twisted and pushed out? If it’s the gasket. You might want to take it off and inspect. A leak there can suck. Good luck bro. Let me know how it goes. Expecting mine tomorrow or Tuesday.

[Texas Pete]

It is what it is. I was going to just run the bike as it through break in and only then pull the carb and look at grinding the break off bolts off and rejetting. But now I have to pull the tank and carb off early just to make sure the full intake gasket seal is there and not missing on a portion of the manifold. Ah well gives me a chance to get familiar with the bike and access all the bolts for a personal PDI job.


EDIT: FYI my air intake filter came oiled. After pulling the battery and putting it on a charger and tender I pressed the filter in and my finger came away coated in oil.

[tknj99]

As far as the fork blemishes, my guess is that they will offer a credit for any blemish/scratch related issues - they did this when i had fork cap and exhaust scratches during shipment of my former Titan DLX

[Texas Pete]

This is exactly what happened. I got an email from them today, they are offering $30 credit if I find some place locally to take care of the finish damage on the forks.

[Hap]

Bike got delivered today. I got lucky! Not even a scratch on the box!