Ive a problem with a clutch on a yamaha 2014 mt09 street rally. Its fine when cold, but when its hot it drags and is a bitch to find neutral. Weve stripped the clutch but with 4000 miles on it ,3 of the eight metal plates were overheated and slightly buckled and blue, the others were like new,cant work out why some would be blue and some like new in steel colour.anyways ive flatted the blue ones with an oil stone to try and straighten them up.When cold the clutch is fine, but when its hot it drags and is a bitch to find neutral.ive about 1mm free play at the lever.
The bike is under warranty, but YAMAHA in their finite wisdom wont warranty a clutch even with 4k on it. Tossers.Ive had a row with customer services, and they still wont look at it under warranty.
I’ll have to pay, and if the problem is wear and tear ive got to cough up.If its a manufacturing defect they will ocver the cost, bearing in mind some of the plates are blue and some are like new, they are bound to blame wear n tear, even though ive ridden it for 1500 mls only.
They cant look at the bike for two weeks and were away in 10 days on the bike to Italy thats why i had to take a peek and make sure it wasnt buggered before we set off.
So the question is has anybody else suffered the same problem with this machine?
Just To reiterate YAMAHA dont put a warranty on motorcycle clutch full stop period.This cant be right.?
so the previous owner did 2500 miles and you’ve done 1500?
sounds to me as if they gave the clutch lots of abuse doing wheelies.
Wrong oil ?
As in car oil not bike oil
or no oil!
I very much doubt you’ll be able to straighten out warped clutch plates, as simple as they look they are in fact a precision made piece of kit. Warped plates need replacing, replace all 8.
Wemoto is your friend http://www.wemoto.com/bikes/yamaha/mt-09/14/picture/clutch_steel_plate_kit_-_gecko/
Any damage to the friction plates?
Yeah, generally there’s a long list of consumables that aren’t considered covered by the warranty, things like tyres and brake pads, but also often other things you’d hope were, like fork seals. Whether the clutch is covered is down to the wording of Yamaha’s warranty, but I suspect it’s not. You’d have a better case for suggesting it’d always been like that and was therefore sold wrongly if you can come up with an excuse for not having noticed for1500 miles, but even that’s a bit iffy.
Personally, for the £60-odd in parts and an hour’s work to stick new plates in I’d probably sod the principle and cut my losses to get a decent clutch in time for the Italy trip.
You’ve got to admire Yamaha’s dedication to tradition - I could never get my TDR250 into neutral when it was warmed up either… 
The other thing i thought of was the face that the clutch plates were too “sticky” and even when the lever is pulled in,theres too much friction,its the correct grade of oil, weve changed it after the clutch strip with the correc grade of 10w40 SG.
As a by the by we noticed that the clutch now doesnt have free play at the lever at all when the engine is cold,we meticulously set it up with 1mm free play with the engine hot, as we was trying hard to get the clutch to function correctly and try to find neutral easily.when cold there is an overadjustment of about 2mm almost like the clutch expands when hot.When the bars are turned to full left lock the 1mm free play goes when the engines hot.so were gonna rip out the yam clutch and fit an ebc fibre set,and try that for now,in case the original fibre ones were cooked and have expanded or summat thru heat.
The metal ones arent too bad to be fair, the oil stone has sorted them out.
we paid 6.5k for this bike, with a view of" it has a warranty so should be ok" .I’ll never buy another yamaha now out of principle,a complete bunch of nobs.
would would you buy instead? I dare say all the others won’t include the clutch on warranty either.
They should be interested on doing something, its only been in our possession for 1500 miles.piss poor really.Ive a bmw 1150 gs in the shed,14 years old with 45000 miles on it ,never touched the engine or gearbox and its the original clutch, its been all over europe to virtually every country and has even crossed the western sahara desert , down thru north africa and down to the algerian border with morocco.No complaints…whereas this Yamaha shyte…
Unfortunately I had the same type of experience with Yamaha. Long story but essentially I dropped my MT-09 and scratched the engine casings on the right side. Decided to replace them with new. After my dealer in Carshalton did it I started hearing some strange noises coming from the engine, which I knew weren’t there before. I went back and forth with the dealer for several weeks but they refused to admit it was their fault and tried to convince me that it was all my imagination so I did something I suggest you do too - I wrote to Yamaha UK.
They weren’t much better and kept saying I’d have to sort it out with the dealer and it wasn’t their problem. After about 7-8 emails though they agreed to take my bike for a test ride. I got an reply after they did and of course they didn’t admit that there was anything wrong with it. That’s how my bike ended up in Suzuki’s showroom 
I know it’s not much of an encouragement but I think it’s worth to take it up the ranks and see if it has an effect on the dealer. I was told by another dealer that they are generally rather scared of complaints to Yamaha UK because repeated problems could cost them their franchise. If not, then you know what to do with used bikes 
The email address is [email protected].
So you bought this bike second-hand 1500 miles ago? I think you’d have a better case arguing that they sold it to you with a shagged clutch than that the clutch ought to be replaced under warranty, but that would require some excuse for not noticing for 1450 miles, and it’s probably a bit late for that. Lots of things are excluded as consumables, some are obvious (brake pads, tyres), others less so (battery, clutch) and it’s not really down to Yamaha’s wisdom so much as the terms of their warranty. Warranty work is supposed to cover defects in workmanship or materials, but it’s more likely that this was misused by the previous owner, and so you’re interested in discussing this specifically with the people who sold this as a working bike, rather than with the manufacturer who guaranteed it.
You wont get anywhere if you keep insisting it be replaced under warranty, what you’re looking for is them to decide to do it as a demonstration of good customer service, really, in the hope that you’ll come back for servicing. Sadly, I think it’s probably a bit late for that.
But, as someone who just sat with a broken bike for a while waiting in the hope that the “we’ll see what we can do under warranty” would turn into actually being fixed under Triumph’s apparently ‘really good’ warranty, I’d absolutely advocate fixing the thing before you go away, even if it costs you £60 or whatever to get the bits. Having a working bike for that trip is worth more than the cost of the new clutch.
There’s more to the engine oil than that. It also needs to meet the JASO standards for the wet clutch to operate correctly. If the oil does not meet the correct JASO standard with the correct friction characteristics clutch slip, over heating and premature wear can occur.
There are three JASO standards, in order of their friction characteristics these are MB, MA1 and MA2
I think most manufacturers now recommend JASO MA2 but check your owners handbook or service manual to be sure to be sure.
Are you sure 1 mm of free play at the clutch lever is the correct adjustment? I’d would have expected it to be 2 - 3 mm.
If the clutch lever free play tightens at full lock the cable must be incorrectly routed and snagging somewhere.
If the friction plates are not showing any visible signs of wear or damage why replace them? On the other hand the steel plates are showing signs of wear and damage so why not replace them?
I can only guess the friction plates arent slippy enough and are not happy freewheeling with the clutch pack open, upon disassembly the inner most parts of the clutch were in fact almost dry.with the clutch high up and away from the oil, i can only assume its splash fed.The oil was suitable and did confirm to the correct grade, and indeed the original was the oe yamalube and was in there with the problem present.
Ive come to the conclusion it could be time to fit an ebc clutch kit into it.Thanks to cypher big red and national treasure for your inputs