Bombardier DS90 4-stroke Swing Arm Issue

[scindful]

My 11 year old (70 lb) son has a 2004 DS90 4-stroke that has snapped 2 swing arms in the past 4 months. When the first one broke it didn't damage anything else. When the second one broke is ripped the rear end apart and the back tires are just hanging by a thread. The break to the swing arm was not on a weld but in the middle section of the bar.

Has anyone ever had this problem or heard of this happening before? The dealer has been no help and cannot explain why this has happened.

[Spike99]

.

A Swing arm usually snaps because the suspension is bottoming out, or the swing arm is too cheap to begin with. Most of the time, a swing arm breaks because it bottoms out "too much". This is one reason why many racers upgrade their shocks. They don't want the risk of breaking a Swing Arm "on landing".

My memory isn't very good these days but I think I remember the rear suspension on the DS-90 brand isn't very much. Maybe 2" (or something like that) of travel. I've read about DS-90 2 stroke folks often complaining about poor rear suspension travel depth. If my memory is correct, one person purchased a rear shock from an E-Ton 90 brand. Their factory shock has the same eye-eye, bracket width and bolt measurements. However, the E-Ton 90 shock has much more "travel depth". I think it was around 5-6" of depth.

As a suggestion, visit a few E-Ton showroom floors with your tape measure. Compare your DS-90 4-stroke rear shock measurements to their E-Ton 90 measurements, and also do a rear compression depth test. Adult body weight should work great.

If their shock will fit, has much more travel and feels much better for your young rider's driving style, then upgrading to an E-Ton 90 rear shock might be worth it. Especially since he keeps breaking factory swing arms.

Hope this helps...

.

[scindful]

Have you ever heard of the rear brake panel breaking which would cause the swing arm to snap? The dealer is now trying to say that was the cause of the second swing arm snapping. (He still has no explanation for the first swing arm snapping.)

Or is it more likely that the swing arm snapped causing the rear brake panel to break also?

Any more info you could supply would be great!

[ToltecPS]

Not sure how much effort you want to put into fighting this but I do know that contacting the Bombardier DSM (District Sales Manager) will generally get the attention of the shop. Ask them for his number, if they don't give it to you contact Bombardier yourself.
By doing this it puts the shop in a position where they have to explain to the DSM and Bombardier what is going on. Manufacturers don't like to here about shops not giving good customer service or that a shop might get sued.
I've had a couple times when I have felt that my shop was not in the wrong but we quickly made the customer happy since that's what should happen. It's not always the shops fault but they are representing the product (or should be)

Good luck