Sargent seat does not latch easily

It's been on the bike for a couple weeks now. But I am now afraid to take the seat off for any reason because it was really difficult to latch into place. I literally had to press down on the rear cowl so hard that I thought the cowl was going to break before it locked into place. Has any one else had this problem? If so, is there an easy fix or do i need to send the seat back?
Other than that, I love it, much better than stock.

 

Yes, I nearly broke off my key, 20 miles from home, no spare key! I had bike several months before problem, seat came with bike. I lubricated everything, filed down spots on underside of seat that show interference with frame, and most importantly, put a stiff piece of foam between seat and cowl, so that when you press down on cowl, you are pressing down on seat to release catch. Try it with cowl off until it works smoothly. Carry a spare key!

 

I'm not sure if I will have issues removing it because I haven't tried yet, we'll see how that goes. But it does worry me that it's so hard to latch down. I'll try messing with it without the cowl and see what i come up with, I also might try the foam under the cowl. Thanks.

Anyone else have this issue?

 

I have my for several years now and never have any issue....Wonder what is wrong :noidea:
I swap seat to another 6th gen as well and it fit just fine.
I am sure Sargent is not making any chage to the seat

 

I didn't have problems for a couple of months, don't know what caused it, key lock mounted in plastic does not give firm feel, I twisted my key badly, lucky to straighten it out enough to get in ignition.

 

Try unlocking the latch while sitting on the bike. Before that, shut the engine off and deploy the side stand. I'd send the damn seat back mself.. Crappy QC is what this is all about.

 

I don't think there is enough mechanical advantage in the key/cable/latch arrangement to overcome friction a tight fitting seat induces. A little judicious filing, lubrication and foam under cowl will solve the problem of latching. If it is hard to latch, it is going to be harder to unlatch!

 

Good point

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Just at sort of random with no added farkles a Sargent seat with shipping is about $430.00 Estados Unidos pesos. Granted it has "Atomic foam" and is just like the other cookie cutter seats in the catalog. For those kind of pesos as a "ready to install right out of the box" item we might expect the latch mechanism to work with the seat.

I would put a ten spot on a bet (pesos) that the owners of Sargent would want to fix this glitch without a bunch of custom fitting, grinding, filing, shimming and who knows what else to get what was paid for. Then again their customer service just plain sucks and the requisite mimimum for employment with them is a tat saying "Caveat Emptor". which in Latin means "fuck you, you bought it and we have your money!"

Some are up to these tasks, This is great. What about the dude with ten thumbs or no thumbs who just popped for something that is supposed to work? I suppose he or she could pay a visit to a local dealership and have them fix the thing for a shop rate of whatever the hourly rate happens to be. Doing it that way, on bike night one could say "their" Sargeant seat was not just a punk 400+ pesos but well near 600 pesos, impressing the harleydoods within earshot.

Best not to toss out or sell the stocker seat if you spring for a Sargent. The trick here is to order the Sargent through a dealer and if it does have to go back you ain't having to pay for shipping it back to the plant.

Kickstand deployment and shutting down the engines still holds unless the key is busted off and the seat latch wont release and you are in some foreign land like Canada where they don't take pesos.

 

I had problems with mike corbins seat on a nighthawk years ago, they told me I needed to shim the d-loop so it would engage the latch mechanism. That bike got totalled and I ended up selling the seat to someone off the street that had that same model. In a chance encounter when I was on "my MACH 1" a doode said that he had a corbin seat for my bike. I ended up buying it and rode with it for 20,000 miles or so. One day, I tried my old stocker and determined it was better than the corbin. So the corbin got ebayed and here I am with a stock seat. I thought corbins customer service was sub-par btw.

Funny your bashing sergeant seats, I was thinkiing aboot one for another bike of mine. I would have to send them my seat pan though, and its aboot half of the price above. I know you hate stockers, and your keen on a seat person/upholstry shop. Can you divulge their name since the last time I looked you werent "double secret agent 007" ; ) and no, this message will not self destruct in ten seconds.

 

My seat guy is Rich O'Connor. He was in Seattle for many years. His shop is now in Kingston, a short ferry ride from Seattle. Rich has a couple of apartments on his property to stay in. No details on that. He does not do mail order that I know of nor are any of his seats cookie cutter. Dozens of choices on style, color, covers ect. Each seat is tailored to the bike and the rider. Rich has long experience in upholstery of all manner of things. Speaking of James Bond he did a complete job on an Aston-Martin DB4 and a 56 Mercedes 300SL and the cabin of the Miss Budweiser unlimited hydroplane.

Be advised , Rich is tough and he knows more about bike seats than most. He is also a real Ironbutt rider. Google "richs seats" there are a couple of posts there from some unhappy campers who probably got the working end of Rich's 10 1/2 in their not so iron butts when they tried to run the show.

Ahhh yes, Corbin.. When Mike Corbin started out it was great. They gruesome and it went to shit. Not recently either.. See a pic of me BMW in the vintage section on Rich's website. Leather and custom, perfect stitching ect. I originally sent the steel seat pan to Corbin years ago through the local BMW Dealer in Seattle. Long story made short after the third go around when Corbin et al used drywall screws to affix the seat to the seat pan, that was enough.

The Rich's seat on the BMW is now about 20 years old. The leather is really thick, the stitching is still flawless and holding. I slap some Lexol on it about once a year and it lives indoors. Same thing on the Mach 1. The seat is aboot 15 years old. Real German Naugahide with a gel pad. Triple foam layers.

I could make up some shit aboot doing thousand mile days and but my butt in not made of iron or plastic or carbon fiber..

"Bashing" may not be the apropos word here concerning Sargent. For the money the latch should work. We can be almost sure the key and latch mechanism on the bike is up to Honda quality so if some dude is happy with having to fix shit from them, so be it. Not me.. Been there, done that and I now use the Tshirt to wipe the oil off my dipstick.. Go ahead and make fun wit dat one..

 

It's too bad none of the local shops carry anything for VFR's, So i had to order the seat online. Otherwise I would have already taken it back to swap for another. I'm going to play with it this weekend.

 

Just some minor tweeking will make the underside fit your bike better. I'm not impressed with bikes latching system!

 

The seats can be ordered online. A shop will not have shelves full of any seats unless it's one of those Harley botiques The shop will want to add a peso or two for their "trouble" It's the American way.. If the seat is unsatisfactory for any reason then the shop pays the return freight and has more weight than one online custiomer.

For $430.00 pesos it will be more fun slapping on your old seat and riding the bike than fixing something that should work in the first place.

 

I can't ride on the OEM seat any longer. Tired of constantly readjusting myself and the tension on my wrists. The latch sucked with the OEM seat too, but not this bad

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My bike has a seat by Rich that not only fits my buns but the bike as well. What I suspect is that those latching mechanisms that are not impressive are made by the same dudes who have been making those regulator/rectifiers that we all know and love. Luck is with me.. my 22 year old latching mechanism works great.

 

Do you know for sure the Sargeant that won't latch is going to be any better? Unless you bought your bike brand new, what may be the problem is the dude who owned it before came in at about 450 and had a SO to match.Worse they could have been Aggies..



Go Coogs
Go Owls

 

It's better already. Just need to work on the latch... I'll send it back if necessary

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And Aggie is likely, there's a lot of those around here

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Try some "LockEase" a graphite oil for locks. Let it run down the cable too. Won't do much for the Aggies.