I'm wondering if anyone has any insight on something that happened to my Yamaha P85. I was moving house, and the movers dropped it, and there are about five keys at the far end of the left side that stick now. I disassembled it and found that there was a waxy substance under the keys that had gotten smushed out of shape (to use the technical term). I didn't deal with this at the time or pursue it with the movers because I was in the middle of moving, I was dealing with deadlines at work and having hand surgery.

But anyway: has anyone seen this before, and is this the kind of thing that can be fixed?

I can take it up with Yamaha, but I've had so much bad luck dealing with tech support from multinational corporations that I thought I'd try here.

Well, Yamaha's technical support department generally has an excellent reputation. My suggestion would be to give them a call - you may be pleasantly surprised by their service.

Cheers,
James
x

If you've already disassembled it you've done the hard part. I took my P140 apart to fix a sticking key. Getting the case apart took 20 minutes, fixing the key only took 2. The waxy stuff is probably a lubricant, I had something similar on my keys where they touched another surface. If the keys are the same as mine, they pop off easily from the back. Once it's off there's a little spring underneath, it kind of looks like the leaf spring in a car but it's very slender. Mine had moved slightly out of place and that was causing the sticking. I popped off a key that wasn't sticking and compared the two to figure it out. I was surprised how simple the mechanism was. It's a little tricky snapping the keys back in place, again compare with a key that works to figure it out.

If you can't figure it out, yamaha has a lot of authorized repair centers. I had one very close to my house that did nothing but fix all kinds of consumer electronics. They didn't sell anything, just did service. If you're still under warranty and throw yourself on your sword and confess, they might fix it for free.

I had great luck with Yamaha service support. I looked on their web site for an authorized repair shop near my house, then I brought my keyboard with sticking keys to the shop. Despite my lack of documentation and the fact that the keyboard was out of warranty by a year or so, Yamaha replaced the entire keybed under warranty. Excellent support. Good luck!

Hi,

My wife has close to 30 years of owning a musical electronics repair firm. If you've opened it, you've violated your warranty. If the repair center fixes it "for free" and then submits a claim to Yamaha for reimbursement, then they are committing a fraud against Yamaha and are violating the terms of their service agreement.

The moving company should have paid it or, if you have coverage, it could go against renters insurance.

Yamaha is indeed one of the best of the big japanese musical instrument firms when it comes to customer service. Roland used to be better by a smidge but now the nod goes to Yamaha. Kawai, as far as our experience with them goes, is also good to deal with. Most of the rest, including the 2 that begin with a K are far behind.

As an addendum, we've done hundreds of those keybed replacements on the P-series yamaha. At one point we were receiving the beds by pallet loads. A weighted keybed is NOT cheap to ship. Yamaha has been very stand up about taking care of these as warranty.

Kurt

I read my warranty and it doesn't say anything about voiding the warranty if I open the case. It says the warranty doesn't cover damage caused by repairs attempted by unauthorized service centers. So if I open the case and decide I don't know how to fix whatever is wrong, and I take it to a service center, there's no reason they couldn't choose to fix it under warranty. If I open the case and damage something, they have no obligation to fix it. There are probably service centers that try to find reasons to not honor warranties, but based on my vast statistical sample size of one, that hasn't been my experience.

I have a P-80 and there is a factory defect in the keys on the keyboard, they will chip of a very small piece at the back end and this will allow it to rub against the other key and stick, I had no problem with the service center, I gave them my model# and serial # and they sent me a replacement key rack for free and they paid UPS shipping, it is very easy to replace.
I have taken the broken keys and changed them with a low end or high end key that I don't use so much, this is a quick fix until you get the key rack replaced, aloha.

Chris

I have problem with P120 keys. The first key broke after the extended warranty was expired. It was about 4 years after the day of purchase.
It takes me an hour to find the way to open the case to see the keys and take the broken one out. After that, it takes less to open and close the case, but with much difficulty.
It is the second keys that breaks by itself in the 6th year, for I am not a man with heavy ears and heavy hands. I play piano gently, more than American average, and the volumn switch is never beyound the midpoint. I have never broken any key in an acoustic piano.
Yamaha charges me 25 dollars for the first key with shipping and handling costs. The key is very floppy that is easy to break, and it is degined with the great simpleness to install into the keyboard. It takes me few seconds to snap it in the keyboard. The broken part is about a half of my smallest finger nail.
I heard that Yamaha P series inherit the same keyboard. Therefore, I am the unlucky person to have many broken keys, and will have more broken keys to come. The third key is now sungken below the surface of the keyboard. I should have replaced the 2 keys months ago.