unreliable bikes from major brands

[dennisw]

Honda VF750F 1983 with it's pitting camshaft lobes.Great bikes but hurt Hondas reputation.

[Rich...]

Honda VF750F 1983 with it's pitting camshaft lobes.Great bikes but hurt Hondas reputation.

A whole heap of Honda's of that era had camshaft and rockers made of cheese...

[BusaSteve]

Dont forget the cam chain tensioner eating CB range from the 70s...also the entire British offerings from the same times...esp with Lucas, home before dark, electrics.

[GreenMeanie]

Honda’s are the most notoriously shitty difficult motorcycle to work on.
The CRF range are the flakiest electrical problem motorcycle I have ever come across far worse than a Duchati.
The fuck arsed shit design using a beautifully engineered Carb that is designed to have mains and needles changed in seconds.
Not in a fucking Honda they aren’t.
The other manufacturers allow the carb to be pivoted one way and the other to allow access to the top and bottom.
Not a piece of shit Honda. Subframe swing up and drag them out from where the airbox was after to fight with the throttle cables.
Africa Twins😂😂😂😂😂
Designed by Chimps. Why they are called Africa.
See how you get on changing the air filter 400kms any direction from Alice Springs. What a bucket of shit.
Shall we mention the removal process of the valve cover on CBR1000RR’s?
Their engineers have their head up each other’s arses. The Human Catepillar.

[GreenMeanie]

I’m sure Honda and Can-Am share design secrets.
Try checking the valves on a 450 Quad Racer with a Rotax motor.(DS model by memory)
Then try adjusting them.
Oh. Look at that! Take the front end off. Side rails, Fuel tank and all the bullshit electrics and other crap and fuck me! You can get the valve cover off.

All these bullshit failings, engineering oversights may not be reliability infractions but the cost of maintenance is exaggerated.
So? What’s the difference between something that shits itself all the time and something that costs you an arm and a leg to a simple service done?
Nothing. You get raped by both.

Polaris.
“No. They don’t do fuel pumps for those. You have to buy a complete tank. $1700.00 Thank you.”
That’s a fucking sterling idea for an agriculture designed machine.

Those things are so ruggedly designed, a golf course or aerodrome is about their limit of their design capabilities.

[Goliath]

Hondas are simply the best!

[GreenMeanie]

Dont forget the cam chain tensioner eating CB range from the 70s...also the entire British offerings from the same times...esp with Lucas, home before dark, electrics.

😂😂😂

Three sets of Lucas on the 1982 Bonnie in one weekend.
How I loved those Lucas pointless systems.
Bosch were $15 more expensive when you could get them and last pretty much forever.
Was it a conspiracy the dealers didn’t stock Bosch?
The Bosch I put in a few days after that weekend are still in it to this day.
However the oil has leaked out of the crankcase and pushrod tubes.
The starter motors lasted 2 starts. Lucas.
I wish the Triumph experts learned the last of the Merridan bikes had an extra fibre plate and the steels ar a few 64ths thinner than the older ones.
FFs! It is in the fucking workshop manual.

[xor]

The two most major things that come to mind was a cam chain tensioner on my CBR6 (ex-race bike)

Know what the odo was when the tensioner went? Mine went at 58ish.

[Kristy]

Know what the odo was when the tensioner went? Mine went at 58ish.

Somewhere between 30,000 and 33,000. Others have done double or triple without issue. Luck of the draw I guess. Mine was also an ex-race bike so that may have had something to do with it.

[GreenMeanie]

Somewhere between 30,000 and 33,000. Others have done double or triple without issue. Luck of the draw I guess. Mine was also an ex-race bike so that may have had something to do with it.

120k on one of the 10s and still has original tensioner. on its second chain though.

[GreenMeanie]

Africa Twins... again.
Genuine OEM accessory plug, USB. Beautifully design. A electrical ply at one end, a usb at the other. between then a fuse. There is a lovely cover that pops out for the USB end.
Half a day later it is installed. Removal of their shitty side panels, instrument. The instrument bracket ………. 10,000 fucking rivets, screws no symmetry of where they go.
Good luck replacing that inline fuse when you are in the middle of the Simpson and your Sat Nav isn't charging.
And the side panels, ha ha ha. The size of a servo plastic bag. $680.00 and they are the first thing that smash when you stationary fall. Have a tad of movement forward and you smash the instrument mounting bracket then all the other shit is basically fucked.
An Adventure bike? Ha ha ha ha.
The only dirt they see is a gravel driveway and that is their engineering limit.


OEM guards do help. As long as you don't want to get to anything while you are in the bush, other than your driveway and you can push it back into the shed and you aren't moving forward at any pace.
The Aftermarket ones I have seen, two different types don't fit well and stress the $680 panels that load them very nicely to fracture when your knee hits them on ride.

Africa Twin. Adventure Bike. An adventure Bike that takes you to work each day. Or the perfect bike for old men who are too old to ride a motorcycle. Japanese replacement for a Harley.


Yeah right. Honda Engineering perfection.

[thro]

120k on one of the 10s and still has original tensioner. on its second chain though.

108k on a CBR600RR - original chain, original tensioner, valve clearances have not yet needed shims. 15,000 rpm from pretty much every red light for several years.

[GreenMeanie]

I'm not saying the above mentioned bikes don't ride nice, a motorcycle has to be more to me than a nice ride before I class it as a 'Non Lemon'.

[xor]

108k on a CBR600RR - original chain, original tensioner, valve clearances have not yet needed shims. 15,000 rpm from pretty much every red light for several years.

The way I read that made me think you looped it at each red light....

[Chuck Steak]

Honda’s are the most notoriously shitty difficult motorcycle to work on.
The CRF range are the flakiest electrical problem motorcycle I have ever come across far worse than a Duchati.
The fuck arsed shit design using a beautifully engineered Carb that is designed to have mains and needles changed in seconds.
Not in a fucking Honda they aren’t.
The other manufacturers allow the carb to be pivoted one way and the other to allow access to the top and bottom.
Not a piece of shit Honda. Subframe swing up and drag them out from where the airbox was after to fight with the throttle cables.
Africa Twins😂😂😂😂😂
Designed by Chimps. Why they are called Africa.
See how you get on changing the air filter 400kms any direction from Alice Springs. What a bucket of shit.
Shall we mention the removal process of the valve cover on CBR1000RR’s?
Their engineers have their head up each other’s arses. The Human Catepillar.

Designed by chimps? Remind me of a comment made years ago about the SR500. Tw journos were asked to name their best and worst bikes of the last 20 years. Simon Perry (I think) said it looked like it had been designed by a 1 arm spastic gibbon with a broken pencil

[GreenMeanie]

I’m a simple man.
CRF-X
Headlight directly wired to the alternator. Idle, no headlight. FFS.
Let’s try some thing.
No tail lights, horn, indicators, instrument lights or brake lights until the engine is running.
Trigger signal from ECU when the engine is running switch’s power switch on and powers those.
The Mod.
Cut the fucking wire from the alternator. Any fucking wire that comes from the power switch in as it’s replacement. Perfect working head light no matter what fucking revs the engine is doing.
How fucking hard is that you fucking Honda Chimps.
FFS!

[Chuck Steak]

Why hasn’t anyone mentioned RZ Yamahas and their CDI units based on female hormones. You’d be riding along and for no fucking reason at all the bastard would stop. Try to start for 5 minutes and then give up. 10 minutes later you try and it starts. You go to Cullys and by a new CDI unit. It runs perfectly for a month then does it again. You take it back and complain and they test it and it’s working perfectly. Three weeks later, while you’re on your way home from work it does it again. It gets to where you just don’t ride the bastard because you never know that you’re going to get where you’re going

[Chuck Steak]

Ducati electrics. The old bevel drive bikes were wired with spaghetti. I don’t think there was ever a time with my 860gt where everything was working. Until I got jack of it and got the whole fucking bike rewiref

[Para045]

108k on a CBR600RR - original chain, original tensioner, valve clearances have not yet needed shims. 15,000 rpm from pretty much every red light for several years.

Yep ~170k on my Bird, valve clearances never been done since new as far as I know and I have most of the records from the original owner
Still on the same camchain although it has a little slack, changed the CCT out at ~65k just because it was a little noisy and I had a spare not because I was worried it would fail as I haven't heard of any failing just getting really noisy Current chain and sprockets are coming up for ~92k and I give it a hard time wheelying the shit outa her