Image from Honda, Inc.
I had finally had enough. Although there was much I loved about the 2003 Goldwing I had, there was plenty that irritated and worried me.
Probably first on the list was the failure of the frame. To save weight, Honda decided to use aluminum for the frame instead of steel. If done right, it works well enough and it certainly did help cut down the weight on a motorcycle that already cashed in at 850 curb. You would easily add 100 pounds to that if the frame was steel.
But if done wrong, aluminum can be very troublesome. The largest worry is in the welding. TIG welding is a real art and if done incorrectly, the welds simply won’t hold. They had been done incorrectly on mine and many like it and Honda issued a factory recall to have the frame re-welded.
Though covered under warranty, it was the first down card against the bike. Two weeks without wheels and no out of pocket expense of any kind was tolerable. I credit Honda for doing the right thing and not trying to make a PR mess of it, but the worries had begun.
The second down card was in the cooling. The particular year my Wing was made, Honda had some issues with overheating engines and as a consequence, they extended the engine and drive train warranty to 9 years. Though it never became an issue for me, it was a worry nonetheless and a couple of times, in seemingly hot, but not overbearing temperatures, the engine was running quite hot on the meter.
Other little problems started to accumulate. The cruise control, mute and emergency flasher buttons – all push to click, push to release designs – started to stick about year three. Sometimes they would not disengage. The emergency flasher was the worst. I found out it was having problems the hard way, when I stopped along a tight pass in Yellowstone, which was occupied by a bull bison. I hit the flashers to help prevent being rear ended and found that it would not disengage when the road was clear and I attempted to move on. Fifteen minutes of monkeying around with the button did nothing. I finally managed to apply enough pressure with my Leatherman tool to release the switch, but now I had a dis-functional switch and 2,500 miles of road ahead of me on the trip.
The worst of it all, however, was the plastic. I’ve come to really hate plastic on motorcycles. My plastic woes started with paint fading. I regularly waxed the bike and it did nothing to stop the dark red paint from turning pink, in very little time. Six years of sun exposure at the parking lot at work, took its toll and the “up” side of the bike (when on its side stand) was turning salmon pink. It really showed up when I went to replace the outer cover of the starboard saddlebag door, after a dog decided to scratch it up with his nails, going after a very poorly placed bag of beef jerky my wife had left on the bike seat. The replacement not only showed how badly the rest of that side of the bike had faded, but it also slapped me square in the face with the most unbelievable sticker shock ever. We’re talking about a piece of painted plastic here. It isn’t titanium. It isn’t gold. It’s ABS plastic. I’d guess $15 to manufacture, including paint. The cost to buy it? $450. It was one of the first times I can recall, when I was so flabbergasted by the experience, that I couldn’t even find words to respond.
$450, for a piece of painted plastic, roughly 22x13x7 inches in size!
There are many words one could use to describe this, but “insane” seems to be the one that boils up most frequently.
After my bike was fixed up from the fender-bender it suffered, I asked the repair technicians about the price of all the plastic on the bike and they revealed to me a fact that still has my head spinning. Most bullet bikes, which have an all plastic exterior like the Goldwing does, are totalled by the insurance company after a wreck, because the plastic is too costly to replace! The frame, engine and every other system can be 100% functional, but just replacing the plastic parts of the bike is enough to overwhelm the insurance cost.
Like I said, insane. Mind boggling, bat-shit insane!
This started the seeds of a dark, growing dislike for plastic on bikes. Before the accident and the saddle bag door replacement, I didn’t have anything against the use of ABS plastic on bikes. Now I find that I despise the very idea.
The next little issue which cropped up out of nowhere, was that I suddenly could not open the starboard saddlebag. The regular release simply did nothing. The “emergency” release from inside and under the trunk worked fine, but the regular release lever was useless.
The final straw which broke my proverbial back, was a sudden failure of the bike’s computer. The Goldwing is fuel injected, computer controlled and pretty much laden with various electronic gadgetry. Systems like this can have problems on any vehicle, but on most vehicles you don’t have to spend two hours of labor just to disassemble the fairing to replace the damn thing. With more parts than a Honda Accord, the Goldwing is complex to work on, which translates to time, which translates to money at $90 per hour labor.
In my case the computer was going out intermittently and with multiple symptoms. First the speedometer would come and go. Then the fuel injection warning light would blink like a Christmas tree. Then the overdrive indicator would come and go.
This failure in and of itself would not have forced my decision like it did, but it was the final blow. I’d had enough. It was time to get a different motorcycle.
Plastic, it would seem, is impossible to avoid on Japanese bikes. I’m absolutely certain it is to keep manufacturing prices down, but there is a lot to be said for the steel used in Harley Davidson motorcycles. Now if they could just cut their price by 50% and increase their reliability by 200%, I might consider buying one.
I kept coming back to my original quandary when I bought the Goldwing. I had spent months debating whether to go with the Goldwing or a VTX 1800. I’ve always loved the big V-twins, but I had figured to go with the flagship touring bike, because I enjoy long distance touring.
Now, I just don’t see the touring class bike as all that advantages anymore.
So, I started to think about getting a VTX 1800. There was only one catch, much to my horror, Honda decided not to make them anymore. 2008 was the last year of production. Apparently, to save cost in manufacturing, Honda decided that the VTX 1300 was good enough and there was no reason to continue with its larger sister.
The problem with the VTX 1300, is the damn plastic. Parts that on a cruiser would normally be metal, were plastic instead. Parts like the engine covers!
That didn’t please me one damn bit.
However, the last time I had been down to the Honda shop I frequent, they still had a 2008 VTX on the floor. At $14,500, it wasn’t moving quickly, though several would drool on it every week. Taking a chance, I emptied my personal belongings out of the Goldwing, put the title and maintenance records in the trunk, and drove down to see if it was still in place.
It was not, but with luck, a black VTX 1800N was sitting on the showroom floor, waiting for me. I picked it up for about $12,000 (you can find them cheaper if you’re willing to travel to get one) and traded in the Goldwing on it, financing the difference and within two hours was flying down the highway on the new beast.
It is very different than the Goldwing. Some things I am going to miss, but some things I now have I’m going to enjoy again, as I used to be a V-twin cruiser man before.
As I’ve already stated, for whatever reason, I love the big V-twin engines. At 1795cc, this is the second largest V-twin I know of (the Kawasaki Vulcan 2000 is the largest) and it feels wonderful! At freeway speeds, it sounds like it’s idling. It handles very well for the size and weight and it has enough torque to pull a pickup truck out of a ditch. Apparently, I’m not the only one who likes it.
I will miss some of the creature comforts of the Goldwing, certainly. I can’t complain about the drive train performance or the handling, but I won’t miss the rest. I know it may sound strange, but I feel like I’m riding a motorcycle again, instead of some Japanese Anime battle pod.
Though the fenders are plastic, the gas tank and the rest are metal. (I have never been so happy to be wrong before. When cleaning and waxing the bike this weekend, I found to much elation that the fenders are indeed metal. I don’t know if they are steel or aluminum, but they’re not plastic.)
Time will tell about the longevity of the bike. I’ve heard some very good reports on the Web, so I’m crossing my fingers.
So, goodbye old Goldwing. You had your issues, but you did serve me well overall. I just wish that the issues you had, did not keep nagging at the back of my head with worry. That’s why we broke up.
Now I’ll just have to see how well this big black beast serves me.
