S50 reviews / chat

[oneyunguy]

The Honda CB 500 (four): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CB550

I agree with you Easy, conclusions are only good after experience. I also know I cannot make any decisions on Honda reliability or quality based on one experience.

Honda makes great cars, and they made good bikes way back then. Just don't know about today.

[oneyunguy]

Water Warrior - What i am looking for is something to cruise around town in, but also go for trips, not super long ones, but maybe on a couple occasions like the okanagan/kootenays/sunshine coast. In ohter words, something that will handle a trip, but also good for around town. I am sure the S50 would do for that. I am not sure if I want to deal with FI. the guy at the dealer really wants me to sit and test ride an M50 though. I will test both for sure.

I took my GZ to kelowna, can you believe it? From Van to Princeton, then north to the connector, and on to Kelowna. The hills killed me and my bike. But at least I tried and did make it. NEVER again! lol
800 cc's should work just fine for trips. I am not the speedy rider when it comes to trips either. Take my time and enjoy the ride.

I also ran out of gas kinda in the middle of nowhere because of the full throttle alot of the time. Thankfully someone came down the road and drove me to the gas station 50km's away and back.

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by oneyunguy

I am not sure if I want to deal with FI.

You DO have some .....interesting....ideas. :roll:

Why would you say that about FI ??

Pretty near EVERY new car now has it. It is far superior to a carb. LOTS of new bikes have it too.

[Water Warrior 2]

Don't let FI scare you. I doubt I will ever own another bike with a carb. FI is trouble free compared to gummed up carbs and the need to play with a choke/enrichener on a cold engine. Which dealer is offering you a test ride ?

[oneyunguy]

I guess I just think / find it easier to fix and repair carbs. done it before. never touched FI so I wouldn't know what I was getting into.

Water : Richmond Motorsports (I work right behind them so I get to see bikes all day when i am at the office, they also crank out alot of canam spyders which are neat to see)

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by oneyunguy

I guess I just think / find it easier to fix and repair carbs. done it before. never touched FI so I wouldn't know what I was getting into.

That's true, for the most part. No different than a lot of the modern electronic stuff on vehicles now. The good part is: It almost never breaks. The bad part: If you are one of the few unlucky enough to have one go bad, you just need to resign yourself to the fact that you will NOT be able to fix it yourself.

It's a whole different ballgame from carbs and manual chokes and ignitions with points. :cool:

[music man]

Ignitions with points :puke: :puke: :puke: . If I never see another set of points it will be too soon. I just gutted the ignition system on my beetle to get rid of that very thing, there is a lot of modern gadgets they have added to engines over the years that make them harder to work on, electronic ignitions were not one of them.

[Water Warrior 2]

FI is neat. It has a memory if something goes a little astray. You can read the onboard puter on many bikes without going to a dealer. I had an FI fault come up whenever the Vstrom sat for a couple days. Plugged in a bent paper clip in the right place to discover there was a hang up in the secondary something or others. A fault code comes up in the dash. Changed gas brands and thing cleared up. The gas I had been using was not top tier as I expected. FI and puters in bikes are pretty much fool proof if you let them do their job.

[burkbuilds]

I've never had a fuel injected bike, but I've had a lot of fuel injected vehicles, and yes, when they are working correctly, which is most of the time, they can't be beat, however, when they stop working correctly, which has happened to me twice, you can spend a fortune on them and not resolve the problem. I spent over $1200 on a truck trying to get the fuel injection working properly. I took it to the Ford dealer, lots of money, no solution, I went to Goodyear, same, a couple of specialty automotive electronic shops and a general repair mechanic. Everyone was able to able to make it run right, for a few hours, until the computer had time to adjust itself (and yes, the computer got replaced once too), then it would stall every time you took your foot off the gas. Final solution, I ripped the entire top end off that engine, put an aftermarket intake manifold and a four barrel on it and the problem stopped!

Having said all of that, I understand why you might want to stick with a carb. Yeah, they are more trouble in general, but at least they are simple, problems are obvious and a competent mechanic can rebuild one himself using basic tools.

I just sold my modern fuel injected Ford Ranger and bought a 1981 F-100 with a straight six and a single barrel carburetor, a three speed automatic C-6 transmission and a Ford 9" rear end. All very reliable mechanically, easy for the average home mechanic to maintain, and cheap to rebuild if necessary.

[oneyunguy]

I can't tell you guys how many times I have had alternators/carbs/water pumps on the kitchen table fixing them. A little bit of work, yes, but do-able. FI is lovely when it's working, I agree 100%!! Have heard alot of horror stories on FI when it doesn't work, but then again, I have heard a couple horror stories on carb rebuilds too.

POINTS - WHOAAAAA! now that's a blast from the past!!