Buyer Beware: A Bad Day's Work

I bought what I thought was a nice CBX550 from a London dealer for £1500. He seemed like a good chap, the kind of guy who inspired confidence. The test ride was a quick whip around the block on the back.

I couldn't find anything wrong and his parting words were, “Have any problems, get back to me right away." The Honda whirred, nay, purred, under throttle and we shot off up the road taster than I'd meant. I was having a bit of a fighting match with the handlebars. which seemed to want to swing from lock to lock. By the time I got the five miles to home I was convinced the machine was trying to kill me.

I phoned the dealer. He told me these modern bikes were, by their design, rather twitchy; it'd take me a few days to get used to it. The next morning l looked the machine over, the wheels didn’t look like they were in line but the chain adjusters matched! I phoned the dealer with this news. He dismissed such thoughts out of hand, insisting the CBX had been checked over in the workshop.

I tried all that morning to get to grips with the bike. Took it to another dealer, who after riding it for ten yards, pulled over and told me it was a death-trap. He offered £300 (l was pretending to sell the bike to get his opinion for free). Went back to the original dealer. nearly crashing twice. He didn't want to know.

Right, off with the seat and tank to have a look at the frame. It was as bent as a discarded paperclip. I practically had to drag the dealer out to look at the bike. “Nah, mate, nothin' wrong with that. Just a bit of paint flaking off. Fair wear and tear, that.” He backed off, as l went red in the face with rage and reluctantly agreed that just perhaps, if I was being really pedantic, it might be slightly out of line.

I wanted my money back. He offered me another CBX550 with an extra 10000 miles on the clock and a rattly engine. No. he wouldn't swap the motors over but there was a three month guarantee. I took this one out for a quick blast and It went where I pointed it. It felt so much better that I agreed to the deal.

Three weeks later the camchain sounded like it was breaking up. Back at the dealers, I was accused of caning the engine, revving it too hard from cold and generally being too incompetent to manage a pushbike let alone a modern motorcycle. I stood my ground and he reluctantly agreed to let his grease monkey look at it.

Five weeks later I was presented with a £150 bill for the labour as the guarantee was only for the spares. After much haggling, shouting and mutual threats, this was reduced to £100. The engine still rattled more than I expected. but I was happy just to be back on two wheels public transport was driving me crazy.

Ten days later the rattles came back. I knew CBX550 camchains had a bit of a reputation but I didn’t think that was an acceptable life. Took the bike to another dealer for a check over. The camchain hadn't been changed, but the tensioner had been bodged and would need to be replaced as well.

Back at the first dealers, I‘d kneed him in the balls twice before they pulled me off. I was out of my head with rage at being ripped off three times. When he'd stopped crying, he reckoned that the mechanic had pulled a fast one on him. I almost admired his persistence, he was obviously a pathological liar.

I almost wish I hadn’t agreed to watch the mechanic at work this time. He was a real gorilla who took huge chunks out of the cylinder head trying to free the studs with a chisel and hammer. l was almost in tears when he started drilling off the old camchain, huge quantities of swarf falling into the sump.

Another long shouting match ensued with the dealer, who kept a desk between us. If this guy had a bit more intelligence he would have made it at as a first class politico he lied that well. Cutting through all the crap, I threatened to fire-bomb his showroom unless he gave me the good engine out of the first machine I'd owned. If his mechanic was so good. he'd have nothing to lose as he'd still have a good engine. Faced with this barrage of logic and still sore balls he gave in. I had to pull the engine out on my own and did my back in getting it into my chassis, but after all that hassle I finally had a decent bike. I won‘t bother with dealers again!

HJD