Lemons

[maico police]

My one and only KTM. A 1990 250 GS (bought new).
You'd think something that broke down so often might have been at the expense of some performance.

It wasn't.....

[Tim754]

OK to sum up my younger life's ulcer inducers ,early Taiwanese minibikes, Honda XL175, most Hodakas (remember I have owned over 50 of them so psssst to your horror!) anything from Mexico, the Iron Curtain block, Italy, Austria and Pommieland were predominately reliability yellow citrus...

[jimson]

My job is a lemon  I put a lot into it and don,t get much in return. Jimson

[Tim754]

Jimson I assume you mean by above you get squeezed a lot and just left with a bitter taste in ya mouth... 

[DIRTPILOT72]

Honda XR400. The XR400 craze was in full swing back in 97, everyone had one and i got sucked up into it. Everyone elses was relieble except mine. It kept using oil. 4 rebuilds later it was still doing it. Tried genuine, several aftermarket pistons etc. To add insult i was racing it in the Condo 750, last competitive section on Sunday, running mid field it sucked in the lower part of the choke butterfly. Instant stop, DNF. Off loaded it after that and replaced it with the most relieble bike ever built, TTR250. If one were to keep and XR400 long enough the gearbox would eventully crap itself as well.

[Nathan S]

My 2008 TM250. Power delivery like a 1970s 125 MXer, footpegs too high, twitchy handling, and rings that last 25~30 hours before they snag on the exhaust port and destroy the barrel (didn't happen to me, but did happen to its current owner). Brakes were unremarkable too.

I stuck with it for a while, but the death blow came on the day I rode it back to back with my 94 YZ250 - despite the TM's better brakes, ergos [apart from the footpegs] and suspension, the old Yamaha was both faster and easier to ride, thanks to its better motor and handling....

The '03 GasGas200 was a bit of a shitbox - paid too much, and then had to give it a full rebuild etc. But it's been sweet since then, so I don't really consider it a lemon.

I guess I've been lucky overall - I've owned an XL175, YZ125L, Alfa Romeo Alfetta, numerous rotaries, and plenty of other supposed lemons and none of them have bitten me.

JD/JE Camiras were actually pretty good cars. Holden fixed the many problems of the JAs, but never properly addressed the stigma.

[Davey Crocket]

I'll go with Dirt pilot, I bought a brand new XR400 when they first came out (beleived all the American hype and bullshit)...worst bike I have ever owned/riden...spent a sqillion on it and still crashed my brains out....especially going downhills....after 2 years I sold it but by then people realised they where just tarted up farm bikes and they where worth $2.50.....It still scares my memory (btw...old mate that bought it blew the gearbox).

[GMC]

Ah yes, modern bikes. I had forgotten about them when I wrote my thesis. Suppressed memory I guess.
After being inbetween bikes for too many years due to the mortgage marriage kid’s disease I made the jump back into bikes with a secondhand 2000 model KTM 300 in 03
I had already collected a few vintage bikes but all needed work and money so I decided that I would be best spending my money on a modern trailbike. Something that I could just jump on and ride, be it a trailride, club Enduro or even a club MX and the 300 seemed like a good bike on paper and this one looked very much like a ‘little use’ bike.

Second short casual ride here at home and the swingarm broke in half. Sheared clean through just in front of the axle slot. It was handling weird at the time and I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. Kept stopping to see if the tyres were flat. Thought I had lost my mojo from not riding enough and so I parked it for the day. It was then that I noticed the broken arm. Lucky I didn’t try any jumps as it probably would have broken the other side and the result I’m sure would have been ugly.
Could have welded it but it’s not that wise to just do a butt weld.
Ideally I would have needed to get an axle end machined up and then I would have needed to do both sides so it didn’t look odd.
It became easier to just buy another arm and Boltons did me a deal on one.

Next thing the cows got out so I jumped on the KTM to round them up from 2 K’s down the road and head them home. Would have been easier to herd chooks. So I’m riding around in a neighbors paddock at night in long wet grass trying to get these stupid things to head through the gate and I noticed the KTM wasn’t running very good, but it would load up when I rode around slowly with my son so I didn’t think too much of it. Turned out the drain screw decided to fall out of the water pump. As near as I can figure I must have ridden it for over an hour with no water. Turned it off and it kept running. Plug must have been glowing.

I checked to see if the engine No. had 666 in it but it didn’t.
I could have lived with this and the maxed out credit card that it caused but it was such a horrible motor.
It was god almighty fast in a straight line but on single track it was a peaky handful. I’ve ridden later model 300’s that all seem to have great motors but the 2000 model was a pig.
I thought about trying to tame it somehow but the only reason I bought it in the first place was because I wanted something that I didn’t need to work on so I eventually moved it on.
Fair dinkum, I enjoy riding my KDX175 so much more than I ever enjoyed riding that KTM