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Deerhunter17
Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 12:17 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I have not been on here much lately, and I hope this is not repetitive or inapropriate for this forum, I just want to share praise of my 2004 xb12r, and info on the 16900 miles and 23 months of ownership. I am still very much in love with this motorcycle. I wont bore you with long stories just some bullets, pros, and cons

Pro: styling, performance, handling, weight, sound, fuel mileage ( 60 - 68 mpg last weekend ), torque, admiration ( of others) uniqueness, balance, braking, acceleration, fuel injection ( no choke, instant start ) adjustability ( suspension )
Cons: too fast, too easy to maneuver in traffic, ( ok, driver needs to be more careful ) Front wheel come up too easy... ok fro real, CONS: wheels chip, buell saddle bags zipper broke, shifts hard at times, too easy to put into "park" mode when locking bike and removing key, thus leaving light on, and killing battery. Hard to find a good mechanic. Head lights almost worthless. Eats rear tires for breakfast.
In short, I love this bike, it has been almost trouble free, voltage regulator went, kick stand broke, other problems were mechanic induced. I will say that my servicing dealer has gone above and beyond helping in every way.
Currently 16910 miles, drummer, race ecm, K&N, drilled air box, de-snorkled, run exclusive brands of high octane fuel, mobil-1 v-twin in engine, HD syn 3 in gear box ( although currently the dino stuff, dealer installed, definetly dif in shifting.) Bridgestone BT14's, great tire.
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M1combat
Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 02:13 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Good call...

After 30 months I can certainly say I still love the bike. I bought it in November of '03 and I've put 21K miles on it since. I live about 3 miles from work and I ride it there and back every day. To do the math... That's given me roughly 3915 miles of the 21K : ). The rest has been for fun. I live about three tenths of a mile from my favorite canyon road. It consists of about 300 turns in about 10 miles or so running right along the side of a good sized canyon. I would guess that about 12K miles have been put on there. The rest has been longer trips to California for the American Sport Bike BBQ in '04, The Springfast of '05, Vegas once, Colorado, ALL OVER the northern AZ mountains, having way too much fun around town : ), and in general... terrorizing the pavement. I don't give it any other quarter than the fact that I try to keep it under about 5800 RPM (It's a general rule...) and I keep it clean and maintained. Cleaning is a bit rough due to all the cooling fins and lack of body work... You really gotta wash the thing. I use a bottle brush and a toilet brush along with rags and a hand mit. I try to get to it two or three times a month or so.

I dropped it into first from neutral twice w/o using the clutch within about six months... The seal on the final drive output shaft failed. I called my local service dept from California and explained that it was just seeping, so they had me ride it the 500 and something miles home. About 60-80 miles of that (across the southern california desert on HWY 78) was pretty much pinned. It was about 105-110 and it never let up. I made an effort to keep it above 125 (about 5900RPM) and it just ran like a tractor : ) for about a half an hour. I finally slowed down to get fuel in a little station on 78, got some water and fuel and did it again until I got stopped by a few NG troops with M16's... They just asked me if I was a Citizen of the United States and let me go...

Anyway... I digress : ). I got home, took it to the dealer the next tuesday and they had it fixed under warranty in about 40 minutes (They aren't even the dealer I bought it from, but they still provided doughnuts... I bought it from Dave). It hasn't been back to the "shop" since. I've just changed the oil, kept it clean, adjusted everything as the service manual states (although I still haven't re-built the forks... I need to do that), I do all my own service but it's really quite easy. I would say the most difficult thing I've done is rotated the engine and even that was pretty easy the second time. If you have a set of the DHM Axle sliders that have the lift spools on them you can do it with a jack and two jack-stands... You can do it w/o the spools too, but it's just easier with them.

I've had four different exhaust configurations on it and two fueling devices (even looked into the mega-squirt for a while). So far the best config I've found is a Drummer and the stock pipe. As a mod list I also have a K&N, chopped airbox, yanked snorkel, NorrisPerformance Catch Can and a race ECM. I strongly reccomend the catch can... After I put it on I was able to wipe out the intake tract for the LAST time... It's been clean since. Excellent product right there. I've also got a gold shorty CRG clutch lever. Those are great too.

I dropped it once in the parking lot of a Burger King once (and the bastards didn't even take a debit card...) and scratched the right mirror and front blinker. The peg and both brake lever snapped as well. I think the repair bill was about $35 after shipping from Dave. It has gone through two or three tail lights, but generally only after 100+ mile trips in the rain. It doesn't seem to seal well along the bottom of the lense... such is life I guess, they run about $1.29 for two...

A couple of fairly obscure betails I've learned... Keep the throttle cables adjusted perfectly and make sure you keep the throttle cables tied to something that moves with the engine somewhere close to the throttle body. If you don't it can cause a hicup at low throttle openings. ALWAYS tell the people who change your tires to be very careful with your rims if they're translucent amber... the coating is reasonably fragile (or it was on '04 XB12R's anyhow). Don't jump the motorcycle if you already know you have some decent belt damage... It has a decent chance of breaking : ). It'll take a FULL quart in the primary if you level the bike and let the last ounce or so drain out. Do that and you'll have the perfect level every time. It's pretty important to good trans performance. Don't be "nice" to the trans... shift like you mean it. Don't be a wussy. The primary chain tension works just fine a little more loose than the factory reccomendation.

The damn things handle. I don't care what anyone says about it. It's a little different from something with more relaxed geometry but on a nice tight road it's SOOO worth it : ). If you're in sweepers... It works just fine there too... Trust me. It is pretty sensitive to small suspension changes. It took me a while to go from understeer to oversteer and then back to a mostly neutral oversteer with the setup, but I've never had any trouble with push coming out or any instability what so ever. The pavement on my canyon road isn't perfect (which is what makes it perfect IMO...) and the damn thing just sticks and goes where you want it to. I've had the front off the ground at full throttle in a second gear right/left transition and when the front set back down the bars just SNAPPED back to equilibrium without a hint of a wiggle. I've just about lost it at 70 on cold tires and as soon as the peg touched the bars gave a push to the inside and the bike picked me up and then just set right back down into the turn. No oscilation. It just saved itself and got about it's business. Brilliant. I've hit water mid turn while hauling ass and had the bike slide towards the edge of the road about 8 feet and never did anything funny... The tires burned the water off themselves and the bike stopped sliding... That's it... Both ends slid gradually the same distance and speed. There was bit of pucker factor on that one, but certainly no quirkyness from the bike at all.

I go through a lot of tires though... I used Metzeler M1's until the M3's came out and I'd go through a set roughly every 2300 miles or so. At first the front would be shagged at about a 43-48 degree angle (when it was understeering). After a while the front would look like it'd go one more rear but I never tried it. Now it uses them pretty evenly and I feel like I'm getting my moneys worth : ). I'm running the M3's now and they are just excellent. About the same feel as the M1's in a transition or just heeling it over, but more grip. Just seems a bit more sure footed now. I run the front 2lbs lower than the rear.

All the finishing touches on the bike are top notch IMO... I haven't scratched the frame, the bodywork seems difficult to scratch up AND easy to polish. I've sanded mine down going for a flat look, but I'm sure I could polish it in about the same time I spent sanding it. The controls have never given me greef at all. They work every time. I would rather that the high-beam flasher work both ways though. I run with my high beams on all the time and I wish the flasher would make them go to dim. The seat hasn't really devaloped any signs of wear at all. It seems like they used the right material for that.

The engineering is just bloody brilliant. That's about all I can say about that. The design/engineering team that developed the XB's are top of the stack.

Ride it like you stole it : ).
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12r
Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 04:30 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Nice summary M1.
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Spike
Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 12:00 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

As long as we're having the love-fest, I still love mine too. : )

I bought mine in October of '03 (was in agony for an XB12R since July 14th of '03), so I've had mine for 31 months now. It currently is just shy of 23k miles. I averaged ~10k per year for the first two years, but lately I've only had time to ride to work and back with the occasional weekend ride.

I use mine for commuting, I rode it to Florida (~1200 mile weekend), I've done day trips with my wife on the back, and I took it to the track and outran a bunch of "faster" imports- the bike does everything I ask of it. It's still the best handling bike I've ridden. I can honestly say that I've become a better rider after spending 20k+ miles on a Firebolt. My only real complaint about the bike is the lack of good luggage. If I were to pick nits I'd like to see the bike with slightly less rotating weight, a smoother primary drive system, and better headlights, but that's about it. If my bike was stolen today I'd go out and buy another XB12R to replace it.
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Gowindward
Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 12:19 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

"My only real complaint about the bike is the lack of good luggage. "

Ventura Rack and Cortech saddle bags and of course the Buell tank bag.

21 Months and 23k miles. Still Lovin' it!




(Message edited by gowindward on May 24, 2006)
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Rubberdown
Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 01:04 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Shameless plug:

I have a complete deluxe Ventura rack/bag system for an R for sale. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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Spike
Posted on Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 09:11 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Response to shameless plug:

I'm not supposed to be spending any more money on my toys right now, but I'd like to see pictures of your rack (heh) if you don't mind. ;)
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Rubberdown
Posted on Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 10:01 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I'll try to post some pics or e-mail 'em to ya.
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Buellisti
Posted on Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 12:22 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

too easy to put into "park" mode when locking bike and removing key, thus leaving light on, and killing battery

I'm glad to find out I am not the only one to do extended battery tests because the switch goes into park way too easily.

My XB has been has been utterly reliable as a daily commuter and on long trips. The only issue I have had was a primary cover with a casting flaw that the dealer took care of quickly at around 15,000 miles.

I haven't crossed paths with Xb12rene yet. He's a daily commuter, I see his bike up at the university all the time. His exhaust is pretty damn distinctive.
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Earwig
Posted on Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 12:35 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

too easy to put into "park" mode when locking bike and removing key, thus leaving light on, and killing battery
happened once... now that i am paranoid it won't happen again, I turn around and double check like someone who is paranoid about leaving the iron on.
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Tourguide
Posted on Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 03:39 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

Been there did that as well. I suited up to ride my new XB only to find that pushing the start button did not do a thing, thought I had a serious problem, felt sick, then realized that I had gone one position to far with the key leaving the parking break on and running down the battery. I had to laugh at myself as I reached for the battery charger. It happened once probably will never happen again however I wish it was not so easy to do because it could leave You stranded when You least expect it.
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M1combat
Posted on Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 04:34 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Custodian/Admin Only)

I always watch my gages as I pull the key out. The needles do the sweep thing when you turn it too far.
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