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Honda VTX1800 100,000 miles report

Well I finally hit the 100,000 mile mark on my Honda 2004 VTX 1800N.

vtx100k

Purchased new in May of 2004 and now just a few weeks over the 4 year mark I finally hit 100,000 miles. I hoped to roll through this milestone on the Laughlin ride this year but I was a few thousand miles short when I got home from that ride.

First 100k mile issue report:

46,100mi 4/29/06
Replaced PGM & main wire harness.

One night while riding home in a major down-pour My wire harness shorted. The bike continued to run but only on the front cylinder. I made it home (50 miles) running on one cylinder no problem. I investigated the issue but I could not trace the short. I towed the bike to my dealer who eventually traced down the short, it was supposedly caused by a kink in the wire harness which may have occurred during some service.

53,300mi 10/5/06
Rear drive flange bearing replaced.
This appears to be a Honda VTX flaw, the original rear drive flange bearing burns out.

This bearing should be checked every time you change the rear tire.  If the bearing feels the least bit rough, replace it.  I noticed that the bearing was slightly rough during a wheel change but no one had the part in stock.  I needed the bike so I put everything back together thinking it was not that bad.  The next tire change showed this was a bad move.  The bearing was almost completely destroyed.

 bearings
Left side = Bad bearing, you can see the cover is gone and ball bearings are missing.
Right Side = New bearing and flange (this part is sold as a unit from Honda).

65,400mi 4/8/07
Replaced fork seals

Front right fork seal began to leak so I replaced the seals.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Reviews, Motorcycles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Honda VTX1800 100,000 miles report”

  1. Rene Says:
    June 24th, 2008 at 3:42 pm

    I’d love to see how many Harley riders have reached this milestone. Congrats!

  2. Jim Says:
    June 24th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

    Cool … but can you calculate how many of those were the same miles you traveled to and from work every day vs. out enjoying the open road? ;-)

  3. Ari Says:
    June 25th, 2008 at 8:36 am

    Thanks for destroying my delusion Jim!

    Unfortunately I’d have to say 90%+/- are commute miles :(

    However I am one of the few that enjoys their commute, most days I don’t mind at all. I do hate loosing the time every day but my ride is quite enjoyable. 1/2 the ride is on back roads and the other 1/2 on the freeway.

    I expect more folks commuting on bikes soon with gas the way it is. I get 35-40mpg on the 1800 and 45-50mpg on the 750. BTW my 750 has 87,000 miles but that is another post ;)

    //A

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