I just needed to vent this somewhere.
It took a long time to get my license because our local DMV equivalent is a bureacratic hell hole, but when I finally got it 3 months after passing my exam, I decided to buy a GS500H (it's just an E but with a different letter) from 2002. I thought that was pretty new but then found out it had 75k km on it. It looked good though and everything important had been replaced. I test rode it and everything worked just fine, so I bought it. Afterwards I found some repair receipts in the owners manual that had numbers higher than 75k followed by later receipts at less, so I'm guessing it ran 175k and boy is it noticeable.
When I first rode it home everything was fine. Untill I got home and turned off the engine. Initially that wasn't a problem, but a few hours later when I tried to ride it again, the choke would stick whenever it was closed. The lever would go back but the choke would stay closed. I initially fixed this by physically pushing on the bar the choke cable pulls on, which worked. Initially. Now some people at the garage got the choke working again but I have to hold the lever or it opens again.
The next problem presented itself immediately afterwards. The idle r would slowly creep up the more I used the bike. I had the idle screw as low as it would go but it would idle at 4000 nonetheless at some point. I had it checked at the garage a few times, first they checked the carburettor, then they replaces the gas cable, and then they checked the carb again. Then the second time they checked the carb it was super dirty. They cleaned it and all of a sudden it ran fine. Yet now it is inconsistent. Sometimes it idles at 3k when warm but the next time I stop it's 1.5k. you'd think that's a nice half of what the 3k was so it might just be a cylinder no longer working, but there was absolutely no change in the sound, it still sounds like a 2 cylinder.
Then one day when I came home, I saw my bike was parked different from how I remembered. So I go up, and I see the handlebar on the right side is bent straight up, the instrument panel was cracked and there is a huge dent in my now empty tank. Some stuff had fallen off and my brake lever was broken. Turns out the wind had gotten hold of the cover and pulled the bike over.
Then there's the electrical problems which are driving me mad. It started out with the bike not starting when I had not ridden it for more than about 2 weeks. I could still push start it, but it wouldn't start on its own. Riding it still charged it but it would jusy drain quickly. Then one day, I stopped the bike for no more than 10 seconds to change my navigation, but I turned off the engine, and it would no longer start on its own, but it would still push start easily. So I figured the battery was bad, so I changed it, which fixed it (or so I thought). The bike would stay charged again and start on its own. But now not only does it only barely start after 5 days of not being used, the blinkers occasionally go into hypermode and blink at twice the normal speed and I have no f%$king clue what is causing it.
I really regret buying this bike. In the past 2 years for which I have had my license, I think I maybe rode around 1k km, and it cost me probably around €800 in repairs.
