Faults:

Bought this Honda 1800 VTX in mid 2004 from my local dealership after a 24 year break from motorcycling, due to having been married, kids, mortgage etc. Then thought, right my turn.

Had it delivered by the manager and got in the saddle after a trial ride round the block; it felt like I'd never been out of it. After a few days I had gone down our local steep hill and it cut out; well hardly any experience and on a steep hill, I coasted down the road, across two junctions and two sets of traffic lights, about a mile in all, straight into the forecourt of our local petrol garage, thinking I'd misjudged the fuel, I must be empty. It turned out I had 7/8 litres of fuel still in the tank. This happened several times, plus injector light issues.

I loved the bike; I thought by buying Honda it would be reliable. I wrote to Honda about these issues; the garage couldn't fix the cutting out downhill issue. Honda wrote back with a very unconcerned answer, which led me to get rid of this new bike after only 4 months. I traded it in for a brand new Road King Custom that never cut out downhill and never had any injector issues. It was a shame Honda left a bad taste in my mouth (!) after losing a lot of money on the trade in.

General Comments:

Great bike, great performance when it did work! Not very happy with the lacquering on nearly all the polished alloy; it showed every scratch, however light. This alone let it down because I always took pride and care cleaning it.

The few times the bike couldn't be ridden to the dealership with engine problems, the dealership had to pick it up; the method of tying it down did leave a few marks over the bike.