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- Buell Blast
- danrogy's review
Picture courtesy of Ted.
| Build quality | 7.2/10   |
|---|---|
| Reliability | 7.2/10 |
| Value for Money | 8.3/10 |
| Reviewer Rating | 7.6/10 |
| Overall Rating | 7.7/10 |
By danrogy
on 6th Apr 2005
| Year Manufactured | 2005 |
|---|---|
| Length of ownership | 2 Days |
| Build quality | 0/10 |
| Reliability | 0/10 |
| Value for money | 0/10 |
| Overall value | 0/10 |
 danrogy's recommendation | |
Looks great, sounds great, great price, great handling, inexpensive plastic
Complete piece of garbage that Harley dealers are embarrassed by
Hi all. I've spent the past month doing TONS of research on a motorcycle. So I wanted something cool, good handling, not too fast and not expensive to buy or operate. I found myself staring at the Buell Blast! It was all of the above and man I thought it was COOL! I saw a few websites had an awful lot of complaints on the earlier Blast! models. It seemed like there were no complaints from 2004-2005. Since the bike is essentially unchanged, I figured they had worked out the problems. I shopped all around Southern California and found prices varied from $4900-$6200. Giant spread, huh? I wanted one in black, but at that low end price I could only find blue. Big stinkin' deal, because a new set of black panels was like $350, still hundreds cheaper than the black ones. I had to get a lift from a buddy to Simi Valley Harley-Davidson (about 45 minutes north-no fun on an early Saturday AM). When I got there, there was a "Sold" tag on the floor model. I already screwed up by not telling them to uncrate me a new one before I showed up. So instead I got the scuffed, sat-on for three months, dusty demo bike. So I get my cool new bike. The main reason I didn't want a used one was I wanted to be sure it was broken in properly. I slowly, gingerly depart the dealer and start heading out to the Pacific Coast Highway for the long ride home. Man was I psyched! I got 20 slow miles down the road when the bike started sputtering and then died. I was upset, but not really mad. Hey, things happen and I was willing to cut them some slack. They were super sorry, they towed me back, bought me lunch and gave me a Harley T-shirt. They then re-jetted the carbs, tuned the idle and put in a new spark-plug. Things they should've done before I even walked in to buy the bike! They knew I was coming and didn't have the common sense to run the bike, tune the bike, or even dust the thing off! All they did was make sure it started. I thought that this carb re-jet wouldn't fix the problem, but I'm not a mechanic. And so now at like 5:30 PM, off I go once again. This time I get 10 miles down the road before the bike sputters and dies. Now I'm mad and it's miraculous that I'm not losing it on these super-apologetic people, all of whom are now into overtime because it's after 6PM. They give me a loaner car, I trek back to Santa Monica and then back to their Ventura store the next morning. They've got their top mechanic in for double time OT all Sunday to work on my bike. He fixed a few things and sent me on my way. This time I got 40 miles away before the bike, once agin, sputtered and died. I got on the phone with a few of the higher-ups and said "Strike three. You're out. I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!" They said sorry (for the millionth time) and undid the deal. I gleaned from a number of these great Harley people that Buell is the redheaded stepchild of Harley. There's a Buell "dealership" a half-mile from my house, and they refuse to get new blasts. Many dealers won't get new ones and won't work on old ones. It's a waste of time and money to keep fixing a broken piece of garbage like that. The only silver lining in all of this is that now I can go get a Japanese bike like I should've in the first place. It's a crying shame that I am now more certain than ever that I'll NEVER AGAIN get another American-made vehicle. I was psyched to buy American, but now I see that we've been out-done. Screw this, I'm getting a Suzi.
-DR
| Helpful | Unhelpful | Agree | Disagree |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
Total Respect: -4
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