It looks like the last time I posted here was over 9 years ago, but I am glad to see this community is still around. I had some recent problems and found a lot of answers just going through the old posts and articles.
My 2005 ST in Red, the fastest/bestest color of all, looked like this last year. (I don't really ride much anymore, I just basically use the ST to run errands and had about 18k on the clock)
Last month I needed to run an errand - less than 10 miles to the neighboring City. I hopped on the freeway and as I was going down my offramp, I noticed the bike was running pretty rough. (This was an elevated offramp and I needed to make a left turn to go across a bridge over the freeway). I stopped for a redlight at the intersection and had to increase the rpm's because it sounded like the engine was going to die out on me. As I am waiting for the light to change, I smell something burning, kind of a plastic smell, and I look around, but don't see anything. Then I look down by my foot and I see flames coming up the side of the bike from the area below the left foot peg!
I put the kickstand down and hopped off. I was surrounded by concrete and I did not have anything to put the fire out with. By this time, the fire is starting to burn my Russell Day Long seat, so the only thing I could think of doing was to start stripping things off the bike. (both saddle bags, the Hondaline trunks, empty out the fairing pockets, etc). Fortunately, an 18-wheeler stopped to assist and the driver had a fire extinguisher and was able to get the fire out. The fire department showed up about 5 minutes later, hosed everything down for good measures and then the ST was towed away... I had a pretty good idea it was going to be totaled- it was 18 years old and the main wiring harness was fried from the fire.
I have full coverage insurance with Geico with a pretty low deductible - $250. So filed a claim and things started out pretty well. I used their web page for the claim, and the next day one of their people called me to take my statement, and told me that Geico waives the deductible with fires (good news). I also uploaded some photo's of the bike and I indicated that the main wiring harness looked to be about a $900 item just for the part and it does not look like it is available anymore. A couple of days later, I get an email indicating the bike is going to be totaled and this is where things start to go downhill with them, but I will save that for another post.
I started looking on Cycle Trader to try to figure out what my bike might be worth. I came across a 2012 ST that was about 4 hours away from me that looked exceptionally clean. I wasn't really in the market to buy a new motorcycle right then and was thinking perhaps I would buy something a little smaller this time, but that 2012 looked like too good of a deal to pass up, so I bought it.
Here is the 2012 once I got it home and by the way, the $15 rental fee (24 hours) from a motorcycle trailer from U-Haul is a great deal.
Here is what it looks like today. I am going through everything but I am very pleased with the condition - it was very well maintained. (I just placed a $375 order with RonAyers.com, (almost half of that was to get back to OEM brakes all around) and she should be as good as new when I am done.
The ST has some interesting upgrades - a 'Digital Guard Dawg' keyless ignition as well as these handlebar risers along with extensions for the brake and clutch lines. I have never seen that before and at this point I am not sure what to make of it? (I test rode the bike for about 15 minutes, getting up to freeway speeds.... and it didn't feel too bad)
Double stacked handlebar risers. Moto-CNC on the bottom and Heli Bars (which I had on my 05) on top
Lastly, looking through some of the old threads, I kept coming across some things like 'SMC' and the search engine on this forum won't work looking for things like that (too short). Google has 'custom search engines' that you can setup to search a specific site or a group of sites that does a pretty good job. So I set one up to search this forum and it works pretty well. (now I know all about the SMC issues)
This link is to search ST-owners.com: (it's just a blank page with a search bar)
Programmable Search Engine (google.com)
This link will take you to their web page where you can set up your own searches:
Programmable Search Engine by Google
My 2005 ST in Red, the fastest/bestest color of all, looked like this last year. (I don't really ride much anymore, I just basically use the ST to run errands and had about 18k on the clock)
Last month I needed to run an errand - less than 10 miles to the neighboring City. I hopped on the freeway and as I was going down my offramp, I noticed the bike was running pretty rough. (This was an elevated offramp and I needed to make a left turn to go across a bridge over the freeway). I stopped for a redlight at the intersection and had to increase the rpm's because it sounded like the engine was going to die out on me. As I am waiting for the light to change, I smell something burning, kind of a plastic smell, and I look around, but don't see anything. Then I look down by my foot and I see flames coming up the side of the bike from the area below the left foot peg!
I put the kickstand down and hopped off. I was surrounded by concrete and I did not have anything to put the fire out with. By this time, the fire is starting to burn my Russell Day Long seat, so the only thing I could think of doing was to start stripping things off the bike. (both saddle bags, the Hondaline trunks, empty out the fairing pockets, etc). Fortunately, an 18-wheeler stopped to assist and the driver had a fire extinguisher and was able to get the fire out. The fire department showed up about 5 minutes later, hosed everything down for good measures and then the ST was towed away... I had a pretty good idea it was going to be totaled- it was 18 years old and the main wiring harness was fried from the fire.
I have full coverage insurance with Geico with a pretty low deductible - $250. So filed a claim and things started out pretty well. I used their web page for the claim, and the next day one of their people called me to take my statement, and told me that Geico waives the deductible with fires (good news). I also uploaded some photo's of the bike and I indicated that the main wiring harness looked to be about a $900 item just for the part and it does not look like it is available anymore. A couple of days later, I get an email indicating the bike is going to be totaled and this is where things start to go downhill with them, but I will save that for another post.
I started looking on Cycle Trader to try to figure out what my bike might be worth. I came across a 2012 ST that was about 4 hours away from me that looked exceptionally clean. I wasn't really in the market to buy a new motorcycle right then and was thinking perhaps I would buy something a little smaller this time, but that 2012 looked like too good of a deal to pass up, so I bought it.
Here is the 2012 once I got it home and by the way, the $15 rental fee (24 hours) from a motorcycle trailer from U-Haul is a great deal.
Here is what it looks like today. I am going through everything but I am very pleased with the condition - it was very well maintained. (I just placed a $375 order with RonAyers.com, (almost half of that was to get back to OEM brakes all around) and she should be as good as new when I am done.
The ST has some interesting upgrades - a 'Digital Guard Dawg' keyless ignition as well as these handlebar risers along with extensions for the brake and clutch lines. I have never seen that before and at this point I am not sure what to make of it? (I test rode the bike for about 15 minutes, getting up to freeway speeds.... and it didn't feel too bad)
Double stacked handlebar risers. Moto-CNC on the bottom and Heli Bars (which I had on my 05) on top
Lastly, looking through some of the old threads, I kept coming across some things like 'SMC' and the search engine on this forum won't work looking for things like that (too short). Google has 'custom search engines' that you can setup to search a specific site or a group of sites that does a pretty good job. So I set one up to search this forum and it works pretty well. (now I know all about the SMC issues)
This link is to search ST-owners.com: (it's just a blank page with a search bar)
Programmable Search Engine (google.com)
This link will take you to their web page where you can set up your own searches:
Programmable Search Engine by Google
