I don't normally feel this strongly against any particular bike and my experiences may conflict with that of others. I am normally the voice of reason as regards motorcycles. I can see the good in most bikes when used for the right purpose.
I've owned a vast number and helped mates look after a vast many more. Japs, Euro, Brits, HD, Chinese bikes and Iron curtain clunkers. None has inspired me to spill vitriol like the one Hyosung I bought my lad.
Doesn't look half bad does it? Read on....
Back a few years ago when my Son got his restricted full licence the options were to either get a 33 bhp restricted Jap like a CB500, ER5 etc or a sub 33 bhp 250. By chance a 2000 mile Hyosung GT250 came up on ebay and we snapped it up quickly. 2 years old and owned from new by an old guy and fitted with a nice pair of Bridgestones replacing the Korean tyres at the first service.
It had a full service history in that the guy had it serviced by a main dealer every 6 months because he didn't do that much mileage, it was garaged and was in better condition cosmetically than a brand new bike.
Bear in mind here that the lad's previous bike was a £600 Chinese Jinlun 125 that he ran for a year and did his test on. It ran perfectly for that year and got through what was its 3rd Winter on the road looking no worse than when we'd bought it despite him crashing it 3 times (incurring a whole £35 of expenditure to fix it!)
We were quite confident as regards the Hyosung, being Korean and "near Jap quality" so we were told. "Much better than that Chinese rubbish" was another comment. "It's a Suzuki with a different badge" was another.
Well they were wrong. What an utter pile of junk it was! The starter solenoid was the first thing to fail. A week of starting it with a screwdriver across the terminals before I fitted him a genuine Hyosung replacement...that failed within 2 weeks! I fitted a secondhand one from a Yamaha Virago next which cured the problem.
Next went the starter motor, which meant bump starting the bike until we fitted a new replacement...which failed after 2 weeks! That went back and I got a refund after much complaining. I found a secondhand one on ebay from a scabby 125 someone had decided to break because he was "fed up of fixing the bike". It had always started ok though, he'd maintained.
Next the starter button stopped working. The contacts had burned out. Luckily the guy breaking the 125 had a right hand switch set so I stripped out the starter button workings from that and that fixed that...then the dipped light switch on the left side failed! The guy didn't have that though he'd already sold it to someone whose 125 had failed the same way.
I gave up and bought a set of Suzuki Bandit switches, right and left and modded the wiring to fit them. Given that the pre-purchase whispers said that Hyosung virtually make Suzukis, the switchgear from the Bandit was far better quality.
The bike was also corroding badly, and the frame paint starting to flake. Remember that this bike had never been used in Winter. At the start of its first Winter on the road it threw off its drive sprocket due to a flimsy tab washer arrangement fastening it. I replaced that with a proper sized nut and spring washer.
I could go on but the upshot is this. Never in 40 years of riding on 70+ bikes I've owned have I come across a bike so shoddily made and with build quality as bad and I've had American, European, East European, Russian and Chinese bikes.
I'd buy certain Chinese bikes in a heartbeat but never ever ever again will I even entertain buying a Hyosung. I looked at a brand new Aquila 650 parked up at the recent Classic Show at Arlington. It has the same rubbish switchgear as the lad's 250 did.
If you buy a Hyosung, you might be seeing sights like this...quite often!
.... yep .... or maybe just not buy a Hyosung. Either way it will be a more rewarding experience.
