Wanted to expand my territorial radius from bicycling so picked up an old Gold Wing. It sat unused for many years but I got her going... but not stopping. At first the brakes did not work. Added fluid, flushed, bled... voila! Stoppage! I thought I was golden. But later on... the brakes did not RELEASE.
Yeah I'll just skip over the intermediate part here... So the calipers need rebuilding- the bike has three. I go to Honda and price parts:
Seals (2/caliper): $11.58 x 3 = 34.74
Dust seals (2/caliper): $12.58 x 3 = 37.74
Pistons (2/caliper): $74.58 x 3 = 223.74
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$296.22 for a handful of glorified O-rings and some walnut-sized cast pistons. Oh~ forgot the Cali sales tax of nearly 10%!!!
It gets better: what if, since I have almost no tools at my disposal, I buy caliper assemblies?
Caliper: $342.00 x 3 = $1,026
Oh yeah- sales tax too!
For that I get a palm-sized aluminum casting with minimal machining done to it, with the pistons and seals. No labor. No new brake shoes. No fluid. No rotors. No brakes lines. No master cylinder service. No rocket science or gold plating either. Cripes, I could probably get a machine shop to build them from scratch from billet for less.
One can only conclude that Honda hates their customers. You wouldn't do that to anyone you respect, would you?