opinions on "Platinum" motorcycles......?

Klaus

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Mar 8, 2004
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And now for something completely different.........
Does anybody have any experience or opinion on these new chinese made Platinum bikes? There are some dealers who sell these 125cc, 150cc and even 250cc twin choppers. My friend wants to buy a 125, new, for 33.000 baht, but I advised him not to. I told him he'd get what he pays for, a cheap bike that starts rattling after half a year and will have problems. Even though the engines are old air-cooled Honda engines, there's a lot to go wrong on a bike like that, and the next service dealer is 250km away. I told him to rather buy a used Kawasaki Boss 175 (or even a new Honda Wave 100) than a new chinese bike - they are trouble.
Am I wrong? Have the chinese been getting better? Any opinions of Platinum owners (if there are any...) welcome!
 
Nov 14, 2004
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Klaus, you said it ole chumm, the dealer is 250klm away, thats a bugger to get to when the xfactor kicks in.
Mabe the chinese have uped the anti on there m/c, but they are manufacturing old tec Honda, at the end of the day bargins get thrown away an well made lasts for ever, with in reason!!
So santa, wacha gunna buy!!
 
Jun 21, 2006
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My Thai friend purchased one a 250 about 8 months ago, on Phuket. Will ask him how its going when I see him in 2 weeks time
 

Klaus

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Mar 8, 2004
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That would be interesting to hear if the Platipus (oops, Platinum) is still running and how many repairs and adjustments it had...
When I had my shop and was renting out motorcycles I bought a JRD with E-start and disc brakes for only 30.000 baht new. The transmission was lousy, the brakes were so grabby it was dangerous at low speeds and the thing started to rattle after a couple of months. Then it broke down, smelling of gas. Took a while to find out it was the cheap rubber hoses! Some people wanted to rent a bike for a week, then brought it back after a couple of days. I rode it myself for a while and I just didn't like it. Sold it as soon as it paid for itself - cheap!
I'd say the chinese should be worse than the koreans....
 
Jun 21, 2006
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My Thai friend was telling me he has the first 250 Plat..... bike on Phuket so it will be interesting to see if it is still running when i get back there next month.
 

Klaus

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Mar 8, 2004
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Coincidentally my friend lives in Phuket, too.
I'm interested to know if these bikes are reasonably reliable for their money. Maybe I'm wrong and the chinese are starting to make decent products.... Then again I've heard only bad things about chinese made bikes and bet they still are problematic.
Talked to one Suzuki dealer in the States who started to sell chinese made scooters a few years back - he told me it was the biggest mistake he ever made. Had to part out half the scooters he had to make those run which came back after only a few weeks... some didn't even start, brandnew.
Buy the best and only cry once!
 
Jun 21, 2006
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is you friend in the building game, my friend has just built my house, (along with 50 more in the street), and i used to watch him riding up and down every day, he quite liked my 1150GS but couldnt quite afford one, I finally get back to PKT on Aug 8th, currently in Sydney OZ, wish I had my bike over here
 
Jul 11, 2006
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I had a Platipus 125 so called trials bike which fell apart and constantly let me down, under powered for a 125 and useless gear box, rusted to bits inside a year, stay away, because you get what you pay for chum.
 

Klaus

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Mar 8, 2004
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Thanks, macattack, this is exactly what I wanted (and expected) to hear! My buddy misses his dear old MTX125 two-stroke, which expired after a long, costly struggle. Now he has his eyes on the 125 dual sport, which of course won't compare power- and otherwise.
How much (or little) money did you get for it when you got rid of it, or did you simply leave it in the ditch?
 
Jun 21, 2006
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Hi Klaus, finally spoke to my Thai builder who had the 200. he said he had a few electrical problems with the bike and has now sold it. i asked him if he would buy another one and he said he would pay the extra and buy a Honda Phantom.

Hope this info helps.

John
 

KZ25

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Nov 19, 2011
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To answer my own question: these bikes are Chinese-made crap and not worth even the low price!
My buddy did buy a 2006 Platinum PX 175 which actually is quite a good-looking bike. But he had problems right from the start, it went back to the shop almost every week. Lots of little things went wrong, didn't work, fell off. Main problem was the valve cover which leaked oil after several tries to fix it.
Also the dealer in Phuket was overwhelmed by the complaints of owners that he closed his shop overnight and was gone. That meant that the bike never got registered; the shop owner should have the green book since he took care of the registering process. Contacting headquarters in Bangkok didn't help.
Now on top of the technical problems the cops gave my friend more problems because it didn't have a license.
He rode it until it didn't start anymore, a total of around 4,000km, can't tell exactly because the km counter fell apart.
Now it's for sale as a parts bike.
It actually still looks okay in the picture I took today after a quick wash but it looks worse close-up! All metal is corroded, the plastics are cracked, the instruments broke off, electrics not working.

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