r_mccarty60
New Member
Hey Everyone,
I thought I'd share a warning after a fun experience this morning. I'll try my best to explain what happened.
When I bought my Tenere 3 months ago, I asked the dealership if the Shad trunk box I had purchased for my previous bike would fit on it. They told me they more than likely could attach the mounting plate to the luggage rack, and they did. They never gave me any sort of warning so I never really inspected their install.
Pan back to this morning on my 25 mile commute to work. I almost made it in, there are 2 speed bumps about a half mile from my job and I always take them pretty slow. When I hit the first one, I heard a loud noise from my box. I assumed it was my laptop that I never bring bouncing around, so when I hit the second one, I went a lot slower. My whole topcase came off and went tumbling on the ground while going over this second one. When I picked it up, I looked for what happened, and realized the dealership had drilled holes in the thin plastic top piece of the luggage rack in 4 locations.
If you look at how the OEM luggage rack is set up, there is a more robust solid plastic rack mounted to the bike frame, then this thinner piece is mounted to the robust piece by 3 screws near the top. My mount was attached to this piece and when I hit bumps, the bottom part of the this thin plastic piece would bounce because it wasn't secured to the more robust piece, stressing the plastic close to where it is mounted to the bottom piece (Sorry, I know this sounds confusing). This is exactly where it cracked and failed on my bike. I'm extremely lucky this didn't happen while splitting lanes across the bay bridge, or any other spot of my commute at highway speeds.
I never overloaded this box, usually used it to carry an extra helmet, or my padded pants and a sweater. I would have still bought the bike if they said there was no way to safely mount my old box on this bike without buying the correct rack or adaptor, so it's pretty frustrating that they jerry-rigged this together, and after 3 months it failed, scratched and scuffed up my box that was in perfect condition, and possibly broke my laptop.
You might want to reconsider how you mount your top box if you try and cut corners to save a couple hundred bucks.
I thought I'd share a warning after a fun experience this morning. I'll try my best to explain what happened.
When I bought my Tenere 3 months ago, I asked the dealership if the Shad trunk box I had purchased for my previous bike would fit on it. They told me they more than likely could attach the mounting plate to the luggage rack, and they did. They never gave me any sort of warning so I never really inspected their install.
Pan back to this morning on my 25 mile commute to work. I almost made it in, there are 2 speed bumps about a half mile from my job and I always take them pretty slow. When I hit the first one, I heard a loud noise from my box. I assumed it was my laptop that I never bring bouncing around, so when I hit the second one, I went a lot slower. My whole topcase came off and went tumbling on the ground while going over this second one. When I picked it up, I looked for what happened, and realized the dealership had drilled holes in the thin plastic top piece of the luggage rack in 4 locations.
If you look at how the OEM luggage rack is set up, there is a more robust solid plastic rack mounted to the bike frame, then this thinner piece is mounted to the robust piece by 3 screws near the top. My mount was attached to this piece and when I hit bumps, the bottom part of the this thin plastic piece would bounce because it wasn't secured to the more robust piece, stressing the plastic close to where it is mounted to the bottom piece (Sorry, I know this sounds confusing). This is exactly where it cracked and failed on my bike. I'm extremely lucky this didn't happen while splitting lanes across the bay bridge, or any other spot of my commute at highway speeds.
I never overloaded this box, usually used it to carry an extra helmet, or my padded pants and a sweater. I would have still bought the bike if they said there was no way to safely mount my old box on this bike without buying the correct rack or adaptor, so it's pretty frustrating that they jerry-rigged this together, and after 3 months it failed, scratched and scuffed up my box that was in perfect condition, and possibly broke my laptop.
You might want to reconsider how you mount your top box if you try and cut corners to save a couple hundred bucks.
