Considering the Sears Travel Trunk

[FJR Flyer]

I actually considered one of those. The Bestem is even a touch nicer trunk than the Sears / JCW, IMO. I had one previously on my VFR (since sold-off). The downside to the Bestem trunk is that they reversed the latch mechanism as compared to the GIVI, (maybe to avoid lawsuits?) so it will not fit right on a GIVI monokey mount plate without some modification of the GIVI mount (mill a hole through it) which may weaken the latch tang.

The steel plate that they ship with the Bestem is also nicer than the crude one that comes with the JCW, but I wanted to be able to switch between the el-cheapo and one of my other GIVI boxes, so didn't want to use the (reversed) Bestem plate.

Yeah I found that out. I was hoping to use the PCA Givi mount kit instead of their plate, but, as you said, its reversed. I also like that the Bestem comes with the brake light in the lid.

 

[spinblue]

I think the Whitney one is a POS. I've gone through a number of them.

I'm using the Givi mount plate and while it functions nice, they have not withstood usage.

The bottom mold snaps off and the box is no longer solid to the mount plate.

After going through a few of these, I just won't buy on the cheap again.

I'll splurge on a Givi and be done with it for time to come I hope.

 

[Fred W]

I think the Whitney one is a POS. I've gone through a number of them.

I'm using the Givi mount plate and while it functions nice, they have not withstood usage.

The bottom mold snaps off and the box is no longer solid to the mount plate.

After going through a few of these, I just won't buy on the cheap again.

I'll splurge on a Givi and be done with it for time to come I hope.

Could you be more specific about where you had the failures happen? Which bottom mold are you talking about? Pictures are always helpful.

I don't know if maybe you are doing something a bit differently than other folks, but I've really never heard of these things just breaking from regular use before, unless heavily overloaded. Maybe, being up in the frigid midwest, you are running them in colder weather than other folks and the plastic gets brittle? That would sure be worth knowing about if it were true.

I personally have owned 2 of them before in the past and not had any problems. But I realize that your failure data points are worth more than my non-failures,

Thanks in advance

 

[spinblue]

The mold part that affected me was the slot where it slides on to the Givi mount point.

I've tossed them out and don't have any pictures. And I can say I didn't overload it. Just use it for typical junk, visor spray, hat, and small stuff like that.

I can't say for sure it was or wasn't the weather. Just a string of bad luck perhaps.

 

[Fred W]

OK, thanks for the response.

How about rough roads? Do you have some particularly rough places you took them?

How much use did you get from them before they failed?

I'm having a hard time understanding how you could have had three (you said a few, right?) of them fail in the same way and not have heard that this is a common failure mode. I could see getting one bad example. I mean they are made in China where QC is an unknown. But having multiples of these fail the same way, and from what (I expect) were from different purchases, so different manufacturing batches? Hmmm...

 

[RZ350]

I'm not sure of the relevance, but I'll toss this out there anyway in case it helps someone...

Back in 2001, we bought 2 of the smaller (helmet-size) JCW boxes; one went on the DR650 and one on the Interceptor. About a year later, the tab on the spring-loaded latch plate (that locks the box to the base) snapped off and allowed the Interceptor case to go bouncing down the road. I made a replacement aluminum latch plate and all was good again (overlooking box road-rash, of course). The interceptor was sold, but the DR650 remains, and the unmodified box on it is still working okay.

So the warning is this - occasionally check that latch plate for cracks (if it's plastic).