Need recommendations: Tailcase purchase

edited

Bestem (search Ebay). They are $100 with shipping included and are watertight and come with the mounting plate. I've had 3 (stupidly sold the first two when I sold the bike they were attached to) and have nothing but praise for them. I even hooked up the brake light in the last box I bought and it makes for a nice safety feature and took about 10 minutes. I never take it off.

Had a few Givi, no problems. Have a CooCase, like the stay open feature, same quality IMO. Twisted Throttle is awesome to deal with BTW.

The most useful for two-up touring that I've found is the E52 Givi.

Takes two full face helmets easily.

No personal experience except Givi, but since it will move from bike to bike, the extra $80 (or whatever) over a knock-off is worth it, to me, amortized over 5 or 10 years,

I have a Givi E52 on my every-day commuter Ninja 250. Works great without complaint. Big ugly suitcase, too! :)

Shad SH49 maybe?

Had the opposite experience with both Coocase and Twisted Throttle...

Givi Monokey is the standard. The cheap Jc Whitney cases are surprisingly good (better than the brittle Coocase IMO)

Pelican and SKB are very good quality, just not at all stylish

Milk crate??? It is a Kowalski...

Ive had an E52 for about 4 or 5 years now and like it. It will take two full size helmets and you can get a whole bunch of accessories for it too. I got the luggage rack and backrest. My wife regularly sleeps on the back of whatever bike it's on.
But a couple sleeping bags on top of the luggage rack and she can rest her head and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

its a little fimsy but just as long as you dont drop it all the time, it will last

on the GS in Baja



same box on my FJR

got a Givi clone (chinese, I think) off of Fleabay, pretty happy with it. Think it's a clone of an E470. Believe it or not, I found the knock-off's mounting plate superior to Givi's.

First one I bought was a Bestem 929, basically a Givi V460 clone. If you want plain functionality, it's hard to beat for litres per dollar. Worked very well but looked every bit the $80 case. Shell and lens started fading fairly soon after. It just looked out of place on a any sport touring motorcycle with an MSRP of more than $7999.

Nowadays, I alternate between an E55 and V46. Quality and Aesthetics are worth paying extra, IMO.

I believe Twisted Throttle quit Coocase. Probably due to QC problems.

well Ive had the case off a couple times and its fallen off of a bike or a desk and some of the plastic molding around the edges came off which I supposed should be expected. I mean, it plastic. The hinges are plastic, so if you have a bunch of crap on the luggage rack and you carelessly throw open the box, the hinges are going to break.
If you're gentle with it, the thing should last a long time - I think ive had mine 4 or 5 years now and its fine and its been through at least 15 states and the length of Baja.
I would buy another one.

The really only stupid thing are the keys. A lot of torque is required to open the case and the metal part of the key breaks away from the plastic part of the key so be ready to have the givi keys copied. Thats my only real complaint

I have had my Givi E50 Maxia since 1999. It is now on it's 6th motorcycle. It's starting to show its age a bit, but still works great. One of the best purchases I have made.

I would suggest you take a look at the vendor's return policy regardless of what you buy. Some places charge a restocking fee, and some don't. There is a reason I haven't bought anything from Twisted Throttle in a long time...

+1 for the Givi E52. I have had Bestem and knockoffs, but Givi stays just ahead of the curve somehow. I thought it would look too big on my F650GS, but I have had nothing but compliments on how it looks. As for function, I cant imagine how I did without it before.

FWIW if that was beyond my budget, I would go with a large dry duffel bag. Bass Pro has one for $42

I don't understand the love for Givi. I mean I think they are cool and all, but a $100 bestem 50L top box with integrated brake light and mounting plate is hard to beat. I have Givi E21 panniers and they work great but so does the Bestem top box. It holds stuff, it locks, it comes off the mount with the push of a button, and it keeps my stuff dry. It works at a fraction of the cost. I've seen the bikes with Rubbermaid Action packers and although it's not my style, they still work also.

I will say that cosmetically, the Givi takes the nod but if I was worried that much about aesthetics I probably wouldn't put something that resembles a BBQ grill on my bike anyway. And according to the photos, they are probably stouter than the Bestem. However, 90% of the time, my top box is only used to store my gear and helmet when I stop.

Whatever you get, you'll wonder how you ever made it without a top box.

My vote is with GIVI in a monokey series if you are going with 50 liters plus. There is no substitute in my opinion. Fit & finish are top shelf and I have never had a failure with any of the six cases I have owned.

So in reality,you're wasting helpful people's time by asking for a top box recommendation.

You need to look for a sturdy wooden crate or metal storage box and rig up a mounting for it.....and stop asking about propriety motorcycle luggage.

Bear in mind though,that a top box is the absolute worst place for carrying heavy loads on a motorcycle.

Then by all means do what you like and get the most heavy duty case you can. I'll admit I didn't see anything but your original post. Just trying to be helpful, my bad.

Btw, I do occasionally carry some camping gear in my bestem but I try to keep it under 10 lbs or so.