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so, Japanese bike are more reliable than BMWs and Harleys

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4 Lyfe
 
My CBR was acting all crappy, my bro and I worked on it, fixed it with a new $35 fuel pump assembly. Only major problem I've had with it. It's been dropped 3 times, crashed 3 times, and still runs very strong, it's more fun to ride than my ZX-6R. 16 years old. :thumbup
 
Okay... so you finished reading the first paragraph... on to the 2nd paragraph... :)
 
I'm curious about their sample size and what types of bikes they are riding. Seems to me that japanese bikes tend to be more of sport type while BMW and Harley tend to be more about touring/commuting. The later tends to get a lot more miles racked up on it then the average sport bike that's used for pleasure. I don't know about Harleys, but I've seen a heck if a lot more BMWs with 100k+ miles on them than any sport bike. I've put 8k on mine in the last 6 months and its up to 70k total. I would assume more mileage would reasonable equate to more repairs needed.
 
I read it as a reiteration of what we already know about japanese vs european: The components on the big three are just not as high-spec. You either upgrade the bike you have, or you buy another one that's already upgraded, which almost always means european.

And harley owners are going to continue to buy harleys because you can't fix stupid.
 
Themz of us who been ride'in awhile, dun already knew this. :nerd
The koolaide drinkers can spout all the bs they want, but the cost per mile of Japanese bikez can not be beat.
/thread
 
I think that there's a different demographic for each of the the geographic regions that the bikes come from in that article.

I also think that there's a big disparity in what people think are "major problems" and some of that may be associated with the price tag. That is, if I paid $20k for a motorcycle and the electro-key-fob-ring-thing wouldn't detect my key and the bike wouldn't start, that's a major problem- even if it's covered for free by a recall and a $50 part if it's not. OTOH, if I had the same problem on an $8k naked standard I'd probably just hot wire the damn thing and keep riding.

Consumer Reports is a good magazine but their "surveys" are usually very subjective and in this case was limited only to Consumer Reports Subscribers which in and of itself is a specific demographic that may not represent the same slice of Americans that as a random survey might.

From the brief at CR:
Motorcyclists could easily prevent many of the problems they encounter. That’s the unvarnished message we got from motorcycle mechanics from around the country who discussed common problems they see in their shops. Here’s how to prevent unnecessary expense and downtime...

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2013/05/most-reliable-motorcycles/index.htm
Click to expand...



Despite all that, I'll generally agree that the premise of the report is accurate.
 
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danate said:
I'm curious about their sample size and what types of bikes they are riding. Seems to me that japanese bikes tend to be more of sport type while BMW and Harley tend to be more about touring/commuting. The later tends to get a lot more miles racked up on it then the average sport bike that's used for pleasure. I don't know about Harleys, but I've seen a heck if a lot more BMWs with 100k+ miles on them than any sport bike. I've put 8k on mine in the last 6 months and its up to 70k total. I would assume more mileage would reasonable equate to more repairs needed.
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Honda GoldWing riders don't even start to talk "milage" till they pass the 300,000 mark.


Everyone has to know by now....
Vehicle reliability didn't exist till the Japanese cars and motorcycles arrived.
 
I have the issue of CR at home but havent cracked it open yet. My first thought was, "I bet they didn't include Triumph." But I won't know till I get home. Anybody already see actual article???
 
I did a 24K service on a BMW K1200LT once.

It was like working on the fucking Space Shuttle. It took me 2 full days and was a nightmare of epic proportions. They never even try to consider ease of maintenance on these lumps when they design them.

Never again. I'd rather stick needles in my eyes. :twofinger
 
ALANRIDER7 said:
I did a 24K service on a BMW K1200LT once.

It was like working on the fucking Space Shuttle. It took me 2 full days and was a nightmare of epic proportions. They never even try to consider ease of maintenance on these lumps when they design them.

Never again. I'd rather stick needles in my eyes. :twofinger
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Most of us would rather stick needles in our eyes than ride one of those anyway. :laughing
 
It's more how the bike makes you feel than cost per mile. Japanese bikes are good value but generic and interchangeable.
 
Karbon said:
According to this.
http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/news/consumer-reports-motorcycle-reliability/

Interesting thing of note, my 15 yr old Honda is down after 95k miles due to a CCT failure.

So basically, if you know how to work on bikes and can forego the dealer/customer service experience, and you own a big 4 bike, you come out on top.
Click to expand...

without knowing how this data was gathered, theres no way of knowing whether or not 15yr old bikes were adequately represented in this report. my guess is no.

IIRC, when reports are made for cars and reliability, they only gather data for 4yrs on a given model.
 
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