Best Japanese motorcycle maker
in [Motorcycles Tips]
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From: slush on 2 Sep 2008 01:23 I am a new rider, and I definately want to go Japanese for a bike. But what is everyone�s opinion as far as the best Bike maker ( As far as motor, reliabilty, and quality ) style is not as important as the rest. I�m leaning towards Honda, but only cause I have only driven Honda vehicles. Most likely a sport bike I will buy not a cruiser.
From: Uncle Vic on 2 Sep 2008 02:10 One fine day in rec.motorcycles, slush <none(a)000.com> wrote: > I am a new rider, and I definately want to go Japanese for a bike. But > what is everyone�s opinion as far as the best Bike maker ( As far as > motor, reliabilty, and quality ) style is not as important as the > rest. I�m leaning towards Honda, but only cause I have only driven > Honda vehicles. Most likely a sport bike I will buy not a cruiser. > I had a '90 Honda Civic SI hatchback in my 30s. Nice. If I babied it, I'd get 40 MPG. On the other side, I ran it up to 120 MPH once before I realized that if someone changed lanes I was going to hit them. I've gone through two Yamaha V-Stars without any major problems. I currently own a Kawasaki cruiser, also no problems. I recently bought a rather old (1992) Honda Nighthawk, simply because I've always wanted one. Best purchase ever, so far, inasmuch as the only maintenance required is an oil change every 3K, and a chain lube/cleaning every weekend (I commute 80 miles per day on it). The valves are self-adjusting. As far as the way the Nighthawk runs, it reminds me dearly of my old Civic SI, and I'm happy to have it back. I can't say which Honda bike you might like, and they don't make the Nighthawk 750 any more (so you have to buy them used), but the maker is indeed a star in my eyes. Good luck! -- Uncle Vic 04 Kawasaki Nomad 1500 92 Honda Nighthawk 750
From: Twibil on 2 Sep 2008 03:43 On Sep 1, 10:23 pm, slush <n...(a)000.com> wrote: > I am a new rider, and I definately want to go Japanese for a bike. But > what is everyones opinion as far as the best Bike maker ( As far as > motor, reliabilty, and quality ) style is not as important as the > rest. Im leaning towards Honda, but only cause I have only driven > Honda vehicles. Most likely a sport bike I will buy not a cruiser. In truth, they're all quite good; with Honda probably a scintilla ahead of the others on fit and finish and Kawasaki trailing the rest a bit in the same areas. All of the Japanese makers have made both brilliant bikes and duds, and they've all made certain models that were otherwise great but had built-in defects. For instance, I've got a '98 Honda VFR800 that's been a wonderful bike: reliable as a brick, predictable, and powerful enough to keep all but the race-rep crowd happy. But the regulator/rectifiers on the early VFR800s were poorly designed, and often needed to be replaced at about the 25,000 miles mark, as did mine. (The replacements have about twice the mass and three times the cooling fin area of the originals, which tells you that Honda can learn from it's mistakes even though they'll never admit to having made then in the first place... It's a "face" thing.) The idea, of course, is to find the online chat rooms or lists that deal specifically with the bikes you're looking at, and ask the denizens therein questions about any particular problems they may have already experienced. If umpteen riders all reply with "look out for the __________" you've probably identified a defect generic to that model of bike, and you might -or might not- want to stay away from it. Good hunting.
From: Sean_Q_ on 2 Sep 2008 07:33 slush wrote: > I am a new rider, and I definately want to go Japanese for a bike. But > what is everyone�s opinion as far as the best Bike maker There are not four big Japanese bike makers. That's only a corporate smoke screen meant to deceive everyone. In reality they're only business divisions of one mega company, called "Japan Inc." In 1945, with their country a smoking ruin, the Japanese leaders plotted revenge. It was a long-term plan taking about a century. We're close to the 2/3rds mark, and it looks like they're about on schedule. The rest of the plan is a closely guarded secret, but I found out the details in a book from the local public library. One of the main objectives is to destroy the US economy. Every one who buys a rice burner is complicit (including me). Therefore if you must buy a sportbike (groan) consider an Augusta. It's the patriotic thing to do if you're American, now that Harley Davidson acquired them. SQ
From: Andrzej Rosa on 2 Sep 2008 08:08
Twibil wrote: > On Sep 1, 10:23 pm, slush <n...(a)000.com> wrote: >> I am a new rider, and I definately want to go Japanese for a bike. But >> what is everyone's opinion as far as the best Bike maker ( As far as >> motor, reliabilty, and quality ) style is not as important as the >> rest. I'm leaning towards Honda, but only cause I have only driven >> Honda vehicles. Most likely a sport bike I will buy not a cruiser. > > In truth, they're all quite good; with Honda probably a scintilla > ahead of the others on fit and finish and Kawasaki trailing the rest a > bit in the same areas. I'd say that Suzuki would probably lead in engines. Havyabusa is pretty much monopolizing drag racing, or at leas it did last time I looked. Suzuki used to build their engines fairly strong, with a healthy amount of overengineering in crucial components, so for example my crank, rods and pistons are good for doubling the power with turbo or an extra 100 horses out of nitrous. You can't do that to Hondas, their cranks won't be able to take an additional stress. For me it seems that Hondas are built using quite different engineering philosophy than Suzukis. Suzukis would rather overengineer and standarize, like they tried to do by selling three sportbikes sharing pretty much every part but the engine, while Honda will try to hit the demands spot on, both with regards to the market and a specific part. IOW - Suzuki will build overly strong and try to cut costs by standarization, Honda will research the market, research the part and build it strong enough. But I assure you that a bolt snapping in your hands is damn frustrating, when you know that on a Suzuki you'd have some high tensile jobbie there, just because they didn't bother to check if something weaker would work. Honda cares, and they check, unfortunately. I don't have any easy cliches for Yamaha and Kawasaki. [...] -- Andrzej Rosa |