The Small Engine Shop
Motorcycles => Motorcycle General Topics & Repair. Questions. => Topic started by: smallengineshop on September 22, 2021, 06:42:02 PM
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Two big advantages many cars have over motorcycles that most people new to motorcycling don't think about, and probably shouldn't be concerned with.
- Motorcycle manufacturers don't have to worry about the majority of customers putting high mileage on their motorcycles. I remember reading an insurance report that said most new motorcycles won't see 25k miles before the motorcycle is sold, parked and forgotten or wrecked. I've personally noticed more things go wrong sooner on my motorcycles than the cars I've owned. If more people in USA used motorcycles as a primary means of transportation I think manufacturers would be forced to make them more reliable. It's not uncommon now days to see a car with 200,000 miles, but that doesn't happen often with motorcycles.
- You would think all street motorcycles get better gas mileage than cars, but they don't. The video below shows a Kawasaki Versys 1000 that only gets 35 mpg. I don't know if that is an accurate combined city/highway mpg or not. My Kawasaki KLR 650 only gets around 53 mpg and my Harley's are down in the 30's. I can think of several gas powered, sub compact cars that have a higher highway mpg than the mpg of the Versys 1000 reported in the video: Mitsubishi Mirage, Mitsubishi Mirage G4, Chevrolet Spark, Hyundai Accent, etc....I'm sure there are more models but I can't name them off hand.
I love the reliability and fuel efficiency found in cars, and I wish these two things were more common in motorcycles but there just isn't a demand for it. It's also interesting that all the car models mentioned in #2 have a cheaper MSRP than the Kawasaki Versys 1000. Try and figure that one out......
https://www.youtube.com/v/5O4Udx48bWY