Let's Ride (15 page)

Once you’re out on the road, pay attention to the overall feel of the motorcycle. Does the frame feel solid or does it squirm around underneath you? Does the suspension seem controlled, yet compliant? Or is it soft and mushy? Or perhaps stiff and bouncing? Does the bike track straight or does it move down the road like it’s a crab? Do all the controls work properly or are they sticky and stiff? For the most part you’re looking for surprises, since you should have a handle on all of these areas from your earlier inspection of the bike.

You’re not going to be pushing a bike’s handling limits on a test ride, but you will want to get a feel for the general soundness of the chassis. The bike should track straightly and predictably when pointed down the road, corner without any drama, and be stable on the straights. The suspension should be firm but compliant. The fork shouldn’t dive excessively during braking and the rear shock(s) shouldn’t bottom out over bumps. Make certain the bike doesn’t shake its head when decelerating, particularly in the 45- to 30-mile-per-hour range. If it does, it may just need a steering head bearing adjustment, or the bike may just have mismatched tires (this is easy enough to check once you’ve stopped), but a bearing replacement is probably in the cards.

The main things you’re checking on the test ride are the engine and transmission. A strong engine should start easily and idle smoothly once warmed up. An uneven idle could indicate problems with the carburetors or fuel-injection system. The bike should accelerate without hesitation and should not miss or pop. It most definitely should not produce any smoke from the exhaust pipe once the engine is warmed up, and you shouldn’t smell a strong odor of unburned gasoline. If you see white smoke, the engine is burning oil. If you see black smoke, the bike is running rich, meaning it’s getting too much gas and not enough air in the fuel charge. Either way, it’s not good. Any hiccups, uneven response, or engine bogging indicates a fuel-delivery system problem.

The engine shouldn’t make any ticking, rattling, or other mechanical knocking sounds. All you should hear is the burble of the exhaust. Some engines emit a whining sound from their cam gears, especially some of the gear-driven V-fours from Honda, but this shouldn’t sound like something inside the engine is broken.

The transmission should pop into first gear with slick mechanical precision; there should be no clunks, reluctance, or any other drama. Clutch take-up should be progressive. If the clutch is jerky and sudden, it could just mean that the clutch cable needs to be adjusted, or it could mean that the clutch itself is weak. If this seems like a problem, have the owner adjust the clutch cable per the procedure outlined in the owner’s manual and see if that takes care of the problem. If it doesn’t, you need to be suspicious of the clutch. This might also indicate potentially expensive transmission problems.

The rest of the shifts should be as smooth and slick as the shift into first gear. Pay special attention to any clunky shifts or grinding noises coming from the transmission, especially on Yamahas. For years, from the mid-1980s until at least the early 2000s, some Yamahas were prone to transmission failure, the result of Yamaha’s practice of using tolerances that were too loose in their transmissions. Most of the afflicted bikes will have had their transmissions fail by now and will have been rebuilt to tighter tolerances, and a lot of people have ridden tens of thousands of miles with no problems at all. Even if I didn’t have a policy of buying American-built motorcycles, I’d still stay away from used Yamahas.

But any motorcycle can have a bad transmission. For example, Harley’s early five-speed transmissions—those built before the late 1980s—had notoriously weak shifting forks and were prone to expensive failures. This problem was so prevalent that it opened the door for a lot of aftermarket transmission builders like Baker, most of whom made transmissions that were as good as (and, more often than not, better than) the original equipment trannies that Harley used.

When Harley switched to six-speed transmissions in 2008, they once again had transmission problems. They had really bad fifth gears that would fail. It turned out that the problem was caused by the way the fifth gear was cut. Harley revised the way it cut the fifth-gear cogs for 2009 and the problem seems to have gone away.

If you suspect any problems at all with the transmission, pay close attention and don’t buy the bike unless you are sure that the problem was something like a loose clutch cable or a poor shift on your part and not with the transmission itself. If a bike pops out of gear, head directly back to the owner and give the bike back to him or her before the transmission fails completely, possibly giving an unscrupulous seller an opening to blame you for the failed transmission. And a bike that pops out of gear will have its transmission fail sooner rather than later. You don’t even need to call a shop and find out what a transmission rebuild will cost you, because I can answer that question for you: too damned much.

When you get the bike into top gear out on the road—roughly at 45 miles per hour on most bikes—accelerate up to the speed limit. The engine’s rpm should rise in proportion to your speed. If the engine seems to spool up faster than you’re building speed, the clutch is probably slipping.

Replacing the clutch isn’t all that expensive compared to transmissions. But consider that modern clutches are pretty tough, so if the clutch is wearing out on a bike that doesn’t have a lot of miles, chances are that it’s been seriously abused, perhaps even raced. A weak clutch should serve as a warning flag for other potential problems.

W
HAT
Y
OU
S
HOULD
K
NOW

• A thorough inspection up front can save you thousands of dollars down the road.
  
• When in doubt, consult a good mechanic.
  
• If something doesn’t check out, find another motorcycle.
  

© by Nicolas Syracuse

L
ike most aspects of motorcycle ownership, the process of buying bikes is different from automobiles—you’ll find this out as soon as you go to finance and insure your bike. Whether you buy a new bike or a used bike, you’ll need to make a few arrangements before you ride home on your new (or new-to-you) machine. As mentioned in the last chapter, if you buy a bike from a dealership, the staff can help you with details like financing, licensing, and insurance; but if you’re buying a used bike from a private seller, you’ll have to arrange for these things yourself. Either way, you’ll want to keep in mind some important considerations that are unique to buying bikes.

PRICING A USED MOTORCYCLE

D
ETERMINING WHAT’S A FAIR
value for any used motorcycle you’re looking at will be a challenge. There are online resources like the venerable
Kelley Blue Book
that list rough values for pretty much every motorcycle available, but the prices are a lot more volatile for used motorcycles than they are for used cars. To make matters more confusing, prices can vary wildly from region to region. For example, a high-performance sport bike will have more value in a metro area or a rural area that has a lot of winding roads than it will in a place with few metro areas and nothing but flat, straight roads, places like North Dakota and Kansas.

Regardless of the region, few people are getting the kind of money that
KBB
lists for any motorcycle since the economy imploded a few years back. Still, you can use
KBB
prices as a jumping-off point. Remember to deduct the costs of any likely repairs or needed maintenance from the prices listed in sources like
KBB.

A more accurate way to assess the current market for a bike is to go on eBay and find as many examples of the particular bike as you can. Even if you don’t plan to buy a bike on eBay, sign up for an eBay account and monitor the sales of the bikes you are interested in buying using the “My eBay” feature. After spending a couple of weeks watching which bikes sell and how much they sell for, you’ll have a pretty fair idea of the current market value of any used bike you may want to buy.

If you’re like most people, you’ll try to negotiate the best deal possible, but like everyone else you meet, you should treat the seller with respect. This should be true whether you’re buying from a private seller or a dealership. You can make a low-ball offer if you want, but if the offer is insultingly low, you better use a little humor when making it to avoid coming across as a crook. A salesperson at a dealership will just laugh off your offer by saying something like, “But seriously . . .” Your chances might not be much better with a private seller, but who knows? Maybe the seller will be desperate or inexperienced enough (or both) to take the offer.

In general, you have little to gain by nickel-and-diming the seller. If you’ve determined that a used bike is worthy of buying, saving a few hundred dollars on the purchase price won’t mean much in the long run. If you like the bike and enjoy riding it, you’ll have forgotten about the extra money just about as soon as you hit the open road.

FINANCING A BIKE

S
PEAKING OF MONEY, BEFORE
you even start looking at used bikes from private sellers, you have to make sure you have the capital to buy the bike or else you’re wasting everyone’s time. Ideally you should pay cash for everything you buy—paying interest on a loan is a huge waste of money—but the reality is that most people don’t have enough spare cash sitting around to buy a motorcycle.

If you have to finance your bike, you at least should be smart about it. The interest paid in finance charges can represent a good chunk of the overall money you’ll ultimately pay for the bike, so you should arrange for the lowest interest rate you can find.

First talk to the loan officer at your own bank. (If you have a decent credit rating, you will have at least one bank with which you regularly do business. If you don’t have a bank, your credit rating will be poor and you’ll be at the mercy of whatever loan shark is willing to lend you the money to buy a motorcycle.) See what interest rates and monthly payments will be for loans spread out over different time periods. Usually loans are paid off over a period of time ranging from thirty-six to seventy-two months. The longer the loan period, the lower the monthly payments, but the interest rate usually goes up as the time it takes to repay a loan gets longer.

After you’ve determined the best rate you can get from your bank, call at least two other banks to see if they can beat your bank’s rate. This way you’ll find the best rate available, but don’t expect a good rate. You’ll probably be in for a shock when you hear the rates for financing motorcycles, which are almost always much higher than the rates for financing cars. The rates you end up paying will vary from company to company, state to state, and person to person, and will depend on variables such as the prime rate and the borrower’s credit rating. If you can’t afford to pay cash, your best bet is to try to get a special financing deal from a factory, but those can be few and far between in times of tight credit. In general, if you buy a bike, especially a used bike, expect to pay close to double the interest rate you would get if you financed a new car. If you are financing a new bike from a dealership, you may be able to take advantage of special rates from the factory; but if you’re financing a used bike, you’ll just need to prepare to pay high interest rates.

In some cases those rates can approach the rates offered by your typical loan shark. Back when Harley sold more bikes than it built and had people paying $500 or more just to get on the waiting list to buy one of its motorcycles, the company’s financial arm could charge whatever it wanted for interest. At one point the rate was as high as 21 percent. Just like the days of waiting lists to buy Harleys, the days of the Motor Company being able to charge outrageous interest rates are long gone now.

MOTORCYCLE INSURANCE

T
HE COST OF INSURING
a motorcycle can rival the cost of maintaining and repairing it. This is especially true of high-performance sport bikes, which are grossly overrepresented in accident claims. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re more prone to accidents, though you’d think that would be the case, judging from young people we’ve all seen riding their crotch rockets like lunatics. But in reality, middle-aged men aboard cruisers and touring bikes statistically account for more fatalities than do young squids on sport bikes. (“Squid” is a derogatory term for young people who ride recklessly aboard crotch rockets. No one knows exactly where the term came from. One theory is that it’s because when they crash, they leave a squidlike blood splatter on the pavement.)

Though sport bikes don’t account for the majority of accidents, they are justly overrepresented in insurance claims. This is because they are covered top to bottom in expensive plastic bodywork that lacks the protective features of most touring bikes like my Vision. If my bike falls over, or if a Honda Gold Wing or ST1300 falls over while standing still or at extremely low speeds, the bike’s built-in design features prevent much serious damage from occurring. If a sport bike like a Honda CBR1000RR, Yamaha R1, or Suzuki GSX-R falls over, even while standing still in a parking lot, there will be thousands of dollars worth of broken plastic on the pavement.

Most owners simply can’t absorb the cost of fixing that and have to rely on insurance payments to pay for the repair of their bikes. Often they won’t have a choice but to repair the bikes since so many of them are financed by banks, and banks will require the owner to obtain full-coverage insurance. This brings up another advantage of paying cash for a bike rather than financing it; if you pay cash for a bike, you can save money by just obtaining liability insurance. (Most states will require you to at least have liability insurance.) If you finance a bike, you will have to obtain full-coverage insurance, which is much more expensive.

That said, even if you can get by with just liability insurance, it might be a good idea to get full coverage to protect your investment if your bike is worth a significant amount of money. If the cost is too high, you can save some money by going with a policy with a higher deductible. If you go with a $1,000 deductible (the amount you pay up front before insurance kicks in) instead of a $300 deductible, you’ll have to cover more of the cost of any repairs for damage caused in an accident out of your own pocket, but at least you’ll be able to recoup the bulk of the cost of your bike if it’s totaled.

Besides, the higher deductibles you would pay in the event of an accident might not cost you that much more than having the insurance pay for the repair, because if you ever do file a motorcycle claim, most insurance companies will jack your rates up so much that it will more than equal the cost of any small repairs in the long run. Unless your bike has major damage, it can often cost you less to repair it without help from the insurance company once you figure in higher insurance premiums.

If you finance a bike, you may have the option of obtaining what is called “gap” insurance. This will pay the difference between what an insurance company pays for the value of a bike should you total it out and the amount that you may owe.

Chances are if you finance a new bike, you’ll be upside down on your loan for most of the term of the loan because new motorcycles depreciate so quickly in value. (Being upside down on a loan means that you owe more on the loan than the item you financed is worth.) This means that if you wreck the bike or if it gets stolen, you won’t collect enough on the insurance to cover the loan, so in addition to losing your motorcycle, you’ll have to cough up a bunch of money to pay the difference. Gap insurance will pay that difference. If you have to finance your bike, the bank or dealer’s financial department will likely offer you gap insurance. It might be a good idea to take them up on that offer.

Expect to be shocked when you find out how much you’ll pay every month for full-coverage motorcycle insurance. If you have any moving violations or accident claims on your record, you may have difficulty finding insurance at any price. If you have automobile insurance with a company that also offers motorcycle insurance, going with the same company will likely be your least expensive option. You may even get a multivehicle discount. Unfortunately the odds are good that your auto insurer won’t even offer motorcycle insurance. Because of high claim rates (remember, motorcycles fall over a lot more often than do automobiles), a lot of companies don’t even offer motorcycle insurance.

Rates will vary from company to company, but there are some guidelines you can use when seeking insurance. Sport bikes or sport-tourers with a lot of plastic bodywork will be more expensive to insure than touring bikes for the reasons described previously. In general, bigger bikes will be more expensive to insure than smaller bikes, at least within the same category. A big cruiser may be cheaper to insure than a small sport bike, but it will be more expensive than a smaller cruiser. And a small sport bike will cost more than a large touring bike, but it will cost less than insuring a big sport bike.

Where you live will also affect your insurance rates. Companies base their rates on crash and theft statistics in a given region. If you live in a neighborhood where a lot of motorcycle thefts have been reported, you will have higher insurance rates than if you lived in a suburb with low rates of motor vehicle theft. Sometimes the statistics are surprising—some so-called nice neighborhoods have high theft rates—but, in general, the farther you live from an inner city, the lower your insurance rates will be. If you live in a rural area, you’ll most likely have the lowest rates of all.

BUYING A NEW MOTORCYCLE

B
UYING A NEW BIKE
is in most ways much simpler than purchasing a used machine. You won’t need to examine every component of a new bike because it won’t have any wear and tear to examine. Likewise you won’t need to look for evidence of abuse and improper maintenance, since you’ll be first person to use (or abuse) and maintain the bike.

Even though you’ll spend more buying a new bike, there are some good reasons to go this route if you can afford it. You can never be sure that a used bike was properly cared for, regardless how thoroughly you inspect it. You’ll be the person who controls how well maintained a new bike will be.

When you’re shopping for a used bike, you’ll look for the best available bike that suits your needs. When shopping for a new bike, you’ll have your pick of any bike that falls into the price range you establish for yourself. Deciding which ones you want to look at is the fun part, because your research will consist of reading about each bike in motorcycle magazines and on motorcycle websites.

BEWARE OF “BETA TESTING” NEW BIKES

O
NE WORD OF ADVICE
when picking out a new bike—be cautious when buying a newly introduced model. Sometimes manufacturers have an unwritten policy of beta testing; that is, the first few examples of a new bike might not have had all the bugs worked out of them in the development process, making the buyers an unwitting part of that process. Because of the pressure to meet production schedules, manufacturers sometimes push new models out the door before they’re completely ready and then they work out any potential problems on the fly.

Harley-Davidson is considered the worst offender in this respect. Longtime riders will tell you never to buy a first-year version of any Harley. This has probably been true since Harley and the Davidson brothers cobbled together their first prototype bike in 1903, but it has definitely been true since at least the introduction of the Knucklehead in 1936.

In 1936 recirculating oil systems were still relatively new. Instead of high-pressure pumps that circulated oil through the engine, earlier total-loss engines just had a hand pump that a rider would pump every so often to lubricate the engine. This oil would circulate around the engine and then either be burned or slosh out through one of the many areas on the engine where moving parts were exposed, most commonly through the valve train. Recirculating oiling systems were a huge step forward in engine reliability, but designers of early examples like Harley’s 1936 Knucklehead didn’t fully comprehend the need to contain the oil being circulated by the high-pressure oil pump, so they didn’t fully enclose the valve gear. As a result, the very first Knuckleheads sprayed their riders with hot oil from the valve train. Harley quickly remedied this by designing tin cups that snapped over the exposed valve gear, but the problem wasn’t really solved until Motor Company engineers redesigned the valve train so that it was completely enclosed.