Times: They be a changin' By cookees (Read 2,222 times)

[gy6luver]

a revolution lol, not likely americans are stupid but not that stupid, we will stay in our cars for a long time they are MUCH more reliable, cf moto got out of scoots because people stopped buying junk LOL

[kz1000st]

Of course owning a beater for a car has it's problems. I just had to spend the money I saved in gas replacing a bad rear wheel bearing and power steering pump. Now the Body Control Module is acting up. It's several hundred dollars, plus installation. I'm glad though that the Chinese scooter was so reliable this past year. Just gas and oil for the 2,500 miles I put on it. At 6,100 miles I'm sure it has at least another 100,000 miles of life left on it. I'll go through another two or three cars in that time.

[tmec]

Jan 27, 2012 12:32:49 GMT -6 kz1000st said:

Of course owning a beater for a car has it's problems. I just had to spend the money I saved in gas replacing a bad rear wheel bearing and power steering pump. Now the Body Control Module is acting up. It's several hundred dollars, plus installation. I'm glad though that the Chinese scooter was so reliable this past year. Just gas and oil for the 2,500 miles I put on it. At 6,100 miles I'm sure it has at least another 100,000 miles of life left on it. I'll go through another two or three cars in that time.

right on. I rode my big bore qmb 5000 miles off pocket change in 2011. I just saw a woman at the grocery with one little bag and she got in a huge GMC Yukon and had a devil of a time even getting it out of the parking space. those things are obscene. USA is the only country in the world where people get in something like that to run even the smallest errand.

[fugaziiv]

I had a 2002 Yukon XL 2500. It was huge, ridiculous and awesome. Also thirsty, so much so that I just did everything I could to not use it. My scooter and motorcycle got a whole bunch more use because of that beast. Needless to say the old girl is now gone and I'm all the better for it.

Matt

[jct842]

What always trips my trigger is to see some ditzy brawd pull up to the school she lives 2 blocks from, in a 14mpg $60,000 suv and sit there idling 15 min. with the air or heat on to wait for the kid or kids so she can haul them the 2 blocks home. Then they get on their bikes and ride a 1/2 mile to their friends house to play after school. Kind of like the hipocrits who dress to kill on sunday for church just so every one see's their new outfit. Its them kind of people who are causing the shortage of gas and the prices to rise so all of us on social security can pay thru the arse to go to town. john

[tmec]

Jan 27, 2012 15:00:42 GMT -6 jct842 said:

What always trips my trigger is to see some ditzy brawd pull up to the school she lives 2 blocks from, in a 14mpg $60,000 suv and sit there idling with the air or heat on to wait for the kid or kids so she can haul them the 2 blocks home. Then they get on their bikes and ride a 1/2 mile to their friends house to play after school. Kind of like the hipocrits who dress to kill on sunday for church just so every one see's their new outfit. Its them kind of people who are causing the shortage of gas and the prices to rise so all of us on social security can pay thru the arse to go to town. john

Amen lol.

[tmec]

Jan 27, 2012 10:04:21 GMT -6 jct842 said:

An other big expense people often skip looking at is the price of a car. A scooter could allow them to keep the old car longer not only saving the price of gas but delaying the purchase of another car. Last year at this time I could hardly walk due to the bad knee, this year I have no excuse and will be riding a lot more. john

Thats a great point I never thought of it that way

[kz1000st]

I just saw a woman at the grocery with one little bag and she got in a huge GMC Yukon and had a devil of a time even getting it out of the parking space.

One day I bought $40 worth of groceries and hung all the bags on the front hook or put them under the scooter's seat. A guy walks out of the store with a can of bread crumbs and gets into a Pontiac Trans Am with a giant hood scoop. I figure he spent more in gas getting the bread crumbs than they were worth. What's wrong with that picture.

[roboscoot]

gy6.....unfortunately you are right.....although cf moto is better quality....i have a couple of scooters which saved me from wear and tear on my toyota tacoma...as well as gas savings...but i spent over 400 bucks getting one of them to run.....as it was a problem i did not want to tackle and did not have the time....so money in one pocket and out the other...

because 150s are a glut on the market i am not surprised they are no longer making.....as gas prices continue to rise.....i see more maxis being produced.....especially if the long view is that scooters will where possible replace cars for longer commuting....

of course don't know if this is such a great thing either....scooter mechanics make more than regular auto mechanics....and lets face it most aren't as reliable or safe as 4 wheelers...

[tmec]

Jan 27, 2012 21:45:10 GMT -6 roboscoot said:

scooter mechanics make more than regular auto mechanics.

Hi
Just curious ...whats your basis is for this observation?
Thanks

[kz1000st]

The bigger issue is the loss of more scooters in the 150 class. I don't believe the Honda SH 150i or PCX will ever return. The SH was insanely priced. The CBR 250 and reintroduced Rebel are cheaper, faster and get the same mpg. Yamaha has even forsaken the Zuma 125. At least, with the right people, the E-Charm and Glory were as fast, reliable and fuel efficient as the Honda for less than half the cost. Fashions were a few bucks more than an online 250 but were about 85% as good as a Helix and still half as much, new. I'd hope they get with the program and bring back the Glory, and Fashion too. The 650 bike looks nice but the world doesn't need more Ninjas. There's too many around as it is

[mauiboy]

Jan 27, 2012 22:13:06 GMT -6 kz1000st said:

The SH was insanely priced. The CBR 250 and reintroduced Rebel are cheaper, faster and get the same mpg.
<snip>
I'd hope they get with the program and bring back the Glory, and Fashion too. The 650 bike looks nice but the world doesn't need more Ninjas. There's too many around as it is

(kz1000st, apologies for the snip, just wanted to pick two parts out, hopefully i left enough context

I just went shopping for a bike, scoot or dualsport. I didn't actually care which, I was shopping for the best deal for cash in hand. A visit to kawasaki was a shock, they wanted 6200 USD OTD for a ninja 250! They weren't prepared to discount anything more than a few bucks and that was the low price, it cost more if I wanted the special edition tarmac coloured one. All the scoots on sale seemed to be significantly cheaper, the genuine scooter 220 thing was under 4k OTD. The two aren't exactly the same but ballpark as close as a scoot and crotch rocket are going to be. There weren't any cbr's at honda. The rebel 250 was closer to its msrp but tiny. The silverwing was tres expensive! I can see why honda would want to drop the 150, not because of sino imports as TBH people with 900 to spend weren't going to buy the honda, but the likes of kymco, sym etc producing serious contenders for less (but not pocket change) money was probably hurting them.

Oh and having played on a few ninjas, relived some zxr days, the world can never have enough ninjas They just need to sell them at more sensible prices.

CFMoto may just be taking a few models out of the lineup for a year or two, either to revamp or play out inventory. It's not like manufacturers haven't done that in the past. The burgy 400 didn't happen in the US in 2010 (actually suzuki didn't import much by way of sports bikes that year) so its possible they will be back. CFMoto will have sunk money into r&d and production lines for those bikes.

The 650's sound interesting! I was going to get a jetmax now they're arriving, but I had a good year and got a shot at a cheap burgy 400 (6700 OTD new) sorry cookies! you were on my list to call. Also nearly took home a dzr400 until I found the burgy.

As for switching to scoots, maybe life on the island with $5 gas and generally hot (but often crazy wet and windy) weather and high costs of living affect peoples choices but scoots are increasing more popular here. 50cc mopeds are like flies (and unfortunately get swatted just as often by trucks) round here.

I don't doubt there will be folks who will have to be prised from their navigators with c4 and cattle prods but plenty of people are figuring out that rather than go from a 2 car to a 1 car family when times are tough they can go to 1 car and a scoot. And some of us will always have em just for fun !!

Oh and the rocket A 'junker' is still alive (just, or at least its easy to resuscitate ), tough to beat something like that on price to buy and run.

[sprocket]

>>any chinese 150cc is great on gas,

Actually Chinese scooters are not that good on gas. Most odometers are in kilometers, but people don't realize the difference...duh!

[kz1000st]

Jan 29, 2012 14:07:33 GMT -6 sprocket said:

>>any chinese 150cc is great on gas,

Actually Chinese scooters are not that good on gas. Most odometers are in kilometers, but people don't realize the difference...duh!

Let's see, my car gets 20 mpg, my scooter around 70. That's about 3 1/2 times the mileage. I was happy riding a motorcycle that got 55 mpg. The scooter is practically free. For really short runs my 50cc Chinese Cub clones get about 120 mpg. They're just crazy cheap to run.

[sprocket]

For a 150cc they are poor... I'm NOT comparing them to anything else. The CVT trans suck the efficiency out of the engine...compared to a clutch and shiftable transmission/chain drive...