How many KM's on the engine have you seen?

Araqiels

Araqiels

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How many KM's have you seen, or done on an engine. The reason I'm asking, is I want to find the middle ground between when an engine has too many km's on it to be worth purchasing, when you don't know the bike's history.

I've read that a well maintained bike, providing you ensure it's isn't overheated, or underlubricated, can go over 100k. Just want to get some figures out there, and find out if 50k is too much to trust.
 
take this as a grain of salt.
i got my 02 Katana with 56k on it saftied. right now has just over 58k in a little over a month and it runs great from what i can tell. the last owner took great care of the bike and gave me all the service history for it.
 
The TLR with the Duck on the back in Hamilton had over 140 000 kms on it two yrs ago and I still see it often. I put 75 000 kms on a VFR I bought new and it had well over 120 000 kms on it when I saw it last many years ago. A friends gixxer 1k has over 150 000 kms on it and it is still going strong.
 
Most I've seen on a bike is on a Honda Goldwing. 275K MILES (400,000+ km).
 
92 CBR900RR....335,000 miles. ( 536,000 kms)

1 owner, (a middle aged surgeon who didn't even own a car) )used for commuting, sport touring, and trackdays.
Motor was never opened.
Still ran strong.

2 stator replacements, 1 starter, 1 cam chain tensioner, 2 clutches, if I recall correctly.
 
I have personally done 118,000 km on a 1987 Ninja 750 and, coincidentally, 118,000 km on a 1994 ZX9R. Both of them were still running at the end but both of them started getting expensive to keep going after 100,000 km. BUT ... in both cases it was due to design flaws in the engine. The Ninja 750 ate camshafts and rocker arms because the ball-pivot rockers were a poor design (and Kawasaki doesn't build engines like that any more). The ZX9R blew a head gasket, but that engine was known for weak head gaskets because it was a bored-out ZX7R and the liners were too thin. Rocker arms were never an issue - those engines had shaft-pivot rockers that hold the rockers in better alignment.

I have 65,000 km on a ZX10R, and there are other folks on www.zx-10r.net that have done a lot more than that; most I know of is 80,000 miles at which point the bike was sold, still running.

I know of a CBR600 (not sure which generation, it was pre-RR, though) that was beyond 260,000 miles (>400,000 km). Presumably not on the original cam chain tensioner!!!

I also have 30,000 km on a CBR125 and there are others with far more - notably this guy, who is currently on a mission to go from Key West FL to Deadhorse AK *and back*, and he rode from Windsor to Key West before even starting that journey ...
http://bobmunden.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html
current location http://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=2ab64db6c4e16adea
 
Most I've seen is my dads bike. A 1988 Suzuki GSX-R 1100, he had 190,000 km's on it, and only had to do the valves. Sold it to a guy 10 years ago that is still riding it.
 
I bought my 2000 vt750 over two years ago at just less than 65K.
I'm just over 95K now, commuting 120km round trip almost daily, and it runs strong.
(No work required other than replaced the chain, rear tire, brakes and oil).
 
rukus said:
huh? who told you that? whats the basis?
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Theoretically makes some sense to me, bigger engines don't rev as high and make power at a much lower rpm. Most 600 SS bikes rev to say 16k rpm where the litres rev to say 13krpm, and cruise it a lower rpm. at 50k km, a high revving engine had gone through more revolutions than a lower revving motor.

To the OP, my bike has 67k km and is still fine. I see no reason that any modern motor should not go well past 100k km without issue assuming regular maintenance. That's only the motor though, the rest of the bike does wear out. There's the regular maintenance stuff that comes up at high mileage, and also cables, seals, bearings, electrical, clutch, etc. will all likely need attention before the actual motor. If a high mileage bike is priced appropriately compared to similar bikes with lower mileage I see no reason not to buy, just be prepared to spend some time and money fixing things as they wear out

Also consider the number of owners, a six year old bike with six owners would scare me away regardless of mileage
 
haisam10 said:
General rule of thumb: The bigger the engine the longer it will last, all other things equal.
Click to expand...

The problem being, all other things are never equal. That school of thought kept some people buying American V8's after good 4-cylinder Japanese cars started showing up in the 1970's ... but it wasn't too long before folks found that some of those 4-cylinder engines would easily outlast just about anything else.

An engine that is oversized and never works very hard, will probably never really get up to full operating temperature, and won't boil condensation out of the oil and won't burn carbon build-up off the pistons and cylinder head and spark plugs ...

The lifetime is more defined by how properly-designed the engine is, and how it's used and maintained, which are by far more important than how big it is.
 
Change the fluids
Keep it maintained

The engines are good for a long time.

I have 55,000kms on my zx14 and had 132,000kms on a ZX-11 when I traded it on a ZX12. The 11 still pulled as strong as ever.

People here get afraid when they see 20,000kms and think it is at the end of life.
 
Here's more than 450K MILES (700,000+ KMs) http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=278021

Canadians don't ride very much, so we tend to think about 50K kms as being the end of the line - most bikes will get you past 100K without issue.

It works well for those like me that aren't afraid of mileage (I do over 25K kms a year myself) - you can get really cheap bikes and run them for cheap as long as you do the work yourself. If you are the type to bring your bike to the dealer for every little thing, a new bike with warranty could be cheaper.
 
So my 08 zx6r had 44000, after it got totaled by a minivan, the ensurance guy trying to settle with me asked me to go and get a few quotes from the internet. I could not find any bike from 2006 and up with more than 19000.

My bike ran just like it did the first day, probably better, the perception out there is that anything above 13000 is to much. There are more posers than riders, and the posers are the ones that will buy a bike because it's cool and sale it 3 years later with 6k on them creating the perception to insurance companies and buyers that unless the bike is under 13k is not worth it.

End of Rant....... Go out there and ride people, stop posing
 
A friend at work has a DL650 (which he bought the first year it was available) and he is over 100k now.

I have exactly 45,900kms on my 07 SV650 (which I got in 2008). The engine stills runs strong enough for me.

A few years ago there was a guy on svrider with 116k miles on his SV.

I have a friend of mine who says he never really bought a bike with less than 40k on the odo and never had issues.

If I ever sell my bike, the buyer will get a damn good deal because the common perception here seems to be that 20k is high mileage
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