:? Okay, got a question for anyone that cares to respond. my '97 gs has 3,319 miles on it. ive yet to take it on the road . (at least till forks come.)
if former owner took care of it. which dealer said., dealer sold it new., what kind of life can i get out of the engine, clutch, if i take care of it. (which i may or may not depending if i end up racing this thing.) im wondering whats the average life-span in miles for these bikes.
i had an old bmw,w/close to 200 thou. on it. i seeeeriously doubt i can get that on this. thanks keep up the good work! :cheers:
with good maintenance and regular riding (nothing's harder on a bike than sitting still) these bikes'll go 75-100k. If you race....maybe you could go a season or two without having to tear the engine down.
I have a 96 that I bought 2 years ago with only 234 miles on it. Since then it now has 13600 miles on it, with the only thing being replaced is the oil,filter & tires. And it still runs like a bat out of h*ll. :lol:
Its the very lucky bike that can go 75K...GS jack has one in here that made the 75K mark...but his bike was a long distance only bike, no commutes, no traffic, no shopping runs...I think. If subjected to daily use as a commute bike 40K is what I tink it will make. The top end goes at 40K, the whole motor I guess will make 100K+. In fact if you rebuild it right at 40K the bike should make the 100K mark easy. The ring seal, valve guides and seals are really what go at 40K.
Cool.
Srinath.
Lot of sources quote 40K miles for one that's thrashed, 90k for one that's cared for.
Only 40k? That seems awfully low. Are most motorcycles so short-lived? I'd always assumed that modern motorcycles lasted at least as long as a car, if not longer.
Motorcycle engines are generally stressed much more than car engines, so they don't last as long. Modern 600 cc sport bikes make 100+ hp, and rev to 12 to 14 thousand rpm. Typical 2.4 liter car engines make maybe 140 hp, and rev to 6 or 7,000. Guess which one wears quicker!
Car engines are typically designed for 2% of their life at max hp. I suspect most bike engines spend considerably more of their life in the sweet spot of the rev range with the throttle open.
Weight and vibration are much bigger issues on a bike, so parts tend to be trimmed closer to the limits on the bike.
You'll know it's wearing out from oil consumption and loss of power. It will keep running for quite a while usually as those two factors get slowly worse. You decide when you want to rebuild, and whether it is worth it.
The oil burning may not be very visible in the exhaust. If you start having to put in a liter in less than 1,500 km, it is probably time to look at a rebuild.
If it's not burning oil, and the power seems OK, keep riding it. Old engines don't usually fail in a big way.
The first rebuild is usually just the top end: New valve guides and seals, the valves and seats re-faced or replaced as necessary, new head gasket and a valve adjustment. Measure the cylinder bores and pistons for roundness and wear, ands see whether it needs to go up to the first over-size pistons, rings and bore the cylinders out. Maybe you can get away with having the cylinders honed, and new rings. That is about it. Might as well clean and rebuild the carbs while you're at it. Cost will depend on whether you need new pistons and cylinder boring. Costs will vary widely between shops, but maybe as low as $400 Can. without new pistons or cylinder boring.
A bottom end rebuild is more serious. The cases have to be split, maybe the crank journals turned, new conrod bearings, new crank bearings, new cam chain, maybe some tranny work to restore the shifting. Every wear part in the engine should be measured and replaced or re-worked.
Again, if it is running fine, just keep riding!
Typically it will start fouling plugs. My friends GSXR with 70K miles carries plugs everyehere. And changes them every 100 miles or so. But he does clean and re use them so its not a loss.
Cool.
Srinath.
reminiscing ( when i first got my first gs) :icon_razz:
How many k's (oops miles) has yours got now?
Come on!
My GS has over 43,000 miles on her, and burns the same amount of oil it did right out of the box.
I don't ride it like a Grandma - 40k miles is easy to achieve with proper care.
the great thing is if your motor does go south, you can pop a new one in for almost nothing
WOw, that's got to be a record revival ! I love http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html
Duration calculation results
From and including: Friday, June 27, 2003 at 8:38:34 PM
To, but not including : Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 5:00:28 AM
The duration is 1720 days, 8 hours, 21 minutes and 54 seconds
Or 4 years, 8 months, 14 days, 8 hours, 21 minutes, 54 seconds
Quote from: galahs on March 13, 2008, 02:54:33 AM
How many k's (oops miles) has yours got now?
when i sold it, it had close to 7k. i miss that bike, and am in search of another :cry:
My 89 has around 8000 miles on it.Those miles are correct.
My 94 was at the 28k mark when I got hit. Engine was still running great.
Quote from: cd on March 13, 2008, 04:27:32 AM
the great thing is if your motor does go south, you can pop a new one in for almost nothing
this is one of the best things about this bike. there's not a lot of things that can go wrong with it and everything that CAN go wrong is very cheap to fix.
Quote from: Toecutter on June 27, 2003, 01:03:59 PM
Only 40k? That seems awfully low. Are most motorcycles so short-lived? I'd always assumed that modern motorcycles lasted at least as long as a car, if not longer.
Well, the gsxr is a modern bike. Its average lifespan is 1.5k miles or 2 months, whichever comes first, before it gets crashed, stolen, or stolen and then crashed.
In all seriousness though, more revs = more wear. Motorcycle engines rev a lot higher, so it follows that they'll naturally have a shorter lifespan.
Quote from: seshadri_srinath on June 27, 2003, 07:18:57 AM
Its the very lucky bike that can go 75K...GS jack has one in here that made the 75K mark...but his bike was a long distance only bike, no commutes, no traffic, no shopping runs...I think. If subjected to daily use as a commute bike 40K is what I tink it will make. The top end goes at 40K, the whole motor I guess will make 100K+. In fact if you rebuild it right at 40K the bike should make the 100K mark easy. The ring seal, valve guides and seals are really what go at 40K.
Cool.
Srinath.
Time for an update. About a month after Srinath posted this in June 03, I was hit from behind and my 97 GS was totalled and I bought my current 02 GS in Sept 03. I got a fair settlement from insurance and then bought the bike back from the ins co for $100 and fixed it up for another $250 and used it a little more and parked it with about 80k miles on the clock. Last year my son put it back in service and was using it as a freeway commuter and with rather high oil consumption he ran it up to about 88k miles and then replaced the engine with a low milage used one. At that time one of the exhaust valves was down to a minimum shim and would have needed some top end work to run it much further.
So my 02 GS which I bought with about 4k miles on it now has over 57k miles and runs like new and I expect it to do at least the same 80-90k miles the 97 did. Both have followed the same pattern of wear. Oil consumption picked up around 50k miles to where it went about 1500 miles after an oil change till adding the first pint and then about a pint every 500 miles after that till changed again. I kept both bikes stock and rarely redlined either, did my hard running in the 7-9k rpm range so oil consumption remains controlled. A high milage air cooled engine is going to push a lot of oil at high rpm after 50k miles, they're fit up rather loose to start.
I really only took about 6 trips with about 1500 miles per trip on both bikes to go to the mountains to play. Most of my riding is done on the twistiest back roads I can find here in NE OH and nearby NW PA usually pushing hard but rarely going over 9k rpm. But I never use that ten cent a quart K-Mart oil that Srinath uses. :laugh:
In the UK, these bikes sell for about £3500.00 brand spanking new.
So allowing for 10 - 12K miles a year (considerably higher than the 'average' yearly mileage, which is about 3K miles a year in the UK - according to the insurance companies), you get about 4 solid years of good riding before needing a major engine service.
Sure, if you are a heavy user and do something like 50k miles a year, then you are going to be hit more often with servicing costs, but that would be expected with those kind of miles being done. Most 'average' riders (5 - 8K miles a year perhaps?) are going to go a long time between major engine work!
As long as you aren't after bling or pure horsepower performance - for the price and real capability, these bikes are hard to beat.
Quote from: ohgood on March 13, 2008, 04:31:42 AM
WOw, that's got to be a record revival ! I love http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html
Duration calculation results
From and including: Friday, June 27, 2003 at 8:38:34 PM
To, but not including : Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 5:00:28 AM
The duration is 1720 days, 8 hours, 21 minutes and 54 seconds
Or 4 years, 8 months, 14 days, 8 hours, 21 minutes, 54 seconds
yes indeed. man if i could remember where i had my first 97's pics hosted at, id resurrect another thread, btu kinda pointless to do so now. but teh elusive john speaketh in that one
My 89 has abot 47,XXX on the engine. It leaks oil, but it still runs fine. The shifting could be a little less "finnicky", but I've been seeing people on here with newer bikes that carry the same trait.
Quote from: yamahonkawazuki on March 13, 2008, 07:24:06 PM
when i sold it, it had close to 7k. i miss that bike, and am in search of another :cry:
I don't ever want to sell my bike. It would be too sad. If he needs a rebuild, he'll get one. Mine's got 37000 on it this week. I bought it at 34K, I think. And I believe the engine was rebuilt around 30K.
Quote from: SecondsFromTheFall on August 14, 2008, 03:46:04 AM
My 89 has abot 47,XXX on the engine. It leaks oil, but it still runs fine. The shifting could be a little less "finnicky", but I've been seeing people on here with newer bikes that carry the same trait.
Careful. First they start leaking oil to mark their spot - then they want to ride in the back of a pickup truck. :laugh:
It wants to be a Harley or a hound dawg. :nono:
So if it's burning a considerable amount of oil, and there are no bad noises coming from the engine, she'll be right? :)
1990 GS with ~35k miles. Pretty sure it's had an easy life.
How much $$$ in parts are we talking about here for a top end rebuild?
DIY possible?
My '94 is way up over 84k miles and still going just fine. It burns some oil, but that seems to be expected for these bikes. I don't see any reason why this bike couldn't keep running long enough to roll the odometer back to 0...
I wonder if the oil cooler will help with mileage. I did my test to see what difference the cooler made and it was surprising. With the cardboard over the oil cooler the oil temp during city riding was about 190 with it off it's around 160. This is at 90 degree weather in stop and go city traffic. On the freeway it's still about 160, that oil cooler really helps stabilize oil temps so maybe it'll last longer.