Someone stated on an earlier question that a motorcycle requires 10x the maintenance of a car?

Question

Curious if this is true & in what way?

Answer 1

Not 10X, but major maintenance on British bikes & Harleys is expensive. I own a Triumph and a Ducati....if there is something that I cannot actually do a certified repair shop's hourly fee starts at $86.00 per hour. This is probably about the same as if you owned a BMW, Audi, Porsche, etc...
The standard metric bikes will be a bit cheaper to repair or even replace if something goes terribly wrong. Just like if you had a Ford, Chevy, and so on.
Overall in my opinion motorcycles are cheaper to keep up to answer your overall question.

Answer 2

Oil changes are easy to do yourself, and easily under $50 even with synthetics. Fork oil changes are more involved, and may run a couple hundred $$$ at a dealership, but it's almost all labor, so if you know what you're doing that's cheap as well. What motorcycles eat up fast are tires, and a good pair of sportbike tires will run you $300-$400 and will wear out in about 5000 miles. For me that's only a year or so, for you it might be longer. If you can resist chrome and bling and all the other frippery that costs money without improving performance or ride quality, then you should do fine. What they eat in tires they more than make up for in gas savings!

Answer 3

depends on the bike, how you ride it, and what kind of shape it's in.

In my case... we have a toyota corolla, bought new in '02 with 30k miles. Changed the oil every 6000 miles and never had a single problem with it. I also have a '01 CBR with 8k miles bought used. Since buying it:

Put on just 2k miles
Changed the oil
Need to lube the chain and check tension
My tires keep picking up nails...
Needed to replace the fuel pressure regulator and vacuum hose recently
Changed the spark plugs because they were ruined by the bad fpr
Changed the oil again because of blow-by gas from the bad fpr
Changed the map sensor when a crooked shop misdiagnosed the fpr
Honda CBRs are notorious for a problem where the CCT rattles a lot, so I put in an aftermarket one.
Repaired the cracks I made in the tail fairing when I forgot to loosen the bolts before lifting the tank to change the fpr.

It is running perfectly now though! In retrospect I wish I had bought a different bike.

Answer 4

Depends on the bike, but NO not 10 times the maintenance of a car. Dude must be mistaking a motorcycle for a helicopter. On a shaft drive or belt drive, they are really easy to maintain. Critical things on a car are even MORE critical on a bike, so it's important to make SURE the maintenance IS done, but on a bike that's all up to snuff you really shouldn't need to do anything for a few thousand miles. It is important to look the bike over, especially the tires and tire pressures every week or two, look for leaks, make sure the lights are all working, etc, but just precautionary, common sense sort of stuff. On a chain drive bike you will have extra work keeping the chain checked to make sure it's tight enough and an occasional chain lube.

Answer 5

No, they don't. I remember seeing that too. I think it was written by one of those that keeps writing negative things about motorcycles. You know the type.
Critical is critical. It's not more critical on a bike, just a heck of a lot easier to notice.

Besides, how would you get 10X? You've got 1/2 the wheels, 1/2 the brakes, 2/3 the lights, 1/4 of the seat, no windows, no doors............

Answer 6

Nope... Not true, but it really depends on the bike... Bikes with a rich race heritage are usually temperamental, like KTMs or Ducatis... Japanese bikes and new Triumphs and such, and also Victory, need minimal maintenance depending on how often you ride... If you ride alot, you will need new tires, brake pads, chains, sprockets, spark plugs, and perhaps a clutch. But these things can be done easily and by a competent DIYourselfer...

Answer 7

Not really but it is more important to any sort problems asap rather than leaving them untill we get paid/can be bothered like most of us do in with cars.

With a car only a few things put you in real danger such as a brake failure or tyre blowout.

On a bike pretty much every part except the plastics is critical. If your tyres blow you can crash, if your wheel bearing collapses you can crash, if your engine siezes you can crash, if your chain snaps you can crash...ect

Answer 8

No way.Most of it is preventative maintenance and making sure things are in proper adjustment.Metric bikes are usually cheaper to replace but when it comes to replacement parts a Harley is cheaper because of an abundant supply of aftermarket parts.

Answer 9

No, unless it's an old panhead.

You will likely put 10x the miles on your car that you do on the bike, though.

Answer 10

Not true at all. Tires generally wear out faster, batteries also don't seem to last as long as car batteries, but that's about it. You never have to change the windshield wipers!