I can't lie. My zx14 saved me big and it didn't get great gas mileage. Somewhere around 37 or so mpg. I was riding it about 2000 miles a month for almost 3 years. If I had taken the truck that gets about 17mpg it would have cost a fortune.
Geez, can y'all say "deferred maintenance"?!?
I had a ZX-14 for 26K miles, so I can speak more directly about them. I never saw 37mpg on it except for pure interstate runs - maybe 32 was my average. But let's use his numbers.
72000 miles (claimed - really???) / 37 mpg = 1946 gallons of gas. The truck would burn 4235 gallons. I'll arbitrarily pick $3 /gallon for regular (not knowing when this three year period was), and $.20 more a gallon for premium for the bike. So the truck would cost $12,705 in gas, and the bike would cost $6,227. Wow! You saved $6,500 in gas money over three years!
Now let's look at tires. My actual, real tire rate for sport tires on a ZX-14 was ~3,500 miles. Let's be generous and call it 4,000. A set of tires with mounting - I bought tires on sale and took the wheels in myself - no less than $300. That's $5,400 just in TIRES. In a truck I'd expect to go through two sets in that period, at about $1000/set. So $5,400 - 2,000 = $3,400. Half that fuel savings is gone, just in tires.
ZX-14, per the manual, calls for a valve adjustment every 15K miles. That's 5 of those (the first is at 600 miles), I paid about $300 a pop with the associated service. There's half the remainder of savings - down to $1,200!
I got 18K out of my OEM chain and sprockets, and they could probably have gone further. Let's say 24K, so you need three sets at $200 a set (chain, front, and rear). $600. Half the remainder, again.
How about fork service? The shops I know charge $75 a leg if you have removed them yourself, should be done every year. That's $150 three times for $450. I replaced my wheel bearings at 24K, and steering head bearings should definitely be done before 72K. That'll bring you up to $600 even if you do your own work. Fuel savings - gone.
Now, you can nickel and dime this for awhile from this point, adding a set of brake pads and shocks for the truck; but I'm going to come back with a new shock and brake pads for the bike, because you sure aren't riding an OEM shock for 72K miles - but you see how it shakes out. The bike requires much more and much more EXPENSIVE service than a car does. People who say they are saving money are *usually* ignoring either maintenance on the bike, or the cost of having done that maintenance.
KeS
