Cost of ownership in the long run. Bike vs Truck. Commute and Weekend trips.

[oic0]

One other thing for a commuter, sliders are a great investment even if you don't stunt or race. Mines gone down 4 times. Been backed into, pushed over, and a couple times me acting stupid in grass for fun. Total expense about $50 for new bars, throttle tube, and grips. Having no body work helps that too but I still would have rashed up my forks, swing arm, pipe.

[riverszzr]

Originally Posted by jeffo8

i was trying to be hyperbolic, and to use that hyperbole to show that when you compare a similar performance bike and car - the only way to make the car cheaper is to cheat.

motorcycles being cheaper than cars is why motorcycles rule developing nations.

however in America people like me who are unwilling to give up our commuter cars, but still want a bike, are not much better off money wise.

basically
bike instead of car-cheep-but you have to be willing not to use a car
bike and car- not really gunna save money.

oh and for the fuel price difference- premium for the bike, regular for the car +me not wanting to use decimal points.

mpg levels- bike is driven like crazy, car has magic fuel abilities(probably related to under hood fairy farts...keep reading)

high bike maintenance cost- to pay for all the plastics from all the times they drop the bike in parking lots.

no car maintenance costs- magic maintenance fairies under the hood(i really wish i could upgrade my under hood gremlins to fairies)

price levels- with bike they are idiots and get shafted, car they have magic negotiating abilities.

Thanks for clearing that all up.......lol

[steingar]

If you really need a fucking spreadsheet to justify your bike, you don't belong on a bike in the first place.

[oic0]

Originally Posted by steingar

If you really need a fucking spreadsheet to justify your bike, you don't belong on a bike in the first place.

Millions of people chose a bike for budget reasons. There is nothing wrong with that. Heck, one of the biggest benefits of my bike is I can go places across town for next to nothing in gas (AND enjoy the journey) where previously I would tell my friends "no thanks" because of the extra $10 it would cost me just to get there and back (AND the boring car ride).

[kevin_stevens]

Originally Posted by oic0

Millions of people chose a bike for budget reasons. There is nothing wrong with that. Heck, one of the biggest benefits of my bike is I can go places across town for next to nothing in gas (AND enjoy the journey) where previously I would tell my friends "no thanks" because of the extra $10 it would cost me just to get there and back (AND the boring car ride).

Millions of people are wrong about a lot of things. Riding a bike across town costs you "next to nothing" but driving cost $10. yeah right.

KeS

[oic0]

Originally Posted by kevin_stevens

Millions of people are wrong about a lot of things. Riding a bike across town costs you "next to nothing" but driving cost $10. yeah right.

KeS

65mpg city vs 15mpg city. Thats a big difference. 40 mile round trip for me to just about any entertainment. That's $8 to $10 in my truck vs $1.80 to $2.46 on the bike. You can't argue tires or oil, those two come out a wash. The bikes oil cost more but it uses less. The bikes tires wear out faster but they are cheaper and it only has two (people saving money don't buy expensive sticky tires, I go semi sticky but just on front for stopping power). Maintenance I do my self on both so that's a wash.

[Dem0nDuck]

Well most bikes will cost less long run than a truck. Much more so if you have an economy bike. Not sure I would call tires a wash but still probably better on a bike than a truck when all is said and done.


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[oic0]

Originally Posted by Dem0nDuck

Well most bikes will cost less long run than a truck. Much more so if you have an economy bike. Not sure I would call tires a wash but still probably better on a bike than a truck when all is said and done.

Well, so much of it just depends on what kind of tires you run regardless of vehicle that its hard to make a call. I've had tires that cost $100 for a set and were showing almost no wear at 8k miles on my bike when I took them off, so I know it can be done.

[max384]

My commute is 1000 miles per month. My car is a Chevy Trailblazer that gets 16mpg on average. My bike is an SV650 that gets 47mpg on average. I do all my own wrenching to include tire changes. My tires are Contimotions that are $160 a set shipped. I get 8k out of a rear and 16k out of a front.

I had put together an excel file that tracked all costs and I save about $200 per month commuting, and this is figuring in maintenance, tire, insurance, etc. cost. However, I have a pretty perfect situation to actually realize savings by commuting with a bike. I do my own maintenance, I have a pig of a car, a bike that gets good gas mileage and is cheap to maintain, and I have a moderately long commute.

[AutoXer]

Originally Posted by max384

I had put together an excel file that tracked all costs and I save about $200 per month commuting, and this is figuring in maintenance, tire, insurance, etc. cost.

Precisely why one needs "an F'ing spreadsheet" as someone so eloquently put it - without tracking the actual costs you gotta call "bullhockey" on anybody who claims that riding a bike saves money, because they simply don't know - they are just repeating what "everybody knows". The only truthful answer is "it depends on many factors". A spreadsheet makes it easy, plug in new numbers and you can calculate whether there really is a savings. I can run the numbers for my bike against my Civic (Civic wins), my Miata (Miata wins big), or my pickup truck (pickup loses, but not by that much) and know whether it's so. Change the bike to, say, a Harley V-Rod that is twice the price of my bike and struggles to get 30 miles per gallon, or to a sportbike in the hands of a teenage squid paying 3 grand a year for insurance, and even the truck might win. Change my commute distance, the bike, or the reliability of the 4-wheeled vehicles and the bike will easily win. It all depends ...

[Dem0nDuck]

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.


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[BloodRedSandman]

Thats good to hear. Thanks for the replies everyone.

[kevin_stevens]

Originally Posted by Dem0nDuck

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

[Dem0nDuck]

Originally Posted by kevin_stevens

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

Each person is going to have different results for sure. I was a bunch nicer on my tires than you for one because I would get an average of 8k miles for a set of PP2CT and more from pirelli angel st. Also a set of tires on my truck run me about 1500. I had 60k miles on the bike when I sold it so I didnt make a full 3 years on it. I did not change the bearings or shocks but I did have the shop check them both out to let me know if they needed it when I had it in for the valve adjustments. It seems to me that I saved a bunch by riding the bike as much as I did .... maybe I am fooling myself or maybe it is a good way to get the "need" for a bike by the wife.

Either way my savings go deeper than just from going to work but its not something that most people would need to take into account.

[Sequentialshift]

The biggest saving in London and much of Europe is time. A 3 hour car journey cut to 30 mins on a bike is a serious saving.