CR Reliability ratings

[BSR6]

As a former snowmobiler, the idea of talking about motorcycle reliability makes me laugh.

I put more work into my sled in one fall (before it even snowed) than I have into my bikes since I started riding.

[jwm2k3]

As a former snowmobiler, the idea of talking about motorcycle reliability makes me laugh.

I put more work into my sled in one fall (before it even snowed) than I have into my bikes since I started riding.

Yep....the best snowmobile I could ever ride, is owned by someone else. I feel this way about boats too. I will go out on someone elses boat but I will never buy one.

[tsorfas]

since I ever got invovled with motorcycles, I heard that Hondas, Suzukis and Yamahas are the most reliable bikes. Suzuki just have a bunch of idiots who buy their bikes for show and dont take care of them (no oil change in 15000miles and wonder why the motor shit the bed. Hondas had the rumor that are indestructable since I remember talking bikes and Yamahas had a bunch of electrical issues with a specific year R6/R1, other than that those bikes are mean to last forever.

[R1]

Without their "proprietary data" this is just a bunch of garbage for people who think these graphs apply to the subjective experience of car/motorcycle/everything else ownership.

I hope you don't pay for their analysis... If you have to pay they should provide the data for independant review.

[nhbubba]

I think for most, CR says what they wanted to hear.

[PhilB]

All the bikes in their charts suck. That's why I went for total practicality and bought a Ducati. Those are so good, they didn't even put them on the list.

PhilB

[Wanderer]

It also may depend on the owners. I've noticed over my time of owning BMWs, that the owners quite often get extraordinarily butthurt about the smallest issue.

I dont mean a Final Drive lunching itself either - GSA fog light switches is a common one, and people get absolutely *irate* about tiny issues like that (where 30 minutes work can have it fixed yourself anyway!).
There seems to be two types of BMW owners I've run into. The ones that love the machines, and accept that like any machine moving parts WILL break. These folks get annoyed at the big stuff (gearbox output seals, FD, etc).
The others seem to have come to BMW often from the BMW car side - I see a lot of these guys in the UK. Buy a GS, weigh it down with half the Touratech catalog, and absolutely go loony if the tiniest thing goes wrong. In fact I picked up a 2010 GSA with 5k (!!) miles on it recently, ludicrously clean condition, from a guy who utterly matched the latter type of owner.

[reks95]

I know it's all "stick it to the man" to say that companies that have brand loyalty bought it with their lifestyle advertising.
Hell, it might even be true.

But it's also possible that these manufacturers have built a machine that people love even if it isn't the most reliable.
Might be more exciting, prettier in the garage, match the badge on their favorite car, or just sound fucking awesome.
Or it could be the money. Or it could be that Consumer Reports doesn't know what it's doing.

Is anyone here really going to choose between two bikes based on Consumer Reports?
Fun to read though.

[dontpanic]

I choose my cars in large part by what CR reports. My experience (cars, natch, not bikes) has backed up their info completely.

[Garandman]

News of this just hit the YB thread. Should be an interesting discussion as there are many true blue owners and others, not so much.