Kawasaki Concours Forum
The C-14, aka Kawasaki Concours-14, the new one :) => The Bike - C14/GTR 1400 => Topic started by: B.D.F. on August 25, 2012, 08:03:58 AM
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Just heard from my wife, who in turn read on Facebook, that a member here (previous member?) still has the '08 he bought new and has 145K miles on it. Still commuting long distance and still using the bike to do it so still racking up the mileage at a pretty fast clip. He is still happy with the bike apparently.
Brian
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Wow, what a surprise.....not. I've only got 50k on mine now. It's good to know I have another 100k to go.
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That's K's not M's, but still pretty damn decent.
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Not sure who you are responding to here Stewart but the guy I am speaking of lives in southern California and the distance I am speaking of is in US statue miles, not kilometers. I stuck the K in there to represent kilo or thousand. His bike is over 145,000 miles, apparently without any substantial malfunction or failure.
He was the first person known to hit 100,000 miles on a C-14 and if he keeps going like this, he will be the first to hit 200,000 miles too.
Brian
That's K's not M's, but still pretty damn decent.
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Man... I wish mine lasts that many happy miles. Mama Kaw should be made aware of this accomplishment!
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They did know about that bike, at least a few years ago.
The bevel gear set is the highest stressed point in the entire drivetrain, and it was a new design for the C-14. Kawasaki went looking for C-14's in the field with the highest mileage; there were four of us who were contacted and asked to swap out our bevel gear assemblies for new ones so that the originals could be sent back to the manufacturer in Japan and reviewed for wear. The gentleman who I mentioned in the first post was the highest mileage C-14 they found and he had something like 80K miles on the bike at the time, one other fellow had something like 70K, mine had around 45K and a guy in PA named Jerry (JaminJere on this forum) had a bike with similar mileage to mine. They also took the final drive assembly and the ECU from my bike, again to review back at the 'mother ship' (the ECU records at least some parameters of the bike's running history so they wanted that too for the stored data).
I do not know if Kawasaki has made any effort to keep an eye out for any further data or not. By the way, my bevel gear set looked absolutely perfect and actually appeared to me to a lot less worn than I would have thought.
I don’t know what happened after that regarding the second highest mileage bike but the rest of us all still have our C-14s and the mileage is climbing on all of them. Jerry’s bike was somewhere in the 60K range last I heard and mine has passed 85K miles now.
Brian
Man... I wish mine lasts that many happy miles. Mama Kaw should be made aware of this accomplishment!
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Brain fart Jim.....
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Brain fart, Jim.....
Fixed it for you...otherwise I'd have to ban you.
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I believe he was Charles R. I wanted to stay on track with him. But a year later. I run 44,000miles on my first bike in 18 months. Then totaled it. I bought a 2010 after and put about 30,000 miles in 18 months, so I am not keeping up well.
Then today I met a guy on a Super Tenre and has 43,500 miles on his bike in 1 year. That is pretty heavy riding. I actually like the looks of the bike. The seat was nice and high. I love the aluminum cases that open from the top. He was from Maryland and rides year round.
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Yep, that was the guy.
I believe most of the high mileage riders live in relatively warm climates. It makes it harder to accumulate as many miles in areas with a full winter (ice, snow and sustained temps. below freezing).
Brian
I believe he was Charles R. I wanted to stay on track with him. But a year later. I run 44,000miles on my first bike in 18 months. Then totaled it. I bought a 2010 after and put about 30,000 miles in 18 months, so I am not keeping up well.
Then today I met a guy on a Super Tenre and has 43,500 miles on his bike in 1 year. That is pretty heavy riding. I actually like the looks of the bike. The seat was nice and high. I love the aluminum cases that open from the top. He was from Maryland and rides year round.
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It is tougher up here. I was running too much work this year to ride a lot. I quit that part of the job, so I have been back at it. I bring the car maybe once per week.
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I ride all year here (RI) but I do not rack up the miles in the hard part of the winter that I do the rest of the year. And way up there in Maine I believe I have seen mittens being worn by icicles.
;D
Brian
It is tougher up here. I was running too much work this year to ride a lot. I quit that part of the job, so I have been back at it. I bring the car maybe once per week.
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Jerry’s bike was somewhere in the 60K range last I heard and mine has passed 85K miles now.
Brian
On my way, Bri... I should be close to 85K in a few weeks.. :) Now that its cooling off a bit... riding season has started again.. :)
(http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z311/JamminJere/83k.jpg)
JJ
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Hey Jerry, glad to see you stop by and glad to see that mileage climbing. It sounds like your health issues are behind you and that is great.
My mileage is actually down this year after a rather lousy run across the US. The results are more or less gone now but I was quite a while recovering from that- not complaining and it was entirely my fault so the punishment fits the crime in this case :-)
Brian
On my way, Bri... I should be close to 85K in a few weeks.. :) Now that its cooling off a bit... riding season has started again.. :)
(http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z311/JamminJere/83k.jpg)
JJ
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>>>SNIP<<<Then today I met a guy on a Super Tenre and has 43,500 miles on his bike in 1 year.>>>SNIP<<<
Let's see; If 365 days x 100 per day = 36,500...... 43,500, that's a VERY impressive total! :yikes:
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I hope kwak doesn't build the bevel drive down so it wear's out faster( nah) so the dealer's can make more money on service. Never happen.
I cruised a goldwing yesterday with 110 k miles on it, and it rode just fine( I've never been on such a hi mileage bike). I wasn't really expecting it to blow up, but it was really tight(like a tiger) and ran perfect. I'm really pleased to here these hi mile tales. I'm looking forward to wearing the land shark(08 c14) out if i can. thank's.
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I plan on racking up miles on mine for quite a while, should be no surprise to anyone that these bikes are quite capable of this. ;)
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I am just a few short of 85,000 miles on my 08. And it shares my time with two other bikes. Speaking of high mileage, we've been running an annual mileage contest at MSTA. Last year I finished 7th with 31,000. The winner had over 100,000 miles for the year! He rides a Goldwing.
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That's awesome. Is he a iron butt guy?
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That's awesome. Is he a iron butt guy?
more like a Chrome-Vanadium butt... :hail:
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The pow-ah of KiPass is amazing.
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That's awesome. Is he a iron butt guy?
I don't think so. He just loves to ride.
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Brain fart Jim.....
I almost read it as 'Brian fart...' ! :rotflmao:
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I almost read it as 'Brian fart...' ! :rotflmao:
That could concievably be worse.... :)
JJ
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And to think I was mildly amused when I realized a week ago that I had 41K on my 08.
Barry
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On my way, Bri... I should be close to 85K in a few weeks.. :) Now that its cooling off a bit... riding season has started again.. :)
(http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z311/JamminJere/83k.jpg)
JJ
The impressive part of those 83k is how many are off road :).
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The pow-ah of KiPass is amazing.
Has anyone heard of the new kickass security feature? It involves the 'trunk monkey' and a sap!
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Interesting thread.
One observation I have had over many years is that when miles are accumulated over a relatively short period of time the majority of those miles are from highway or interstate riding which produces less wear on the overall drivetrain. If the rider was using the bike for inner city courier service I would not expect to see the high mileage with more repairs.
I've seen Voyager XII with over 200,000 miles, Ninja 650 parallels twins with close to 100,000 miles, Voyager 1700 V-twins closing in on 100,000 miles. What they all have in common is steady running down the highways and byways of America, and constant use without abuse.
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My very favorite one was Anti- Theft version Trunk Monkey. After the monkey thrown the thief off the bridge the caption reads something to the effect: Because sometimes just getting you car back in not enough.
<ROFLMA>
Brian
Has anyone heard of the new kickass security feature? It involves the 'trunk monkey' and a sap!
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Yep, it would seem that way. Most of my miles are either outright highway or fast, nice secondary roads (highways of the 1950's really). City traffic is hard on any vehicle.
Brian
Interesting thread.
One observation I have had over many years is that when miles are accumulated over a relatively short period of time the majority of those miles are from highway or interstate riding which produces less wear on the overall drivetrain. If the rider was using the bike for inner city courier service I would not expect to see the high mileage with more repairs.
I've seen Voyager XII with over 200,000 miles, Ninja 650 parallels twins with close to 100,000 miles, Voyager 1700 V-twins closing in on 100,000 miles. What they all have in common is steady running down the highways and byways of America, and constant use without abuse.
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Here's an article about my friend Denise and her FZ1, also an MSTA member.
http://www.sporttouring.us/content.php?97-An-Oklahoman-and-her-Odometer (http://www.sporttouring.us/content.php?97-An-Oklahoman-and-her-Odometer)
There are a couple guys in our club who have gone over 250,000 on Hondas.
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Around these parts, secondary roads are much quicker since the popo like to stay on the highway. :stirpot:
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Last year I met a fellow on the road that had 297,000 miles on his '98 ST1100, and it had no major components replaced!
I don't think 100k, 150k, 200k or even 300k miles is an unreasonable service life for modern motorcycles, and the C14 appears to have the "genes" to go these distances.
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My bike mechanic buddy (they're good to have around) said that motorcycles need to be used. As long as its run regularly and maintained properly you can ride your bike forever. You'd most likely buy another bike because you want a new feature or updated styling. I'm looking forward to racking up the miles on my C14.
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Yup, 169k Miles on my 1989 C10 and he still starts first prod of the button.
He needs new tyres and some fork springs to be road legal but I've never had a serious problem on Otto in the 84k miles I put on him over the last 9 years. Worst one was a snapped throttle cable.
Vivian (2007 C14) is at near as damnit 50k Miles.
Now that I am no longer commuting 160miles per day in VERY heavy traffic I actually want to go for rides at the weekends and some evenings. I am enjoying riding rather than enduring it. ;D
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Here's an article about my friend Denise and her FZ1, also an MSTA member.
http://www.sporttouring.us/content.php?97-An-Oklahoman-and-her-Odometer (http://www.sporttouring.us/content.php?97-An-Oklahoman-and-her-Odometer)
There are a couple guys in our club who have gone over 250,000 on Hondas.
Nice! (http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j180/stevewfl/avatars/goHonda.gif)