It’s all bollox tho isn’t it. Why does a bike R’s or anything cost often 10 times (hyperbole) that of a car one?!
I’d accept that if you were comparing (which some have) with low volume hyper cars or even limited built bikes. But it’s not. They will have plenty of tooling to build and no r&d costs to recover.
All my Jap sports bikes have done high miles. Last K4 750 was moved on at 33000 miles. Full service history and rad fine. Ditto the other 3 GSXR’s I’ve owned. All with 20000 plus miles on them. Some weren’t even garaged; just a bike cover over them all year round. They were ridden all year, here and abroad. None of their rads failed.
Cradle to the grave (scrapyard) earnings from the unit. Sell at X, first few years earn Y from servicing and extended warranties. Y drops off as the unit ages and falls into the hands of the home mechanic. At this stage spare part sales increase. So, you can sell the unit cheap(ish)/at cost and earn throughout its whole life. Add to that a few planned catastrophic early failures and terrified owners will be lining up to buy the inflated extended warranty i/2 man 1/2 ovine we are....
So, the epoxy trick failed, I think my two pack araldite was well past it. Rad demounted today and a new one on order, pure Chinesium don't ya know! And having read the previous posts crowing about rad life....my '06 KTM990 ADV has 50K+ on the clock and the only things that have let me down are, clutch spring replaced in 2007 under warranty, and a starter solenoid that left me stranded a few weeks ago, replaced by me for a less than £20. Not too shabby for a 16 year old bike... Bootsam - £10 for a fucking O ring? Where the feck was that? Was it lubricated with the quim of Essex virgins?! (Very rare product).
I was knocked off my s4rt a few years ago and the radiator was cracked in the crash, it was re cored by West Mercia Radiators for about £300, a new one from Ducati (made by KTM) at the time was £1300 plus vat THIRTEEN HUNDRED FUCKIN QUID!!!
Makes me laugh. We are all happy to put non OE brake pads in, and rave about them compared to OE. But a radiator. Heaven forbid. I’ve just upgraded my Triumph after a heat exchanger failure. The upgrade cost over £100 less than the OE part which would undoubtedly fail again with track use. Think we need to get real.
Talking of expensive Ducati parts, I was a "little" shocked at the price of a V4 front caliper bleed nipple rubber dust cover, just £13.37, might just go non OEM
