As above and im reading other manufacturers are struggling...id be interested to know if Suzuki are....which leads me into the statement....spares.... Lets take KTM initially.... If you buy an old KTM 450 enduro (yes ive seen them for sale) but alot of the parts are now not available (and im guessing you can all see where im going) 660 supermoto, 625, old 990 superduke theres a long an illustrious list..! Start producing parts for old bikes again....we cant all afford the latest and the greatest and in some cases we just dont want...the latest and the greatest.... Suzuki is the only one out of all of them that does the Classic spares program - as far as i know they still (or restarted) producing spares for the original GSXR's and what not. My own case in point is my old RSV4 factory (the first of them) theres a load of parts that are now non existant...if the top end lets go....its a new engine...luckily i can refit anything up to a 2018 motor with a reflash...but id rather be able to get spares for mine. That also goes for my SXV550 - again loads of parts not available but theres still loads of people running (and racing) them. Same with my hyper...body parts - fucking forget it...along with im guessing a load of other parts across the bike.... So, my message to manufacturers - if you want to not go under...start producing spares for the older bikes again...you'll fucking clean up....
Best of luck to'em....in my eyes its a fucking no brainer....youre not governed by any emissions laws, youll retain and if im not mistaken probably gain followers to your marque....look at the amount of old boys out there that are still riding around on their original bikes for 30+ years ago... Just imagine being able to buy an old gen1 multistrada (that may or may not have been left to rot) then pop down to your local (or online) parts store and get everything you need... The only downside i can see is that the greens wont like it but, right now....battery cars suck, bike maybe a bit moreso...i think the .gov's green targets are out in cloud cuckoo land but resurrecting a spares program i would say they wouldnt have accounted or expected and the speed they move....itll be 10 years before anything happens even if it did which i dont think it would...
Why is pissing off sanctimonious monomaniacal eco-zealots a “downside”? To my mind it’s a selling point. Joking aside - I’m a big fan of “waste not, want not” and I always prefer to repair rather than replace, as can be seen from my fleet of ancient vehicles in various states of decrepitude. I’ve not looked into it in any detail, but I reckon keeping an old ICE vehicle going rather than buying a new EV is probably pretty carbon footprint friendly.
Up until now I have had no problems getting bits for earlier KTMs, sometimes took a couple of weeks. Bet that changes
I've read, but not confirmed, that 80% of a car's lifetime energy usage is in it's production. So keeping a motor for let's say at least 3 years is already carbon footprint friendly.
I thought manufacturers had a legal responsibility to provide parts for 25 years after production finishes, but that may just be cars.
I thought that technical support and spares should were required by the EU to be provided for 10 years from end of production, but not sure this is enforced. I imagine the OEM does some sort of parts use forecast for the 10 year period and produces spares to support this and then shuts down production. If they make enough, great, if not, tough. At the end of the support period they will probably sell off any remaining parts which go to NOS dealers or pop up on e-bay with ‘supply and demand’ pricing…. Whilst it would be nice to simply buy new parts for old bikes from the OEM, it wouldn’t make business sense for an OEM to damage future sales of new bikes, considering the bulk of the customer base isn’t really interested in old models, with very few of these reaching ‘classic’ status.
Nobody wants to keep stock. You pay lots of money to have parts made and then lots more to keep it for years until such a time that you're able to sell some of it. Almost all manufacturing is now "just in time" which means they don't need warehouses. I believe Nissan in the UK have less than a hour's worth of parts at their assembly plant. If you don't provide parts for older vehicles, new ones will have to be bought. I don't think we'll see many OEM classic spares schemes popping up.
I dont think theyll have any option....if its a possible revenue stream it would be madness to ignore it.....im not saying a full parts list for every bike out there but at least the popular ones...if anything keep an eye on what is out there...ie my sxv550 burns through engine parts when being used for racing etc etc...
might be lot of old geezers wobbling around on old stuff in this country but not globally. in today's 'just in time' 'on demand' market there is simply not the necessary demand or they would have done it already.
During the post-Brexit trucker shortage I read that Nissan’s manufacturing plant only has 20 mins worth of components at hand.
The other thing to consider is that people who ride old obsolete bikes are often doing so because they don’t have a great deal of disposable income. Hence, they don’t get them serviced as often, they wait for things to break rather than replacing them preemptively and they can’t pay top dollar for parts. I know a guy who bought up a load of NOS Datsun 240Z, 260Z and 280ZX parts. Luckily for him, he was a very patient and tolerant guy, because every time I was round at his house he seemed to spend half the time on the phone to people for half an hour at a time, selling a windscreen wiper linkage or a sump plug costing a fiver.
I think thats the way the sxv parts are now...someone wants 250 quid for a set of rear footpegs...as i say and emphasize....make the parts available for the right bikes...ie old zxr's, Kr1's and esses, for example say a Yamaha Diversion maybe not bother, but say yamaha fs1e's might be an idea to.... ie create the spares catalogue for the right bikes...
Difficult to determine what's the right bike. Take your example of the FS1E. I had never seen or heard of one until I moved here. I lived in Germany and Italy and they're not a thing. Making new spares for an ever smaller number of bikes makes very little sense. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to buy spares fory MV for example but it's not going to happen. Not from the factory in any case.
I think they went by other model numbers around the world but, FS1's go for stupid money now and the user base is pretty dedicated...im not saying theyve got to build thousands of each spares but, if small numbers were available then manufacturers could charge a bit more for them....if i could get spares from aprilia for my sxv (body parts for example) id happily pay a premium for them.. You could for example say do the same for old vespa's ?
There is no business sense in OEM maintain hold parts. Much better they sell the jigs and patterns to others who then set up a business. Even then they will look for common components: can they make the part so it fits many even if it’s slightly different to original
