My bike POed!!!

[trdriver71]

Here are some pictures of my bike as it was before I bought it in the PO's garage.


http://photoshare.shaw.ca/view/12073...2304607-52966/

[James England]

Why do people treat machines like that, I wonder?

[natemoen]

Could always be worse. Could be outside sunk 10 inches into the mud!

[natemoen]

Glad she found a new loving home though!

[DGXSER]

That is not nearly as bad as ALOT of them we see. My last one sat in a barn for three years. PO painted the barn white and did not cover the bike or the two 6.6 litre Trans Ams sitting in there either.

He explained ot me that these old jap bikes are so cheap, you never fix them, just keep riding them till they can no longer be ridden then go buy another for less than the repairs on that one. Sad thing, he is right on the cost factor issue.

[SFerinTEXAS]

If the price was right, that one looks alot better than several I've seen lately.

[trdriver71]

I paid $600 for it and it took a month to get it running. Had to clean the carbs, flush all the brakes, change all the fluids, flush out all the old gas in the gas tank, put new tires on it, repair some of the seams on the seat, and put a new battery in it. I do however need to replace the seat as the PO left the battery in it all those years and it corroded the seat pan away. I still have many things to do to it but at least I can ride it and do it a little at a time. Of course I have to wait till spring as I can't ride in the snow. The one thing I do want to do this winter is to fix the transmission problem that it has. "The dremmel fix" and sync the carbs.

[SFerinTEXAS]

Looks like a good deal. Especially up north, they tend to go higher it seems.

[trdriver71]

Thanks, yeah that was one of the cheapest ones I found. When I was looking I also found a 750 triple std the same year but he wanted more for it and he still has it for sale.

Of course since I found this site I want to do more to it now!!!

[SFerinTEXAS]

Well your way better in many ways with the 11. I have heard the triples have a vibration inherent to the design that can get annoying. Good for you.

[trdriver71]

thanks sferintexas now that I have rode it I love it and don't regret getting it for a minute.

[Pat Kelly]

He explained ot me that these old jap bikes are so cheap, you never fix them, just keep riding them till they can no longer be ridden then go buy another for less than the repairs on that one. Sad thing, he is right on the cost factor issue.

I've had people ask why I don't buy a new bike.
I ask them how much a new bike costs. I then wonder what I could do to my XS with that much money. $5,000 to $20,000 into an XS would be one bad bike.

[SFerinTEXAS]

I have to agree with Bob Jones view. These machines were built so well, they had to be discontinued in order to sell more bikes.
Was a time when Jap products were made on the cheap. Now its the Chinese.

People still had the old view even when it no longer applied. Good for the rest of us.When you can find them. The early Toyota's were crappy, look at them now

[crazy steve]

I have to agree with Bob Jones view. These machines were built so well, they had to be discontinued in order to sell more bikes...

While I'll agree with Bob Jones that these were well built, I don't have to take his word for it as my first wife worked for a Yamaha dealer back then who also had Suzuki and Kaw dealerships. The owner told me that the Yamaha was by far the best built as they far fewer warranty claims compared to the other two makes, particularly against the Kawasaki (which he referred to as 'fast cheap junk').

But discontinued so they could sell more bikes? BS...

The XS11 was discontinued because it was obsolete in terms of where the market went. The first-year XS was the last 'standard', do-it-all flagship bike Yamaha built; everything that came after was specialized for that particular market niche it was intended for. The XS was obsolete because it was a 'general' design and couldn't be adapted to the now fragmenting market. You couldn't use it as a base for a sport bike because it was too heavy and had quirky handling from the shaft. The cruiser market went to V-twins and V-4s to compete with Harley. The touring bikes went the same way, but mainly because they could package a V-4 in a large displacement without suffering excess engine width in an already bulky bike. Those same big V-4s easily became the basis for the 'muscle bikes', so the XS became an also-ran. Nearly the only place you'll find an inline four today is in the latest zip-splat.

I think the eye-opener for Yamaha (and more than anything what sealed the XS11's fate) was the success of the XS Specials; it's outselling of the standard model showed them that if you made your bikes look more like Harleys, they sold better. So in a way it was a victim of its own success.

Now, I like naked 'standard' do-it-all bikes (just try to find one today), so that's one reason I held on to mine all these years. But I've been in the minority on this for years. They weren't discontinued because they were built 'too well', but because Yamaha knew sales numbers would continue dropping if they kept building it...