I put together a quick spreadsheet comparing the cost of a motorcycle vs a car over 50000 miles.
My assumptions for the motorcycle was $10000 purchase, average $200 maintenance every 5000 miles, tires at $300 every 5000 miles, and 50 mpg. Average cost was 35 cents per mile.
My assumptions for the car was $20000 purchase, average $30 oil change every 3000 miles, $200 brakes every 25000 miles, 1 set of tires for $700 at 40000 miles, and 25 mpg. Average cost was 53 cents per mile.
Now my maintenance costs were wild ass guesses which will vary for everyone.
This quick comparison shows that commuting on a motorcycle will cost less per mile than a car. If done long enough the savings would eventually pay for the bike but most people will spend the weekly savings on other items.
With all that said, the point in my initial post was to maintain sales (both bikes and accessories) HD / Buell need to make people believe that bikes are necessities not toys. When people are scared of being unemployed they are not going to buy toys.
Macdiver, how does the cost per mile work out once you own both vehicles?
It always seems to be the tires that are the bugaboo for the motorcycle. If we have a great 10k mile tire it would really help.
And finally, the problem with the motorcycle is that it gets ridden just for fun vs far less so for the car.
Nevertheless I consider my Uly quite a bargain in that I am much refreshed when I arrive home on the bike vs the car. Something about the car seems to drag work home with me. The bike pulls my mind firmly back to the real world.
"how does the cost per mile work out once you own both vehicles?". . .. . That just makes it worse since you can only driver/ride one vehicle at a time while the others are still "costing you" just to sit. My X1 that I've owned for ten years,cost me $1,000.00 a year to own.....with out even the ride/maintenance cost added in. Tally up the other five bikes,two trucks and a car and I'm neart touching a grand a month to simply own them in a ten year span. That works out to about a buck a mile plus all the expense of keeping them "active".... 25 to 50 cents a mile...course some of them I have owned longer than ten years. But still.............
I've done the numbers on all my vehicles, and the motorcycles are generally the cheapest. The biggest cost is usually depreciation, and if you buy a bike for less than $10k new, that alone gives it a big advantage. That said, due to high depreciation and unreliabilty my Buell is barely competitive with my Golf TDI- the Buell has lost at least $6k in value in 55k miles and due to it's unreliability I won't be putting on a lot more miles. The TDI in 80k miles has lost only $7k in depreciation and until recently had about the same fuel cost as the Buell. 2 of my 3 old BMWs are doing better- the '83 R80ST I bought used has covered 35k miles with about a thousand dollars in repairs and I could sell it for what I paid for it, and the '84 R65LS I bought new has depreciated maybe $2k and needed about $1000 in repairs in 100k miles. That said, the lemon '92 R100GS has needed $2k in repairs to make it to 60k miles; I paid $7k new for it and it's now a $1k parts bike. So by and large my bikes are beating my cars on cost per mile.
Suffice to say, if you could find a dealer to sell you a new Blast for $5k OTD and the 7 year extended warranty for another $500 and rode the wheels off it you'd probably have the cheapest new powered wheeled transportation around.
HD / Buell need to make people believe that bikes are necessities not toys.
Always hard for a business to change or mold people but particularly difficult for HD when it's freezing outside. If motorcycles become a necessity it wont be because of anything HD does - it will be because our standard of living has fallen to that of a third world country.
(Message edited by Ferris_von_bueller on January 25, 2009)
I have an 84 Ford Ranger that I paid $800 dollars for, and over the course of 10 years of owning it have driven it 2300 miles. I really dont care what the cost is for it, my CITYX is my main transpo. The truck gets used to go to the dump, and errands that are too big for the saddle bags. Barring Snow or Ice; I ride EVERYDAY. Customers seem to believe it more when they see it, which is why the bike is out front every day. (of course it will be a new shop now, but the point is the same) Put gas in, go ride.
Buy used in good condition if low-cost transport is the primary concern. Our Saturn SC1 with over 300,000 miles gets nearly the same mileage as my bigger streetbikes.
Buddy is selling a CHERRY 883 Sporty with less than 10K miles. For $3K that'd do you pretty well for a transportation bike and insurance would be cheap.
Where does it end? Cutting jobs "saves" the company,but nationwide job cuts....kill off even more prospective buyers. Who's going to buy new "anything" when they have no income and have to start all over. Domino effect......where and when does the last domino fall?
It stops falling when people feel confident enough to buy, again. This is why I dont believe it's a good thing for V.P Biden to go around "talking down" the economy. President Obama has the opportunity to use some of his high approval ratings to energize the American people but , so far ; has not done so.
HD / Buell need to make people believe that bikes are necessities not toys. When people are scared of being unemployed they are not going to buy toys.
That will never happen in this country. Even in Europe a motorbike is not a necessity. As long as we have 84 ford rangers for $800, or more realistically a 10 year old Toyota Corolla for a few grand, bikes will always be toys. In Europe they have public transport.
The only places that bike are a necessity are places like Vietnam. Places where bikes are so very cheap compared to cars.
The economy, like the war in Iraq, will self correct and fix itself all to the better; when the media gets a good dose of STFU and just does paparazzi celebrity reporting. Their chicken little analysis and fear monging put Joe and Suzy Picket- Fence into a tizzy. Perception comes reality quickly with the shallow sound bite crew.
They NEVER should have embedded journalists with the troops, I didnt agree with it the first time around, and the second wasnt any better an idea.
I agree - I've always thought the economy and the market and all that, it's at the whim of the majority. Seems it only takes one round of panic and the whole thing falls apart.
If the news would stop posting daily about how much everything sucks and find something nice to say - or just nothing - people would be more likely to separate themselves from the dollars they have stuffed in their mattresses ('cause you can't trust banks anymore) and buy something other than groceries.
The government is spending trillions to re-stimulate the economy, but they're just throwing money into the pockets of already rich people, hoping that THEY'LL do something good with it, when in fact, that hasn't happened in a really long time. Citibank needed a new jet, after all.
Why not just cut out the middleman? Do a REAL stimulus. Spend the trillions directly on the TAXPAYERS. Give them each something REAL, like $100,000. It'd still be cheaper, but if I got that kind of "stimulus", I'd 1. Pay off all my loans, thus putting all the banks back into the black on their little bad loan situation 2. Have plenty left over to stimulate the economy with purchases I've been afraid to make, allowing businesses of all sizes to rehire their employees to fill the demand. 3. Still have enough to sock away for another emergency, or my kids college, or whatever. Maybe even refinance my current mortgage for a lower monthly payment with more money down, thus raising equity. 4. By the way, people in the market for a home could finally buy one, which would probably help drive house prices back to normal and get everyone out of the red.
If it would cost the same, why not just give the money right to the folks instead of some convoluted stimulus package?
Chellem: simple, the politicians would rather give the money to their (rich) friends and the (rich) supporters who have helped them get elected, and the (rich) lobbyists that keep their bank accounts full.
Thats why they can't stimulate the economy by giving the money to people directly. Besides, the govt is always better at knowing what to do with your money than you are, or at least that is what they believe.
Give them each something REAL, like $100,000. It'd still be cheaper"
Why is always a "give me" kind of thing. Cut my taxes...Cut your taxes. You and I get to keep what we earned. Could it be any more far than that?
"Besides, the govt is always better at knowing what to do with your money than you are, or at least that is what they believe." Yes, it's about having the POWER & CONTROL over OUR money. If it was not for our tax dollars they would have no power and no control.
Give me tax relieve and give me my freedom! Do not burden my back with what you (the government) feels is good for me
I'm with the monkey. How is HD going to convince someone that a motorcycle costing nearly as much as a car is practical? Especially when a used Toyota is cheaper and still has 100,000 miles left in it, and needs less maintenance than the bike. 4 tires? Have you ever looked at how cheap the tires are for econobox cars, about 1/2 what a motorcycle tire goes for.
Now, there is a reason Kawi sold out of Ninja 250s in 2008. They are practical and priced low.
HD is a LONG WAY from producing motorcycles that sell for $3,500 and are still highly profitable.
Why is always a "give me" kind of thing. Cut my taxes...Cut your taxes. You and I get to keep what we earned. Could it be any more far than that?
My point was that if you divide the billions of dollars by the number of TAXPAYERS in this country, you come up with numbers much higher than the $1,000 or so they're going to send everyone. REAL relief would skip the middleman and send the money right to the people themselves.
People that paid $100,000 in taxes probably aren't in the situation where they need more money (note I said people not businesses). Cutting my taxes would only result in the same few thousand or so in relief, and it won't even cover most people's debt, let alone stimulate the economy.
You have to be very careful doing division . . . a couple weeks ago the Dems tagged an innocuous looking rider on the TARP funding to provide relief for folks in New Orleans. Part of the problem is now that we are playing with hundreds of billions, "little" numbers, like 35,000,000,000 go under the radar.
At the last moment someone pointed out that it was over $1,500,000.00 per family in New Orleans . . . yep, that'll get ya on your feet.
How's everyone feeling about CitiGroup buying the new French made$50,000,000.00 Dessault Falcon Jet with your tax dollars last week?
Some folks are loving this stimulus thing . . .
Be mindful that over half the $850,000,000,000 is not set to be released until the last 2 quarters of 2010. . . . oddly enough to coincide with the time when EVERY member of the house if up for reelection. It'll make nice "look what I've done for you" fodder.
We're headed full speed to what may be our greatest national embarrassment in history.
P.S. - My personal favorite is Robert Reisch who is charging ahead for hundreds of BILLIONS to get into infrastructure programs and he wants them built FAST . . .he'd like to start in weeks, not years and is demanding that the work not be given to "white male construction workers" but instead to the chronically unemployed, woman and minorities who have traditionally been cut out of this type of work. Who wants to be the first to drive across the bridge they build?
How is HD going to convince someone that a motorcycle costing nearly as much as a car is practical?
I don't think that they expect to convince people to REPLACE their primary cars with Harleys. That would NOT be practical, esp to anyone with a family of, well, more than 2.
I think the point that we were trying to make with our mileage calculators and commuting theories was that rather than using it ONLY for fun, rather than thinking of riding ONLY on weekends, to go into it thinking that you can save some money on your daily commute, AND still have it for weekends too!
So it saves you money on your toy if you use it as a tool.
I think it probably just doesn't occur to people that you even CAN commute on a motorcycle. All the time, sometimes, once a week - every little bit helps defray the cost of your fun on weekends.
Anyway, that was my idea. Wouldn't DREAM of assuming I could know what was in H-D's head. :P
US population 306,000,000 (That's 306 million) estimated by U.S. Bureau of the Census.
27.6% are under the age of 20. I'm sorry if that included anyone here, but I'm counting you out as a non-tax payer.
That leaves 221,544,000 that could be paying taxes for this exercise.
Then let's say the government gives everyone a their equal share of the $850,000,000,000 (that's billion).
$850,000,000,000 / 221,544,000 = $3,837 per person. It's not $100,000 per person. Large numbers divided by large numbers do not equal another large number.
"Cutting my taxes would only result in the same few thousand or so in relief, and it won't even cover most people's debt, let alone stimulate the economy."
Why should you as a tax payer be responsible for my debts or anyone else?
Why should your tax dollars be given to someone that didn't even earn the money to begin with?
We have become a nation made up of people expecting someone else to bail them out. To give them something they didn't earn.
P.S. - My personal favorite is Robert Reisch who is charging ahead for hundreds of BILLIONS to get into infrastructure programs and he wants them built FAST . . .he'd like to start in weeks, not years and is demanding that the work not be given to "white male construction workers" but instead to the chronically unemployed, woman and minorities who have traditionally been cut out of this type of work. Who wants to be the first to drive across the bridge they build?
I don't understand why Robert Reich is considered an athourity on anything. That clown was a social studies teacher that Clinton put in a position way over his head. Reich has been riding that Clinton appointment ever since. I have a degree in economics, and can honestly say that Riech normally sounds like he would fail a high school econ class. He has no knowledge and little if any common sense or understanding of economic principles.
First of all, your assumption that everyone over 20 pays taxes at all is flawed - waaaay flawed. According to the IRS, in 2006 only 15,471,000 people filed income tax papers.
So the number is more like $54,941 per person. Roughly. Based on EOY 2006, which is all I could find. The real number is probably somewhere in between.
I said TAXPAYERS not EVERYONE.
And what I should have said is that $1000 won't cover MY debt. I have no intention of covering OTHER people's debt. But I can't stimulate the economy any more until my CC debt is gone.
Again, my point is, if they're dead set on spending this money to "stimulate the economy" then they should do it directly to the people, not allow people consumed with greed and personal power to dictate who benefits. Since there's no one like that in office or high up on the corporate food chain (evidently), then I say give it to the people.
But for the record, I'm against bailouts in general. I'm ESPECIALLY against bailouts that don't directly benefit the PEOPLE.
"Who wants to be the first to drive across the bridge they build?"
Will unions and contractors be forced to drop drug testing for apprentices and hiring?
Washington D.C., the media, and pols are playing liar's poker with the money and our nation's future. We are financially now Argentina with the possibility of becoming Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa, now a miner's monthly wages buys half a loaf of bread.
I'm thinking of getting back into a couple of collector bikes. Not as an investment, but because $$ in the bank might not be enough for bus fare to the welfare office someday. And buying used bikes from some folk means they might go buy something fresh off a dealer's showroom floor. It's my stimulation effort. I'll get back to you if it works. If it doesn't, to paraphrase the FFF Brothers: bikes get you thru times of no money better than money gets your thru times of no bikes.
