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CORSCO wrote:TechBMW, do you work at a BMW only shop. What else is a big seller in Italy?

I would have to say I see alot of beater bikes. Naples is a poor area of Italy, so the most common bikes are Older dual sports, which are great for everything, including lane splitting and nipping around town. Yamaha teneres, xt225's, KLR650/250 Honda Transalps and Africa twins, that kind of thing.

Of course there are a buttload of scooters, Vespa/Piaggio being the most prevalent. Japanese scooters like the Burgmans and Yamaha Majesties and T-Maxes are a far distant second.

Newer "Proper" motorcycles (Ones that power craving Americans would own - the above being either too "weak" or "sissy") I see mostly naked bikes - The Ducati Monster, Kawi z750 and the Honda 599 (Which is built in Italy) are the most prevalent.

Not too many newer BMW's but they are out there - Alot of R850R's and R1200GS's

There are a Butt-Ton of Harleys. Italy has the largest Harley's Owner's group outside of the US. The fact that there is a US military base in Naples adds to this effect, since military members can buy New Harleys Discounted under MSRP from the Exchange program run by the Military Exchanges.

Here's a pic I took in Rome. Can ya see what's in the background?

I can see... it's... A CRANE!

TechBMW, Man, how do you stay sane working on that stuff, all day, every day? What am I looking at, the XR or the Colisseum?
A bad day for me is when I have to work on scooters, luckily that is rare. That's what we have a "C" Tech for.
What is a T-Max? Hope its a scooter that somewhat lives up to the name. V-Max owner here.

CORSCO wrote:6.Older Intruders...battery under bike in front of rear tire. And their throttle linkages.

That's the only design flaw I have to complain about with mine .
They got it fixed a few years after '96 . My spousette's 2000 Marauder has the battery under the seat .
I use a lift to get at mine . Got it down now . If mine weren't so low I think it might be easier . Small sacrifice imnsho .
Kind regards, Wizzard

nike_soccer wrote:the only time ive never done my own mateince was when i seized a piston.

Hey Nike , I'm pretty sure that the chick in the center is my MOM ...

Wizzard wrote:

nike_soccer wrote:the only time ive never done my own mateince was when i seized a piston.

Hey Nike , I'm pretty sure that the chick in the center is my MOM ...

Have a sudden craving for milk did ya wizzard?

I agree with yoda, the CX500 is incredibly easy to maintain. I dont even open up the cover to get to the cam to turn the engine. I just put the bike in 5th gear, throw it up on the centerstand and use the back tire to turn the engine (shaft drives are nice to have for this).

all the normal maintaince areas of the CX are easy to access, the driveshaft even has a zerk fitting to make greasing it an easy job (some shaft drive bikes require removing the driveshaft to grease it)

my wifes buell blast is reasonably easy to maintain as well, the air filter is easily accessed with no tools, the oil filter is out in the open and easy to get to, the battery is under the seat but the seat comes off in 5 seconds with no tools. Only pains on this bike, draining the oil through the oil lines (no drain plug on HD products), adjusting the drive belt tension, adjusting the primary chain tension (chain driven primary gotta love HD LOL), changing the spark plug requires removing the tank.

Dont even want to think about the cost of replacing the drive belt, the belt itself costs several times what a chain costs and you also have to replace the sprockets as well which are ridiculously expensive, chain drive sprockets are much cheaper

The Vstar is pretty easy to work on. One thing that truly annoys is that you've got to remove the front pipe to change the oil filter. Word is that they changed this for 2006; though not sure.

[ Word is that they changed this for 2006; though not sure.[/quote]

They did not change this for 06. Has anyone had excessive pipe bluing on the 06's front head pipe. The 06 seems to blue more than the rest of the models. I've seen six customers in the past three weeks. Four complained. Called Yamaha and they blame the customer for leaving the choke on too long. Which is what I thought, but six in three weeks. Everybody can't be doing that! Yamaha has been replacing the pipes for the customers, though