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I'm hoping to take the saftey course this year and purchase my first bike. I really like cruisers and have been looking at VSTARs and Shadows. Can anyone explain why Honda, Kawasaki and Suzuki went to water cooled for their bikes while Yamaha remained air cooled? When I look at a water cooled bike, I just think of one more thing to go wrong...ie radiator leak while out on the open road. This might seem silly to some, but I'm curious of other peoples opinions.

NormH3 wrote:............................................I just think of one more thing to go wrong...ie radiator leak while out on the open road. This might seem silly to some, but I'm curious of other peoples opinions.

Doesn't seem silly to me I've put all of my 400k miles on six air cooled bikes.

Hi Norm, and welcome to the forum. I've owned both air and water cooled bikes. Each have their advantages and disadvantages.

Welcome to the forums Norm, and I'm glad to see another cruiser rider joining the ranks. (-:

While I don't pretend to know what motivates or directs the design team at Yamaha, my gut feeling is simply this -- where they want to compete with Harley-d, they build them like Harley-d builds them. Maybe that's unfair -- you could just as easily say that the cruiser line is where style matters most (read: directly translates into market share), and because of that they eschew the radiator and it's attendant hoses, pipes, and clamps simply because they're unlovely. Rest assured in this statement, though -- it's almost certainly the marketing department that keeps radiators off their cruisers, rather than the engineering department.

Clearly, Yamaha's engineers know the value of liquid cooling. You'll notice that the air-cooling stops with their traditional cruisers -- the VMAX, their entire line of sport and sport touring bikes, the Super Tenere and even their top of the line dual-sport, the WR250R, all sport liquid cooled powerplants. You don't find another air-cooled bike until you get to the XT250 and the TW200. Even their ATV line, from the Raptors and Grizzlies to the YZs, wear radiators, and it's in those areans I would expect to find air cooled machines because radiators are easy prey for trail debris. But no -- only in their cruiser segment does Yamaha rely on air cooling.

That's my opinion, for what it's worth.

Liquid cooling has the disadvantage of possibly breaking down but...

Air cooling can overheat in traffic, produces less power per CC, and is inherently louder.

I love the way air cooled engines look.

HYPERR wrote:I love the way air cooled engines look.

And that's why they make them folks, for old guys in places where it never gets warm enough to worry about overheating

The radiator issues I've had were few and far between.

• 1.) Radiator cap needed to be replaced on my 1982 Yamaha XZ550 in 2006 because it didn't provide the right amount of resistance. $20 fix and only effected it when she was sitting still on a hot day.

• 2.) Needed to replace a radiator after sliding for a few hundred feet then tumbling due to having my rear tire clipped on turn in at VIR

I once had to pull off the highway to wait for my ex-boyfriend's Harley to cool off after overheating during rush hour on I-64 in Hampton Roads. My liquid cooled Honda never gave me that problem. The cooling system has behaved itself remarkably well over the last 9 years and 75k miles.

Appreciate the insight. For whatever reason, i like the look without the radiator.

I now own a water cooled bike but I will always love air heads