Total Motorcycle Community Forums

If a bike is properly taken care of, how long can it last until you need to get another one? Is there an approximate mileage that it is unsafe to ride past? Or is it just that most people keep newer bikes around because it's a lot cheaper to get a bike than a car?

I was told that if you take the mileage of the bike, and multiply by three, you get the approximate equivalent as if it were a car.

i.e. a bike with 50k miles would be the same as putting 150k on a car (so your engine is considered in its old age)

Dunno if that's true or not, but would seem to make sense

*edit* Actually trying to answer your question: If it's taken care of, I don't see how it would be "unsafe" until it started to develop little problems (like stalling at intersections etc)...But seeing as how that can happen to a bike with 200 miles on it, I don't think that's too good of an example lol.
I have a friend with a bike from 1978, it has about 75k miles on it (bike mileage, not following my math example), and it runs like it's brand new.

Ive heard of some of the japanese and touring bikes making it to 200k miles...not sure how valid it is. Probably depends on the bike.

I would also say it depends on teh brand of car/bike.

AMerican made cars rarely see over 150k, many start having problems around 80k. My toyota on the other hand already has 250k with no real problems whatsoever..

Engines, if properly taken care of, will last a good long time. I think with bikes it gets to a point where fixing things is less cost effective than simply buying a new bike. This is why I (and many others ont his forum) can go into a junkyard and pull out a bike and make it roadworthy for well under $1000 - Usually all of the main engine and chassis components are fairly well off ... it's just the little things that need looking after.

Your Question makes it clear that proper maintenance is involved. If you maintain the bike properly and look after the little things that go bad over time (like fork oil/gaskets, steering head bearings and races, wheel bearings, etc) you could ride a bike for hundreds of thousands of miles.

Old airhead BMW's will go tens (sometimes over a hundred) of thousands of miles before major work is necessary, so I will say that engine layout, design and purpose also play in. An air-cooled BMW has its cylinders out in the breeze and even on the hottest of days will recieve even cooling and remains relatively unstressed - so it goes to reason that it will last longer than a modern 600cc Inline four sportbike which although it recieves even cooling via water, it also remains in a constant state of stress if worked in the manner it was designed to work.

If you take care of it , it will last forever , as far as I am concerned . I had a 1966 Triumph that I rode for over 10 years . It was the only transportation we had . Couldn't tell you how many miles since I did not have a speedo on that particular chopper .
Regards, Wizzard

I have sold two bikes that I put over 70k miles on (each) and neither had any major mechanical problems. The main problems were little annoying and time consuming things like troubleshooting problems with old wiring and trying to find all of the parts for carb rebuilds.

If you do your own wrenching, the high mileage bike will remain economically feasable for a lot longer. If you have to pay someone else to maintain it, there will come a point where it's cheaper to junk it than to fix it.

btw , that old Triumph is still running today and I sold it in 1989.
Ya got to take care of dem ole' girls ...........
Regards, Wizzard

I have a GL1100 with 185,000 and have met a guy with 400,000+ on a 1990.

i fully expect ot get at least 100,000 miles out of each of my bikes. I hope they still make the Rebel when it's time for a new one.