|
Post by rockynv on Jul 10, 2017 4:00:58 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jul 9, 2017 16:03:21 GMT -5
Yea but you get used to it after a while. You picked the worst time of year to move back BTW. You come back just at the tail end of the dog days of summer so its cooling off for the fall over here. After the mild fall and winter its easier to face the coming spring and summer unless you sub-arctic your house. Remember that 78 to 80 is the full time residents set for their AC not 72 or you'll never acclimate. Check out Lakeridge Winery too. They regularly have outdoor concerts on the weekends and free wine samplings with the vineyard tour. www.lakeridgewinery.com/Events/summer-music-series/When I camp in Clermont I sometimes take a ride over to St Augustine. While there a stop at the Old Spanish Bakery for some Spanish Empanada is a must. They only take cash as they are a low tech operation. You may enjoy passage on the schooner Freedom while your there. www.schoonerfreedom.com/
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jul 8, 2017 7:06:04 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jul 8, 2017 6:56:23 GMT -5
From a dealer in excellent condition with a warranty the KBB value in Charlotte for a 2006 Aprilia Scarabeo 500 ABS is $2,615 while the Trade In value is $1,765 so on a private sale with no warranty or dealer service the max would be around $2,000. www.kbb.com/motorcycles/aprilia/scarabeo-500-abs/2006/?pricetype=retailYou may find someone willing to pay almost double what its worth but...
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jul 8, 2017 6:41:14 GMT -5
Probably forgot to plug the wiring harness back into the rear bodywork when they put it back on the bike.
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jul 3, 2017 6:40:11 GMT -5
Ill prolly just replace it seeing as that button is...9 years old lol... my dad took good care of this scooter Stuck starter buttons happen to the best of them. Just keep up the maintenance and use the recommended motorcycle lubes and you should be riding for years to come. Af1 Racing is the best on-line source for parts if you do not have a local dealer available.
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jul 1, 2017 19:44:58 GMT -5
I played around with the same issues and bottom line is the 250 will usually cost less than trying to upgrade the 150 to sometimes hit 70. A water cooled 250 in reasonable working condition will give you a more solid 70 MPH and most often at a higher MPG than a 150 can. The MPG sweet spot on a 150 is at about 35 MPH while on a 250 that MPG sweet spot can be as high as 65 MPH so even if most of your riding is at 50 MPH the 250 will often be much more economical to run than the 150 plus the 250 will usually be more reliable. If your 150 has small tires or a drum brake in the rear that would be another strike against it.
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jun 25, 2017 23:05:38 GMT -5
Based on Consumer Reports who's rep fell considerably 20 years ago. I cancelled my subscription when I found too many of their ratings to be too far off from reality. Some of the most reliable vehicles I have ever owned got a bad rating for reliability from Consumer Reports.
Note that the data being used in this report is only current to 2014 so three years old already.
Each model you consider regardless of the maker has to be considered on its own merits. Yamaha may have come in #1 however consider that on some of the Star models you have to spend hundreds of dollars at each oil change to have the exhaust system removed and replaced in order to change the oil filter making a $25 oil change at the dealer potentially into a $500 one. Oddly they do not mention the starter ring gear issue on some of the V-Star Yamaha's either. Maybe they don't consider the starter not engaging correctly to the ring gear and chewing it to pieces until it fails a reliability issue. Buying a bike based solely on this excerpt from a 2015 Consumers Report may not get you a reliable bike with low cost of ownership.
The brands mentioned at the top do make some stellar bikes however so do some of the brands near to the bottom of their list. You gotta look before you leap.
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jun 25, 2017 22:27:31 GMT -5
Toyota was using extremely long wearing Yokahama tires for a while and while they could give you close to 100,000 miles of wear you would have trouble on damp roadways. My father took one look at them when my mother surprised him was a set on the family car and told her she should take them back as they were not safe and would be too slippery on even a damp road. The next morning she went out when it was damp out and had a sliding accident when the tires lost grip on the morning dew damp roadway almost totaling the car. She learned not to argue with an MIT trained engineer who worked for almost 50 years in the rubber industry and made sure he was there when selecting the replacement tires after they got the car out of the body shop. Actually the car went straight back to the tire shop from the body shop.
Tires get hard and slippery when they age and after they are 5 years old for car tires and 3 years old on motorcycle tires you are taking your chances. The guy I rode with that had the Boulevard 850 that kept sliding off the road at low speed had long wearing touring tires that were a bargain being new old stock and already over 3 years old when he put them on the bike. A reputable tire shop would have refused to mount them as they were unsafe. My Dad's explanation was that with all the deforestation there is not enough virgin high quality natural rubber available today so more and more synthetic blends are being used to make up for the lack with some makers using too hard a blend to cut costs/increase profits which is more common on the oriental brands.
A reputable tire shop sends their own tires that are 5 years or older out to be shredded and won't sell them. They will take the loss rather than endanger a customer. A small repair shop that did not really know tires may have installed a set that was past their useful life however if they had sold Kat a tire that was already 5 or more years old then they are responsible for the loss of the car. Count your blessings you did not have a tread separation on the highway and the all too usual roll over. A tire shop should also do at least a basic check for alignment before installing a new set of tires and if there are problems refuse to put the new tires on until the problems are corrected or if the customer insists that they be installed anyway then note the mechanical issues present on the car on the tire warranty paperwork and invoice along with the recommendation that repairs be made immediately.
Some may bring up the Michelin 10 year warranty however if you read the fine print you will find that one has to, starting at the fifth year, pay a Michelin trained tech to dismount inspect and remount the tires every year until the warranty ends to certify that they are still safe. Don't keep the inspection certificates or skip an inspection then all bets are off at 5 years.
My dad did design roadway tire rubber formulations for use by the Defense Departments/Military's of the world which had much more than a 5 year shelf life however those tires were extremely expensive and not practical for civilian use especially since their speed rating was most often just 45 mph. Farm/Heavy Equipment tires are totally different since most are low speed off road tires that will rarely see over 10/15 mph with a good many being solid or liquid filled.
Bottom line with the speeds involved and current understanding of safety issues regarding tires today (we cant live in the past) car/light truck tires are good for 5 years and motorcycle tires for 3 years. The average car driver puts on 15,000 miles per year so the average 50,000 mile car tire will be worn out in less than 5 years. The average biker puts on somewhere in the range of 3,000/4,000 miles a year so the more common 8,000 mile cruiser tire will be worn out in under 3 years. This matching the wear to the years of safe usage has greatly reduced the number of folks riding on old unsafe tires and the related accidents from that since the tires will usually wear our before age issues arise, that is aside from those sold by what one may consider criminals who take tires new tires that are past their date certs and were destined for the recycling center and funnel them back into the supply chain through used tire centers and internet/ebay discounters.
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jun 18, 2017 22:51:12 GMT -5
That's $30 plus shipping. I used a Vee Rubber on the Fashion. Never again. It toasted at 2,300 to the cord. The $35 Shinko on there now is at 3,000 with little sign of wear. With the $40 front tire, also a Shinko, I'm into $75 for the pair. A far cry from $40 a set and that's the cheapest I could go. The first rule of economics Rocky. There's no such thing as a free lunch or a $40 set of scooter tires. I gotta agree re: inexpensive tires. My experience on an old car was similar--I got a set of Tiger Paws balanced and installed and everything for $100. They had such cruddy traction that just making regular right turns would cause squeal and slide no matter how reasonably slow I went. I would have to creep the turns to avoid any slippage. Lost the car when I stomped on the brakes and caused a skid which the tires never came out of despite my immediately releasing the brake and then pumping instead. Cheap can truly mean cheap. And with something as important as tires, I shall never cheap out again. Car or scoot. My life is worth more than the savings. >'Kat That (the squealing) speaks to a car horribly out of alignment and with more problems than just cheap tires on it. Its even possible the tire dealer was a shady one and sold you old out of date tires that were cheap because he picked them up from a lot sent to be recycled. The tire dealer I use in my area will not put tires on you car or truck if they are 5 years old since that would loose him his franchise to do business. He has to physically damage them beyond repair before sending them out to be recycled so scavenger dealers won't try to sell them as new safe tires. I had Tiger Paws as OEM on a mini van and though they were not the best they were respectable tires with decent grip/handling even through some pretty severe Northern New England Nor-Easters. When Bridgestone took over they really ruined the brands under the Firestone umbrella with their Bean Counter mentality. I knew some of the old time engineers who worked at Firestone/Uniroyal back then and there was a lot of cost cutting and such from the overseas management. They were basically trying to run the equipment from WWII era tire plants at the same speeds as the newer plants without upgrading the equipment and the old stuff while not worn out could not maintain the required temperatures at the speeds Bridgestone management wanted to run the production lines at.
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jun 18, 2017 22:29:51 GMT -5
That's $30 plus shipping. I used a Vee Rubber on the Fashion. Never again. It toasted at 2,300 to the cord. The $35 Shinko on there now is at 3,000 with little sign of wear. With the $40 front tire, also a Shinko, I'm into $75 for the pair. A far cry from $40 a set and that's the cheapest I could go. The first rule of economics Rocky. There's no such thing as a free lunch or a $40 set of scooter tires. I had a $40 set of Kenda on my Lance and at 8,000+ miles they were still going strong but ready for a change due to being over 2 years old. Not the best high-line brand tire but decent. The Vee come in all rubber formulations with some having a soft rubber for better braking and cornering however one would expect only around 2,000 to 3,000 miles from the soft rubber models. I would not recommend the soft rubber grippy tires for use where its hot or on very course roads. The harder plastic formulation like many of the Shinko have would be better suited for the hotter climates or on course roads especially in more suburban or rural areas where there are more chip roads than bituminous concrete paved roads just watch out on smooth roads if their damp or its raining. You have to understand what the characteristics of the tire your considering are before you make the purchase. I ultimate performance then they usually won't last very long. Long wearing and then there will be compromises in grip in cold or wet weather. The Micheling Pilot Pure Power are dual compound to try and give both long wear and good cornering in all temps however they would not be considered a economical tire by many.
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jun 17, 2017 8:40:15 GMT -5
A lot of time the bulge in the rear body is just air space to allow cooling air an easier path to flow through and heat out. It can also provide a bit more lift if you drop it on its side so the handle bars won't take as big a hit. Can keep you and your passengers legs farther away from exhaust components too. All depends on the bike.
Yes too radical and it can make a bike extremely difficult to sell.
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jun 17, 2017 8:33:51 GMT -5
At Parts for Scooters I am seeing the 2.50-10 for $15.99, 3.00-10 for $23.99 and 3.50-10 at $29.99 for the Vee Rubber tires which during their tire sales go down so most are less than $20 with the 3.50-10 just about $20. Vee Rubber makes a decent tire for the budget conscious however even at their regular prices your still talking about skipping a few extra large pizza's to make up the cost.
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jun 17, 2017 8:03:39 GMT -5
Verbiage is implying he has more than one "2010 Harley Davidson 833 Sportster Motorcycles for sale". It is the Baby Harley or as the politically incorrect would call the Girls Harley and not what many would consider a Real one. The closest they sell today, the Iron 883, is less than $9,000 new off the showroom floor. Their 500cc and 750cc bikes new are less than a Burgman or Silverwing. 500cc Harley Street 500cc Cafe' Racer:
|
|
|
Post by rockynv on Jun 12, 2017 21:12:40 GMT -5
Plug still lasting fine - still holding air - all is well... This was not a DIY plug, but done by my friendly neighborhood real tire store... Yep and hopefully they did it by the book from the inside of the tire. Here is how a proper repair is done. Anything less and you have every right to sue the shop for reckless endangerment with every expectation of receiving compensation. A shop caught doing anything less can stand a very good chance of loosing their business license and even if they don't loose their license to do business can loose their franchise to sell the major brands or have their liability insurance drop them. No major tire manufacturer wants to chance a bad shop tarnishing their reputation by doing slipshod repairs. Anyways here is the correct info on properly doing a long term repair on a tire however for added safety some repair systems now include a synthetic rubber coating to seal over the patch and buffed area to replace the synthetic rubber layer that was removed during the buffing process. As time passes and tire tech continues to evolve along with rubber formulations patching methods and chemicals will also have to evolve and become more stringent. What was allowable even 10 years ago is no longer good enough today. I will give kudos to the Sam's Clubs in my area as any time I have seen them do a puncture repair its always been by the book and as shown in the video. In any of the situations shown as unreparable they replace the tire most times for free under their road hazard warranty. The cord unraveling inside the tire after a puncture is not hype either and can happen regardless of the cord type though steel belted are more prone to it. I have seen some come in where they were like a woolly sheep inside even though from the outside they looked just fine.
|
|