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Beer van Huet
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« on: October 24, 2009, 05:58:32 AM » |
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Policy makers at Honda have decided some time ago, to stop producing OEM parts after 10 years of production termination of their motorcycles. If I am correct, this will happen sometime in 2013. From there on, only in-stock supplies will be sold. Since the Valkyrie is produced in relatively small numbers, compared to other succesful models, you can expect some parts to dry up pretty soon after that. Honda already stopped producing a list of parts for the Valkyrie as we speak. As a Valk fanatic, who wants to ride this bike in an original state forever, it crossed my mind that we, as VRCC could start to investigate the OEM spare part business. Although no action is required yet, it would be nice to know the lifetime cycle and MTBF (mean rime between failure) of certain spare parts. I am thinking about crankshaft bearings, (oversized) pistons and rings, gaskets and the like. Although the Valk has a very reliable reputation, surely all these items start falling apart sooner or later. If the club could produce some of these figures, based on the members experience, that would be nice to keep in the back of your mind.
If this idea is supported by the staff, I propose to start a poll for everyone to participate and have some nice realtime figures.
Question: Is there anybody knowledgable on this matter and able to produce some facts and figures? If not, is there anybody who experienced a component failure of some kind, that fits in this discussion? We all know about the wheel bearings and such, but if you have had to replace them, they could be involved as well.
As for myself, my bike has not let me down since I bought it new in 1999, apart for some wear-and-tear items like vacuum tubing and air prefilter, the one that sits in the cover and not sold seperately.
TIA,
Beer#7609
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