What are your thoughts on Suzuki and Kawasaki?

I've been looking at adding a new ride to the fleet. I'm looking for a sport bike/sport tourer.

There aren't too many hondas or yammies in my price range, but there are a few kawis and suzukies. Anyone have any pros or cons to these brands?

There is a fazer in my range... but i was looking for something a bit more modern... thoughts anyone?

 

To be honest the differences between the SJM's are fairly negligible, but of course everyone has their favorites and opinions so...

Used to think Honda was the best, and admittedly they have often been inventive through the years and tried tech others were afraid of, produce some cosmetic beauts, but they also built expensive to repair bikes and sometimes laid eggs.

Kawasaki has been really good several times at developing more HP and squeezing more out of less with their designs. But IMO their quality is often lacking at least in their early days. Their chrome seems to rust sooner and many small parts fail often. Still I would own one but be a smart buyer.

Suzuki...well reliable but cheap comes to mind. The Hayabusa is impressive if somewhat overhyped, so clearly they have upped their game in recent times.

This is not just because I own one, but after riding, owning, or wrenching on all 4 I now put Yamaha at the top. But this is no runaway victory. There are going to be good classics for sale out in all 4, so it's a matter of being an informed discerning buyer and a little luck or providence.

 

Kawasakis are solidly engineered; Kawasaki Heavy Industries builds ships and helicopters.

Suzuki's QC has always left me flat; if a bike has rusty springs on the showroom floor, I'm not gonna buy it.

The reason you don't see that many Kawasaki fours around any more is that they were a bit over-engineered, and most of them had their valve shims under the buckets. So they were run until they died, and junked.

You don't see many old Suzukis around because (except for the earlier 2-strokes) they were pretty much junk to begin with.

Yamaha over Honda any day; but the two of them have light years on the other guys.

 

Kawis are junk. plain and simple. crap suspension. crap motors. crap crap crap. and thats puttin it lightly, youll regret buying a COW after your first ride.

i personally think the GS line was good stuff.

 

Lol like that pic I only had one moo moo bike & the electrics were terrible, it was 2 years old & full of corrosion and used to cut out in the rain... Never again...

I too like the GS (as long as it's a G that is, CBA with chains!)

Get the Fazer if it's a gooden, newer stuff sucks! (actually, look at the Phazer too, it's only a 250 but boy do they rev!!!)

 

i have to disagree with the anti-Kawi sentiment...

this 2001 ZRX is one sweet and nimble ride for a 500lb bike. its never given me any trouble in the 4 years ive owned it...

 

Best & most reliable bike I ever owned, back in the eighties.
Suzuki GS 450.

 

You could always try one of these.
http://www.triumphmotorcycles.com/

 

I've been looking at some triumphs and ducatis too, most are a bit out of range right now though.

Is it safe to assume the modern triumphs are metric, or do you still need the Whitworth wrenches?

 

They're metric.

Top: Combination of Whitworth and really odd American thread sizes. (A vestige of WWII.) 1886 - 1983.

Bottom: The new Triumph. Completely metric like the rest of the world. 1984 - present

 

I work on all the Japanese bikes and for the most part they are fairly similar. They all use the same suppliers which means component parts are almost identical.

The biggest difference is Honda tends to use a dipstick instead of a sight glass for the oil level. Dipstick is annoying when doing an oil change.........

Shim under bucket is a PITA if you need to adjust valve lash. I just had to change a shim on a Honda 919 and needed to pull a camshaft to do it. Easier to get out/in than an XJ cam, but still takes time.

Dave's ZRX has the slickest shim set up I've seen. It's shim over bucket but has the end of a small arm between the shim and cam lobe. The arm pivots on a shaft and is held in position by a fairly light spring. To get at the shim you simply slide the arm out of the way. No tools required.

 

Yeah I was looking at the ZRX fiche and saw the small rocker-arm setup. Interesting.

 

I have to agree with the Lt. I have a 88 zx 1000 with 90k on the original mill and it still runs like a champ and fires right up after sleeping all winter, every bike is good if you take care of it, it will take care of you. I do find that the bigger bikes last longer than the small ones when it comes to sport bikes because you don't have to run them at 16000 rpm to get the power from them but thats my op, to many people run the shit out of 600cc crotch rockets and stunt them all the time so they wear out fast but thats not the bikes fault.
If your gonna buy it new then buy what you like and take care of it and it shouldn't matter.
Shaun

 

That's a good point on the taking care of bikes, perhaps it says something for the majority of Kawasaki previous owners that so many people think they're worse than the rest? Or maybe it's to do with a bikes ability to "take" P.O. abuse and not show it as much?

Whatever it is, most Honda's & Yam's I've looked at, they at least "seemed" better built than Kawi's... Not that I wouldn't like a GPz, I love the way they look with their "Darth Vader" nosecone and dark colours, just I'd want to pay less & expect to fix more on it than I would a similar other make bike :?

 

Suzuki GS range. Superb. Certainly not junk! The Bandit range is also tremendous bang for your buck! The FZ1 is of course a huge contender.

 

i was looking for a bandit 1250 when i happened upon the REX...

my buddy and his brother both have 2000s and neither of them have ever had a lick of trouble and both are pushing 45,000 miles on them....

 

+1 on the triumph had a daytona 500 best handler,laverda jotta very slick honda 360 g5 pogo stick worst bike ever rode or owned triumph 650 bonneville ....stickin with yamaha can't speak for kawa or suzuki ooh those 2-strokes

 

Well guys, after looking at a few bikes, I went with one of these

92 fzr 600 with 17,000 on the clock, new tires, V&H pipe. It seemed like a decent starter sport bike. (This one isn't mine, I'll get some pics soon)

I looked at an 05 Daytona 650 but the plastics were gone, it had an ugly custom headlight and 10,000 more miles. It also looked like the PO had done some other handy work...

I missed out on an 88 FZR 750 RU which I was pretty sad about, the owner just never got back to me, hopefully it went to a good home...

I checked out a few others, but nothing really stuck out, and this one just felt right 8) .

P.S.- If any of you know something about these bikes that you think I should know I'm all ears...

 

I remember that they were considered to be very good bikes when new. I think that the only complaint that reviewers had was the buzziness of the engine at speed when compared to the CBR 600, and the gearbox does not lend itself to a "dainty" shifting style.

 

Suzuki seemed less stressed. Kawis seemed tuned to the wall. Honda seemed to be engineered for every man. Yamaha's run and run and run.
Michael

 

The mechanic I apprentice under owns a ZRX like the one on page one of this thread, and that is *his* bike, unlike the others that come and go. Loves that bike.

Me, I read a review from when the bike came out, and it doesn't sound impressive in any respect. Boring and reliable and ok at everything. Haven't ridden one yet myself.

Something worth mentioning on the brand discussions is that old Honda CB's are really popular these days, but they honestly weren't very well engineered.

It really depends on the era you're asking about, because these companies have all transformed a great deal over the last 40 years, just as the industry itself has. The great thing is that competition has made them all better, and so today they're all pretty stellar.