[wiesshund]

Hey all
I bought a brand new VStar XVS650A Classic in Black as my first bike in 2007 - Learner Legal here in Australia. I loved riding that thing - commuted to work in Sydney for years. I had to sell it around 2011 and I've been bike-less for the last few years. Now my son recently bought himself a Yamaha XSR700 so of course I've had to go by myself an Vstar XVS1100A Classic in Candy Apple Red so I can go riding with him. I did a ton of research and looked at all bikes, but focussing on the HD Fat Boy and Triumphs, but kept coming back to the VStar Classic for it's value for money, looks, comfort, familiarity and reliability. Cannot wait to get back on the road when I pick it up in a couple of weeks. Stay safe

Must be what? a 2008?
If it is the candy Apple Red?

 

[wiesshund]

Well I've bought it remotely so it might be a different red. Only going off photos. Definitely a MY2009 from the paperwork though.

Does it have the ghost flames?

They only had those for like 1 year

Candy Apple Red, Candy Apple Blue, and Midnight.

I cannot remember if the flames were custom only or custom and classic.
May have been custom only.

Was around short enough that people keep insisting that mine is a custom repaint.
People with Star bikes.

 

[wiesshund]

.. Want it. Dead or alive


That's awesome. The 950 is a gas hog. I almost ran out of gas the other day. It should have a fuel gauge. Not a stupid Reserve light. Shame on Yamaha

Eh most motorcycles do not have fuel gauges.
Except the big road bikes.

We kind of have not needed them for the last 100+ years

950 should get around 50mpg average? higher or lower depending on the rider.

That's why their logo is tuning forks.
View attachment 138742

LOL
That isnt why, but it's funny

 

[wiesshund]

Yeah, that logo is a strange logo. Never understood it actually

The logo?
Nah it makes perfect sense.

Who is Yamaha really?
What is Yamaha's main product?

Hint, it does not have wheels or an engine.

 

[wiesshund]

Wow. 287,000 mi! No wonder every single boat out here in Miami Florida has Yamaha outboard engines.

Question for you, mine is 13,000 mi. (third owner) Is there anything maintenance wise that I should do at this point or is the owner's manual being exaggerative. Also, at which mileage Point did you have to rebuild the engine? Inquiring minds want to know😁

Mind you that is not on the factory set of rings.
I've put new rings in, rolled new bearings in (white metal doesn't last forever), replaced the plastic chain guides cause they do wear.
did a valve job, mostly because i wanted to play with the machine.
Bike never shut down and said i aint going unless you overhaul me or anything, mostly a simple matter of
Ok we got XX miles on it, and it is an air cooled motorcycle, gonna pull it down and do these things just because.
No hard parts though.
The ceramic coating yamaha does the jugs with just doesnt seem to wear, least wise under the minor stress of a 650
Like you literally just scrub it with Dawn and a mild scotchbrite (Mild, not the aggressive kind that will polish cast iron) and it's like there, jugs reconditioned.

Some of the bikes parts are sacrificial
rings are sacrificial objects, they give themselves up to keep sealing
White metal bearings are sacrificial, they take the brunt of the wear
There is a lifespan for them and a point where it is best to replace them if you want to just keep running a thing eternally
But unlike other engines, there wasn't any documented time span for when these things should come to pass, so i just adopted what i would do if it was an antique british car
and then made a guesstimate adjustment for modern materials and manufacturing.

Outside of certain bikes, no one ever keeps one long enough or gets enough miles on it to document.
If you want to know how often to do a preventative tear down on an MG, or air cooled VW, or Rolls Royce or Triumph TR6 etc, you can go look it up and find out at XX miles
tear it down and roll in new bearings and rings, de-coke the heads and lap the valves etc to avoid having to do a major overhaul entailing boring honing and turning
(At least until much later, eventually everything needs bored hone turned and recut.)

The bike has basically been my only mode of transportation since 2008, and I HATE getting new vehicles, so it was always my intention that the thing live a stupidly long time.

As far as Maintenance at 13k?
To be 100% honest, I would make the assumption that the previous owner didn't do squat, and i would take the maintenance intervals in the manual
and make a list of all things from every interval, without repeating them of course, and I would go over everything.
If you check something and find it is OK or it has been done you are out nothing but time.
If you assume the other person told the truth and they did not, or their shop was shoddy, then you are out $$$
I make it a rule to never ever trust what i am told regarding previous maintenance, if i did not see it, it did not happen.

Which bike did you have? I forget.

On the 1300
The 950 and the 1300 were to be the replacements for the 1100 and the 650
Unfortunately by the time they came out, the 1100 sales were already down, I think the market was beginning to go soft or shift.
The 1100 did cease to be, but the 1300 sales just didn't pick up.
It also did not help that with the loss of the 1100, the price point was gone.

The 1100 was often under $8,000 towards the end.
The 1300 was over $10,000 and upwards of $14,000 depending on what package you got.
That is kind of an entirely different group of buyers

The 650 was $6000 and for reasons I am not 100% sure of, it never made it's intended cease of production, it kept running beside the 950 until they shut the whole thing down
V Star went byebye almost entirely. (V Star 250 is still around but it is literally a virago 250, virtually unchanged since the day it was 1st released)
Cruiser market was just dead by then.
I speculate that they simply could not in a financially justifiable manner, kill the 650.
It kind of dominated that price range and it had no trouble selling, the 950 could not touch the price range of the bike it was intended to replace and people still wanted a bike in that price range.
Remember the 650 was sold in virtually every market on the planet, including a lot of very poor countries with very poor fuel supplies, no maintenance facilities as well as countries that have absolute hard limits on allowable motorcycle displacement.
The 950 could not even enter some of these markets and was fuel injected and more complex to boot.
So i would imagine that would not make any kind of sense to give up until the market died?
I don't know, for sure but seems a good guess.

Anyways back to the 1300
It replaced a sub $10,000 bike but was in excess of $10,000
So it kind of misses its target audience.

The 950 slid into the 1100's slot price wise, not so good for a bike meant to replace the 650
The 950 is $8,000 for the base model, but 950 does not ring the bells of the people who want a 1200.
They want a 1200 evo sporty/softail but they dont wanna pay harley pricing, but they are willing to pay 8k
Now there is no bike for them.
The 950 is a fine bike but
it's a 950
And you know how people are over raw CC numbers.
"Oh you only have a 650? that's a shame, i have an 883"
Yea except the 883 and the 650 are pretty much comparable except in resale value.

And if a guy's willing to put out the cost of a 1300
Then why not a Roadstar? A bike with spine twisting torque at all of 2500 rpms, a bike that never sounds like it is revving and can drag a truck up the side of a wall.
The cost is about the same.

I think if they could have done better with the numbers and possibly brought out the 1300 sooner, it may have sold better.
Maybe if they could have sold it for around 9k, with a good marketing campaign and an earlier release?
Nothing is really wrong with the bike itself it just came in too high for the slot it was to take over and sadly came in as the cruiser market was about to take a slide into oblivion.

Now between you and I, what disinterested me in the 950 and 1300 (aside from I HATE buying new vehicles)
Was the styling.
The neo art deco or whatever it is, I call it Swoopy because that is the word that immediately comes to mind when I 1st saw them.
I am old, I like stuff that looks OLD.
You can hand me a car with the latest and most advanced mechanical tech on the planet
and i WONT like it, because it is going to look exactly like something envisioned in some designer's 2024 chemically induced dream.
Now if you wrapped it in a composite recreation(recreation, not modern reimagining) body of a 56 chevy belaire, or 62 nova, or 70 challenger etc, Ok we'll talk.
I dont like Swoopy LOL

The engines i was fine with, i liked the belt drive, i like the idea of spokeless alloy wheels.
I didn't like the visuals.
If they threw the 650 and 1100 custom tinwork on the 950 and 1300, then we might talk, at least on the 950, 1300 still costs too much.