China bikes THAT much worse?
 

Hey all,
As I comb through the ads here locally in Cusco, Peru, I can't help but be tempted by some of the Roncos or Ssendas. I know they're inferior parts, but how bad? I'll talk to the locals and they say they're good, yet I hear mixed things from westerners.
I'm not looking to drive around the entire continent, just little 2-3 day adventures here and there-mostly just use it for getting around here though.
Anyone with experience, let me know!

I should also add that I'm used to doing all of my own maintenance, so I don't mind a bike that takes a little extra love

"Good" is relative, as with all things. :) We get lots of reports on the Chinese bikes in SA, and generally they're reasonably favourable. Assuming you understand they are NOT Japanese bikes with their level of reliability, and plan to work on them a bit, fiddle as needed, and if it breaks remember what you paid for it - and then they're fine.

If you expect to beat it to death AND have real reliability, you will be sorely disappointed, but it doesn't sound like you do, so I suspect you'll be happy.

I am not familiar with the models you mention but my experience of Chinese made bikes is that they range from the truely appalling through to perfectly good, my XR125 Honda is made in China and is the usualy high Honda quality so they can do it. If I was in South America I would look for a Brazilian made Honda but I presume they are more expensive.

Assuming you can get the spare parts? five years from now those manufactures would have closed shop & moved on.

I would recommend buying a used Japanese bike, it will outlast ANY Chinese rubbish you will find.

Mezo.

The thing is, I can only find Japanese bikes that have 50k+ KMs around here... so I kind of feel like they will both die at the same time.

Spare parts for Chinese bikes are found at basically every corner... vs genuine japanese bike parts where you have to go to a big city to score

Chinese bikes in SA
 

Agree with what has been said above.

But dont forget the Chinese bikes that are sold here in SA are not designed well, if designed at all ..... so this makes the handling of the bike, especially off road, really bad.

I would suggest, as Mark said, a Japanese brand made in Brazil. Yes they are a lot more expensive, but compare to a Chinese bike worth every dollar. And a Honda will keep its value, while a new Chinese bike has no more value after five or six years.

Just my 2 cents from Bolivia

mika
:mchappy:

When I lived in Mexico I owned a bike called a Loncin Cyclone. It was essentially a Chinese-made knock-off of an XR200 with sportbike bodywork bolted on top. Because the local shops offered service and support, I was not reluctant to ride this bike, and I enjoyed riding for about a year before I sold it to move back to Canada. It was very reliable and was my daily driver while there.

So how good are service and support for this bike? If you drive a couple of hundred miles across the country and have a major mechanical issue, will you be able to find a shop that will repair it? What do locals say about that particular bike? Is it a popular model with local riders?

I own the old Yamaha Tenere (1988) it still rides like new, i have rebuilt another one & its still going around outback Australia like a new bike, you can buy a Brazilian Tenere which are just as good as the Japanese bike as Japan sold all the tooling to the Brazilians & they continued building them, they are bullet proof bikes.

I also own a Chinese scooter,,,its crap.

Mezo,

I bought a Ronco Demolition 250 brand new in Cusco and rode it all around every country in South America, clocking up over 80,000kms, over 8 years. I had my fair share of problems, but so do many other non-Chinese brands. You get an incredible amount of bike and fun for the money in these Chinese bikes, but you do have do due maintenance and keep an eye on them. I once replaced an entire Ronco 250 engine with a new one for only $650 including labour, and I know I was overcharged! I would imagine their quality and reliability have improved in the years since I bought mine. I would say for your kind of short-hop use a Ronco or Senda (both use the Shineray engine) they would be very cost-effective. video here shows why I chose a Ronco - good bit starts at the 58 minute mark https://youtu.be/Gdd38WU0CBw?t=3486

I have a Peruvian plated Cross Triton that lives in the Andes. I go down about once a year to take a rip around the mountains. Once on a trip, I had to have the rear brake adjusted. Finding a mechanic was no problem and the price was very reasonable. Why? Because that is what the locals ride.

From what I hear, Chinese bikes were really bad but have gotten better. My little 250cc Chinese bike has done well by me. That said, I would have a skilled mechanic go over any bike purchased second-hand. Before turning your bike over to a mechanic, check out the shop. I have seen a crazy disorganized shop in Bolivia. Piles of nuts, bolts, and miscellaneous parts pretty much swept into piles on the floor. If you want a recommendation, private message me.

Ignore the country of manufacture.

Look at the price.

If you can buy a BRAND new motorcycle for £3000-£4000 what do you think it is made of. Where in that cost can they squeeze in quality, testing and reliability ?

They are assembled from the cheapest parts available. Which have also been made from the cheapest parts available from the lowest grade materials.

You just CAN NOT buy quality at a budget.

You look at a Chinese motorcycle the same way you look at anything which is half the price of something decent. It's throw away. It may look good and appear that it works well when it's new out of the box. Then it breaks. And it's hard or impossible to fix. You will have no support, no manuals, no spares that fit.

I work in bike shops. I deal with a lot of these Chinese, Korean and Indian bikes. It's an incredibly rare event that you see one over five years old which is running well or even running at all.

Even when just a few months old they have problems. The engines are probably the best part about them because they're direct copies of older Japanese engines like the GN125 or CG125s etc. Then they're wrapped up in cheap and nasty parts which randomly and often fail. Such as the ignition switches, fuel pumps, starter motors, throttle sensors etc. All these things maybe very cheap to replace but first they need diagnosing and sourcing. Which is a nightmare even when you're in a UK Main dealer. Let alone a small village in Peru etc.

A well built Japanese motorcycle from twenty years ago will still outlast and out perform a brand new third world bike. And cost less.

I've got quite a few friends who jumped on the R.E Himalayan band wagon. Their bikes are 2-3 years old, well maintained and they look like they were dragged out of a canal already and they break down all the time with stupid little things.

When it comes to chinese bikes and stuff I totally agree with what Ted writes above here. 99 % of these is pure junk. A very few exeptions can be found though.
Indian bikes are much better though, not in the leauge of japanese bikes but waaay better than chinese stuff. In India they have used and made and manufactured bikes for a long time and that clearly shows even though they are made cheap so that they are affordable to the masses. Royal Enfields, Pulsars, Hero etc are much better bikes than chinese stuff.

And its not only about what parts costs, its about labour cost amongst other factors too. Most japanese and quite many european bikes are assembled in Thailand nowadays after all….

The very worst bike I have ever owned was a japanese brand, assembled in Spain btw…

I agree Indian bikes are better than Chinese, generally.

Taiwanese brand Kymco isn't too bad now either. Their current models are better than most of the other budget bikes around.

500,000 km on a Chinese motorbike (or bikes)
 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-57815491

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsudJ23WBGY

True story of a Chinese man who is reported to have travelled 500,000km, on 10 motorcycles looking for his kidnapped son. Bearing in mind all the questions it is still a great outcome for the man and his son as it is reported from multiple sources that they have been re-united.

India
 

OK, the topic was Chineese bikes.
China put someparts together and and a name.
No tradition or knowledge

I also agree regarding Indian bikes.
They have large companies that have been producing bikes for along time.

Very interesting for travelling somwhere (South America), buy one to use and sell when return. They are good enough for that. Both TVS and Enfield
At very low cost.

TVS is one example (even producing the BMW 310 and...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TVS_Motor_Company

Kirk Wilson went to Colombia.
He bought an TVS apache and used it for a 20 000 miles trip.
And used it hard.
I took him all the way. To a very look cost.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....4,203,200_.jpg

I swapped my Chinese scooter for a Kymco after doing my homework, Honda designed their engines & riding it (and spannering it) you would think it is indeed a Japanese bike.

Have a Greek mate who`s old man runs a scooter shop & he`s tried the lot, Jap, Chinese, Euro scoots & bang for buck they say the Kymco wins all day long & Kymco is now their entire fleet of rental scooters now.

And carton of Stella fits in the OEM rack just perfect. :D

https://i.postimg.cc/T2cCpBBT/153973...08957141-o.jpg

Mezo.

Sounds a bit uninformed to me if you state that a country which is building motorcycles since since 1951 and which has got around 200 motorcycles companies who produced in 2020 in pandemic times 17Mio (19/2019) motorcycles, has no tradition and knownledge.

An export volume of 5.252 million units with a value of 3.142 billion USD isn`t nothing compared to the total sales of 673800 japanese motorcycles units in 2020?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...omestic-brand/

Chinese motorcycles manufactures targets markets with low cc and high license numbers where japanese manufactures aren`t competitive due to models, pricing and ignorance:
China: 23 Mio
India: 20 Mio
Indonesia: 8 Mio
Vietnam: 3 Mio
Thailand: 2 Mio

Yes, chinese motorcycles aren`t made by best of of quailty and contemporary technic. But don`t tell me that there is a big difference in both compared to indian motorcycles like Royal Endfield. R.E. is building the same shit as ever with little updates in technic or quality.
How long ago since a lot of people didn`t even recognized or thought about R.E. because of their unreliability through antiquated technic and design which only got hip in the past years?

Fact is that chinese motorcycles are offered by a low price in adequate technic to markets that got irgnored by "the manufactures" for years. There is nothing wrong about this because you cannot compare chinese bikes with the standard of tripple high priced japanese bikes. Chinese bikes offer value for money including all hazzles you buy if don`t have an income to afford quality and tech standard of western industrial country markets.

If you are real adventurer, choose a chinese bike and paper maps for your tour - with this you buy the garantee to follow the roots of motorcycle travellers of the 1950/60s. And if you will be long enough on the road, you will definitely sometimes meet another traveller with a modern, better in quality and bigger than 400cc chinese motorcycle. R.E. is a nice blueprint how to enter western quality orientated markets with a low price, refreshed low tech bike vested with a retro looking of the good old times!

We shouldn`t state that all chinese is only poor crap, we should better be aware that chinese manufactures are sitting on a high potential to kill and change established "good qualty motorcycle companies" in the coming years. The KTM/CF Moto cooperation is a good example were the fruits of future are hanging...

Selling price is unrelated to cost.

The established brands have higher costs but not because of testing (this isn't 1930) or some difference in material spec (Chinese engineers use the same databases). Running a GP team and paying pensions to people who retired 40 years ago hurts more. The difference is small. Margins at anything from zero on new vehicles to 5000% on parts are way more significant. None of this tells you anything about a product.

Would you buy a £20000 Wun-Hung-Lo GC125 on the basis is costs more than a Honda so must be better? Why would the same bike in the USA be 30% less? Margin and market or maybe they only sell the Yanks the Friday afternoon bikes?

The difference in quality is down to culture and systems. Japanese manufacturing culture works just as well in Sunderland or Thailand. This is what drives the production worker to tell his supervisor about dodgy bits and the CEO to congratulate both. The Chinese manager berates anyone who needs his help to hide the mistakes, just like the places that made **** coloured Austin Allaggro's in tge 1970's.

Andy

As being in a sales position and selling my product into 23 country markets the wholesale price difference of my product is up to 500% for this.

With my last company we were sponsors of Ferrari in the F1 for over 10 years. We thought about motorcycle sponsoring in form of 2 bikes team. Cost you around 2Mio € per year for rider and satellite team if you rent it e.g. from Honda.

The japanese social insurance system is comparable to the german one. Difference is that japan had to reform the system in 1992 to reach OECD standard. Still common in japan is that companies can decide how to pay a pensioner: monthly retirement pay or a one time gratuity. 60% of the companies choice a gratuity.

China established in 1990 a completely new social insurance system consisting of old age-, health-, accident-, unemployment- and maternity insurance. For old age insurance the employer pays 20% of the wage bill and 8% is paid by the employee. Health insurance is 10% of wage bill and fully paid by the employer as well 1% for accident insurance. Umployemnt insurance is 2-3%(depending on region) paid by employer and 1% paid by employee. Official unployemnt rate in China is 4% but it´s estimated that 10-15% is more realistic.

If you compare the systems and incomes in relation to the cost of living both countries differ mainly in the power of their own economy. Means japan is loosing more and more because they are bankrupt by numbers since years.

The only thing I know about Chinese bikes is that the parts for them once they are more then a couple of years old are virtually unobtainable . Have had a number of walk in to our parts dept with blokes trying to source bits for makes that you cant even find on Google......latest one was a starter motor for some Suzuki 500 knock off.......GN single I think from way back when . I'm sure Ted will fill in the gaps .
If u r intent on owning one I would think that mechanical competency should be high on ur list........if not leave well alone

I suppose that is the silver lining.

You will learn mechanics FAST :)

china verses india
 

I have a friend here in Colombia that has been riding his 200 pulsar for 575000 km all over Colombia and has never rebuilt the eng I pointed out to him that the valve train needs a lille attention due to after firing, sloppy timing chain I suspect
The Pulsar is a well built machine China has along way to go
Chinese bikes were made to be throw away you get what you pay for

575,000 kilometers is about 345,000 miles. On a 200cc Bajaj? Surely this must be a typo...

typo
 

Nope He has done all the Maintenance and looked after this bike this is the reason it has lasted so long. if you have your cheap bike maintained in a cheap shop, the outcome is a bike maintained poorly and it will fall apart . Here in Colombia the average bike mechanic is taught how to pound square pegs into round holes with a rock. So it doesn't matter what kind of bike you have, if you take it to the average shop will turn to junk in no time
it all boils down to the correct tools and how the mechanic uses them pretty much anywhere
there are 9 million bikes here of every make and model Bjaja is huge ATk bigger