A Chinese bike thread 3

fatpies · World Chat Champion Joined: 01 Mar 2011 Karma :

https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=3050314#3050314

Alluded to in this thread.

But simply if you could buy a Chinese copy of a Japanese bike for say £160 (how much they pay for them in China). Or even less once economies of scale ramp up so they are say £100?

Then would you think they would be worth a punt? £100 is pretty much beer money and therefore a disposible bike!

I mean think about it:

When it gets dirty you can take it to the scrappers and crush it.

When it gets a scratch on it? Scrap it.

When you fancy a new colour, scrap it.

When something ANYTHING looks worn out, you can take it to the scrappers and crush it. Tyres? bulbs, petrol tank has run dry etc.

In that we do exactly the same things with washing machines televisions and many consumer electronics presently? I'm currently using an obsolete 7 year old lappy with Win2K on it. Many people would have tossed it away.

Or modern motorbikes. Reading through a few of Kickstart and Stinkwheel's threads they suggest that modern bikes are pretty much disposible and are designed to be as hard to maintain as possible.

Hell my dad just sold his perfectly working 2 year old car to buy a new one cus he couldn't be arsed to take it to the MOT.

Question

____________________
"It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one"

TheSmiler · World Chat Champion Joined: 14 Apr 2011 Karma :

Depends on the bike that is worth £160 new, most bikes that are for sale now at that price would of been worth a lot more and made with more care and attention. It's only general thinking that the more you pay for something the better service you are supposed to get from it. Not always the case, but generally is.

However if the bike was strong in itself with no problems then I'd guess it be less of a worry but would only use it as a fun bike not everyday ride.

Will have to say don't know how easy cars were to maintain back in the day but have heard many people say that they used to be able fix their cars completely without worrying but now it has all changed Confused

____________________
CB125>CG125>GN125>ER5>K100RS>R1100RS>K100RS
A2 completed 23/07/15 Ready for the Golden Crisp Packet

Teflon-Mike · tl;dr Joined: 01 Jun 2010 Karma :

They may sell in China for £150, and you may, buying in bulk be able to negotiate a price down to £100 per unit ex-works... but you then have to get them into the UK, and THEN you have to do pre-delivery assembly, and UK registration.
They are selling, on e-bay, in the crate, on the docks for £799.'Duty Paid' as consumer goods, not a motor-vehicle.
You then have to add £120 to get it shipped to your door, do the pre-delivery assembly DIY, and then you have to 'self register', which is a tax dodge to avoid new vehicle taxes.
Some-one is making money on bikes at that price, mostly HM Government I suspect, and the shippers!
Take off the importers profit, which is probably in the order of £200 per unit, and you really aren't going to get the UK 'On The Road' price down to anything like the OTR price in China!

But, this is hypathetical.... what if you COULD?

Would Chinese bikes be worth it?

Well, dragging the bargain basement, you can pick up Chinese bikes people have given up on, or cant get 'sorted' in the first place, £400 for something 'useful', free for something that you can make useful if you have a bit of spanenr savy....

They already CAN prove useful, to those prepared to put in the work; and accept the lower performance, new or second hand, at the prices they fetch... just not THAT useful, and most owners eventually get frustrated by them and look at Jap bikes, when they come to throw them away, rather than getting another Chinky-Fake-Away....

Sort of answers the question, really; they are already beneath the 'acceptable quality level' for the UK market; dont matter how cheap they are, thier usefulness is limited.

Chucking a bike away becouse the brake light has packed up?

No. Think about it. Ecconomics may make it the sensible thing to do, BUT, think of the hassle; getting rid of the scrap, finding a replacement, swapping insurance...

Most ins-co's charge at least £25 for a 'change of details'.... Most Chinese bike owners report a 'fault' at least once a month.... if they got a new one every time they had a fault, they would have to have three bikes stock-piled waiting to be brought into service when the one on the road blew a fuse, to avoid being stranded, and it would cost them more in Insurance policy Amendements than it did petrol FFS!
____________________
My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

Polarbear · Super Spammer Joined: 24 Feb 2007 Karma :

Us old people who used to have old brits bikes, early japanese bikes, leyland Embarassed

and ford cars could fix them 'at the side of the road'. Theres no exageration there. They were simple & had fuck all electronics.

As an example my mate & I used to stock car race old minis. We blew it one up one day so drove to a scrappy and bought a new (used) engine, fitted it overnight and raced it the next day. A few wires and a bit of spanner work.

It was the same with bikes, even the early GL1000 goldwings had a wasted spark points system, you could change the points & condenser and set it at the side of the road. My GT500 was the first bike I had with capaciter dischage ignition, a black box that if it went wrong, cost half the price of the bike to renew. I hated having it and never trusted it.

BUT, and a huge but. Most of these bikes & cars were built to be good, even Leyland cars were built with real metal, not the cheapest crap that could be made and given the misnomer metal as chinese bikes seem to be. If you are starting with utter shite, you aren't on to a winner even if you are a good spanner man.
____________________
Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

Al · World Chat Champion Joined: 26 Feb 2006 Karma :

I don't like the idea of a throw away society, I'm the kind of person that likes stuff to last or at least be worthwhile fixing if it needs to be.
So to me this seems a bad idea, if suitable recycling facilities were available so that every part would be recycled it would be better as then only the labour and energy used in the production process would be lost.
I'm not a hoarder, in fact I'm probably the opposite I'm just a bit ocd about stuff going to landfill.

The Chinese bikes are normally just copies of already existing models, so they're saving on development cost and using cheaper labour and materials to build them, which makes them much much cheaper. The problem is in order to try and compete the Japanese and European manufactures that make the original models are having to cut costs by moving factories to SE Asia and also using cheaper materials. Now the lines are a bit blurred and even the brand name bikes are getting shitter. It probably doesn't effect the top end products but learner/commuter bikes are noticeably poorer quality then they were 10 or so years ago.
I'd say Chinese bikes are damaging the bike industry not saving it.
____________________
Yamaha FZR400RR 3tj
My Instagram Thingy

Teflon-Mike · tl;dr Joined: 01 Jun 2010 Karma :

Gothtec · Renault 5 Driver Joined: 14 Dec 2011 Karma :

Alex_B · Brolly Dolly Joined: 15 Jul 2011 Karma :

fatpies · World Chat Champion Joined: 01 Mar 2011 Karma :

Rogerborg · nimbA Joined: 26 Oct 2010 Karma :

Al · World Chat Champion Joined: 26 Feb 2006 Karma :

A quick search says that a new Honda Wave 110 scooter would work out about £800 in Thailand so probably about £1000-£1200 less then what you'd pay for a similar scooter in the UK.
By the time you've paid for shipping, taxes the big posh show room full of men in suites, test rides, aftercare ect I expect the £1000-£1200 soon gets eaten up.
If they delivered them to you part assembled in a crate with zero aftercare I expect the price could be kept a lot lower. Also selling so many million scooters in Asia every year compared to the few hundred that probably sell in the UK must effect the end price.
____________________
Yamaha FZR400RR 3tj
My Instagram Thingy

Gothtec · Renault 5 Driver Joined: 14 Dec 2011 Karma :

iooi · Super Spammer Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Karma :

Teflon-Mike · tl;dr Joined: 01 Jun 2010 Karma :

G · The Voice of Reason Joined: 02 Feb 2002 Karma :

Need a tl;dr synopsis (as I did read most of it and still not sure of the point.)

Anyway; from what I've read, the issue is general cost-cutting, penny-pinching, laziness and corruption.

A few back handers will mean a significantly lower quality metal is used.
The low paid workers don't really care about the job that will probably be gone in a month, so will slack of where they can.
Actual 'quality control' not only costs money to implement, but if they're doing their job and actually find issues, costs even more money.

Which brings us back to "you get what you pay for".

More interesting, I think, is the Indian bikes like Hero Honda. Now because they've been using Honda technology, you don't tend to find them in competing markets.
The Glamour FI seems pretty similar to the CBF125 - but at £820 on the road rather than £2500. To be fair, it is probably a bit slower, though probably also better on fuel.