Branded or Chinese Import?

[bornagainbiker]

The Chinese made bikes and scooters are growing fast and It's the dilemma, buy a cheaper chinese 125 import for £800-£1700 or an expensive quality branded 125 for £2200-£4200? The magazines are now full of unpronounceable brands, can they all be poor and unreliable?
Come part exchange time what are they both worth? You probably would have lost 50% or more in 3 years, or just throw the cheaper import away or still get a few quid from someone willing to take a punt on it (My friend recently got £375 for his rattly but working 59 reg Lexmoto Gladiator 125, infact 2 people were verbally overbidding to get it as it was advertised for £350, weird but it's a 17 year olds dream and with little funds). Self servicing on the import will probably be less of a worry and cheaper than keeping the warranty up on the branded models, but reliability plays a huge factor for all especially for the non mechanically minded.
For a better reliability what if you bought a new Chinese import every year, would it be a cheaper option than keeping a Branded 'warranty' serviced on top of depreciation? I suppose if you get in a mind set that your £1000 chinese investment will be nil in 3 years time then it's less of a blow to take.

An example is this, I was at my Honda dealership on Saturday and a young guy was on his first bike a Honda Vision 110cc 12 reg with 3000 mile. It was probably £1800 new and they offered him only £600! against a new CB125R. Stating it was a higher than normal mileage bike! To him a £1200 loss in about 14 month. Quality is good but he could have bought a Lexmoto Gladiator for £1000 and been better off even if he scrapped it.

[halfabusa]

It all boils down to the individual's budget i suppose, but the truth is chinese brands are only going to get better in quality as time goes on. If they can manage to keep their prices competitive as they are currently while increasing their quality, they will be more and more popular and soon those unpronounceable brands will be in our daily vocabularies.

My point of view on this is to buy a quality bike/scooter second hand rather than buy a brand new potentially unreliable brand. My main usage is for commuting and i depend on my bike to be more reliable rather than being new.

If i was more adventurous and technically capable, and if it was only going to be a leisure tool, only then i could think of a less reliable brand, however, i'd still be buying second hand, say instead of a brand new 125 chinese, i'd buy a 300cc second hand chinese

In summary, i'd never buy brand new

[johnp]

Me personally would stick to branded bikes till the quality of Chinese imports get better.

[sad vampire]

As someone who is used to a fair amount of spannering & electrickery, I would & did consider a chinese bike. However, my spannering & electrickery skills were needed, but really no more than on my Atlantic 500.

If I wasn't so confident with a few dozen spanners & the multimeter I wouldn't dare touch a bike that doesn't have good dealer support. So, no chinese bike, & no Aprilia. It'd have to be a Honda everytime.

Saying all that, I've only had two motorcycle catastrophic breakdowns where I'd had to use my breakdown cover since 1988. The first was a Honda MTX125, rear tyre blew out, hole the size of an old 1d piece. The second was a Honda Revere 600, broken cable from main fuse to ignition circuit, completely dead. All other breakdows I've been able to fix at the roadside or been able to limp home with.

The key to reliability with any bike is the routine maintenance, omit this at your peril, & that does mean doing a service every 1000 miles on a chinese bike.

[pikey]

Second hand jap all the way just brought a 1999 400 burgman for cost of a new chinese 50 cc and will probably out last a new chinese brought now

[anonstarter]

This topic might be worth a read: http://www.maxi-muppets.co.uk/forum/vie ... an#p154087" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I've noticed there are a lot of mini scoot's, all makes and models, some that are barely two years old, that are in really poor condition because they haven't been looked after. If you were to see a 'herd' of Honda Visions parked up looking ropey, could you be forgiven for assuming that it's a reflection of the brand?

[SpikeOne]

Second hand jap all the way just brought a 1999 400 burgman for cost of a new chinese 50 cc and will probably out last a new chinese brought now

Ah, but that's not comparing apples with apples is it.

I can see why a young kid might want a Chinese scooter, because he's limited to 50cc and then 125cc anyway, so the new or old argument doesn't really come into it unless you compare new and second hand prices of 50cc and 125cc scooters. Then it might make sense to buy a new Chinese scooter, especially if he has a yen, (NPI), to take a test fairly early, because it doesn't have to last him very long anyway, and they're dirt cheap. Let's face it you should get, maybe, 4 trouble free years out of almost anything.

I must admit, when I bought my Vity, (yes I know it's Chinese, but at least it's built to Japanese standards, as is most of the Taiwanese stuff), I looked at the cheap Chinese scooter market and was actually quite surprised at the quality of the 125cc models. At six hundred quid at the time and build it yourself, it was almost a no brainer, and the only reason that I didn't jump that way in the end was local support. Having said that, that was also the reason that I didn't go Piaggio and Suzuki too.

In the end, (because I could afford it), it came down to where's the best place to buy it from, and Yamaha are just around the corner, and at that time, I didn't want anything bigger than a 125.

Personally, having read some the woes in this forum, I'm not sure I'd go Japanese again, on quality, because I'm not sure that the extra cost is warranted anyway with the miles that I do. I might go Silverwing or Burgman, because I like the styles, but I wouldn't go Tmax, and I definitely wouldn't go for a 14 year old bike from anywhere...

[pikey]

This is the problem nowadays its a throw away society whats wrong with 14 years old as long as it runs and its reliable .

[MrGrumpy]

Its an interesting question that I ponder occasionally. I have idly considered the WK 250 scooter (the one that looks like its got a Skoda radiator grill on) for my next commuting scoot, as it looks OK, goes well enough, its only for the commute and there is a dealer in the town I work in. I even (briefly) considered the 650cc WK touring bike. But I still worry about the dependability of a Chinese scoot.. I say 'only' commuting, but that of course being used in all weathers and getting coated with salt in the winter! There again, the salt will wreck any scoot, so you might as well buy a cheap one! And as we've seen, many top brands make their cheaper models in Thailand or India - as far as I know the quality of these is good.

I think the key thing will be when proper Chinese brands become established, with names you are familiar with, with a proper range, proper dealers, proper spares supply - brands like WK and Sinnis are moving in that direction already. Remember, Honda were once seen as purveyors of cheap badly built tat that was only a bad copy of a Western brand....look at them now!

[pikey]

Yes I know but its not long had a tyre so wheels been off and wheels have been painted black .It was caused by splines not being lubed corrosion setting in it happened to mine .I have a cunning plan I recon the rear hub disc carrier will fit on then can fit K3 wheel which bolts on like a car wheel with 3 bolts .I had the Tasso (Burgman parts) conversion on my old 2002 one in 2006 after wheel went and became wobbly due to corrosion .Might be wrong but looked at photos and bearing in mind same engine I think its possible K3 wheel on ebay for £65 and seen someone breaking an engine so could go for that .See how it goes on south coast before I spend on it .Fact is its made it to 33K and last 13 years so not worried can get my moneys worth out of it and break it for parts owes me £790 so worth a punt


ps wheel will be coming off soon to refurb caliper so will know for sure then way it rides no play and belive me I would know rode back from Kinlockleven Scotland with wobbly wheel and bulging tyre 400 miles so know a bit about wobbly burger wheels