| Author | Message | ||
     Lastcyclone |
For you math majors. I'm trying to figure out how long it will take for my Uly to pay for itself in gas savings. Here are some rough figures. The bike gets around 50 miles per gallon. About twice what my Pontiac Aztek does. I ride the bike about 6,000miles per season. Half of that are miles that I would have been driving the car for the same thing, commuting, errands, etc. The rest are pleasure miles, so I won't count 3,000 of them. Assumming gas remains pretty contant at $3.50 per gallon, how much am I saving and how long would it take to recoup the $12,000 purchase price of the bike? Just curious. I'd rather ride the bike all the time if I could. | ||
| Kdan |
The Buell will cost you $210 per season. The Aztec, $420 for that same 3000 miles. The cost of not being laughed at while you ride down the road, instead of rolling in your Aztek. Priceless. If you're only riding the bike those 3k miles a year and not the Aztec, you might want to get the sixty year extended warranty. I ride all year unless I need to seat more than one and my mileage is averaging 14k a year on the bike and less than 8k on the car. At your $350 per gallon, I've saved $490 a year. It's simple, ride more! | ||
| Naustin |
420-210= 210 So, you're saving $210 annually by riding the bike for errands right now. It will thus take you 57 years to recoup the purchase price, not including interest if you financed it, or accounting for your loss as a result of the deprecation of the bike or accounting for the opportunity cost of not investing the 12,000 in an interest bearing account of some kind. If you account for opportunity cost, depreciation, and or interest expense, you're not saving money by owning the motorcycle at all. (Message edited by naustin on May 29, 2007) | ||
| Thumper74 |
Yeah, but not saving money on a Buell is ALOT more fun than not saving money in a Pontiac Aztek | ||
| Alchemy |
Fun aside, there is more than that gas savings. There is also the saved wear on the auto and the possibility of fewer miles at trade-in time that adds value. I strain mightily to justify the financial rationale but the fun factor is the best value going. | ||
| Kdan |
Riding also keeps me from killing the ones I love. Can you put a price on that? | ||
| Rotzaruck |
Now that you are saving all this money not driving the car, I'll sell you another plan, for just half of your savings. Go buy an old boat, like mine, big tank, excessive gas burner. Fill it with gas, take it out one weekend, cruise around and fill it again( at a marina--eek!), cruise that tank full out. Take it home, park it in the driveway. Every weekend go out, look at the boat, ride the bike and have lots of fun. Send me half your savings, we'll both be able to retire in a few years. Math's not so hard. Rotzaruck!! | ||
| Cochise |
I can save you money on trade ins and such like that. Buy classic, or by clunker. I have one newer car that my wife keeps (15 m.p.g.) the motorcycle I ride (48-50 m.p.g.) and my 1970 Chevy Truck that is currently in a body shop being restified (1,000,000 m.p.g. Odometer doesn't work so I can't check m.p.g's) | ||
| Cochise |
Oh yeah, bought the truck....$1700, power brakes added, truck dropped/new suspension, 6-5 lug conversion, too much more to list....$2500, complete body work, primer, holes welded closed, rust removed, new fenders, rockers, inner fender, battery tray...$735, paint....trade of a free, to me, 1982 Camaro. The look on my face when it is done.....Priceless. Why I typed this for the world to see....No idea. | ||
| Ryker77 |
Don't neglect the cost of motorcycle insurance, car tags, yearly registration, tires, oil, filters..... | ||
| Tommy_black_shark |
I was working in a bike shop on the North Freeway in Houston during the summer of '74 gas crisis. Gas had skyrocketed to almost $.45 a gallon. Every motorcycle that a man could push pull or drag came through the door looking to be "repaired." Standard drill, the salesman tells the guy its $500 to fix, but for $1,000 you can be riding this brand new..(fill in the blank). Think of all the money you're going to save on gas." Worked just about every time and we were prepping 10-15 new bikes every day. More than once I heard a guy telling his wife.."but Honey it'll pay for itself on gas." Bottom line, counting insurance and registration fees, you are going to have to cover one heck of a lot of miles to break even. My wife is an accountant so I wouldn't even try.  | ||
| Mikej |
Miles per gallon = economics. Miles per smile = Buellonomics. If you want the math to justify the expense then buy a beater bike that gets 60-80mpg for $500 and carry just liability insurance. Or get a moped or scooter and get the mpg up to 100 or so. Or buy a bicycle and calculate health benefits in addition to fuel savings. My bike makes more economic sense to ride because it's fully paid for and the truck isn't. Thinking of looking at an early 60's to mid 50's or older pickup to fixup and dump the newer truck, which could probably be called the Cochise plan. A local guy has a 1960 smallbox p/u for trade for a bike, I have a spare bike, starting to look real interesting. Lastcyclone, the math won't add up to justify the expense unless you factor in the fun factor or if you factor in the fact that you're going to have a bike regardless of how the math works out. Go ride, don't worry, be happy, don't justify the ride, the ride is all the justification that most of us need. | ||
| Lastcyclone |
I knew I could count on some deep insight on this issue. Sure the Aztek may be a little quirky, but some may say the bikes we ride are just as much. "Different in Every Sense", right? What the Aztek may lack in design, it surely makes up for in funtion. Relatively low initial cost, runs great, hauls loads of stuff, low maintenance, inexpensive insurance, auto everything, great stereo (stock Pioneer) etc. But at the same time there were only made for five years. | ||
| Mikej |
I got an Aztec for a loaner car once from a dealership. The only real issue I had with driving it was the rear air bar thing that cut across the rear window right in line with the rear view mirror line of sight. | ||
| Rainman |
OK, I paid 2,300 for my Blast. I'll drive about 5,000 miles this year to work and stuff that I would otherwise use my Corolla for. The Yoda gets 25 mpg in the city pretty constant. The Blast gets 65 city pretty constant. I will save about 430 gallons a year by riding rather than driving which is about $1,500 a year or paid for in about two years. Finally, I come out ahead on SOMETHING> | ||
| Ikeman |
There is no way I'm saving money riding the Uly to work. 46-48 mpg commuting, 93 octane is $3.39/gal, this set of tires is about used up at 8000 miles. My Jetta TDI wagon gets the same mileage, diesel is $2.69/gal, set of tires lasts about 40,000 miles, oil capacity is twice the bike but 10,000 mile change intervals, no spark plugs. But I still ride because I enjoy it - that's the only justification I need. | ||
| Ryker77 |
Ike, not every body is smart enough to drive a TDI...  Math I bought my wife a used 2003 Jetta TDI that got 45mpgs allways -city or highway never less than 45mpg. Drove the car 30k miles. Sold it with bald tires for almost what we paid for it. My Golf TDI with 115k miles is still worth at least 7k. and will be worth 6-7k for the next 50k miles. Even at 200k the car will be worth over 5k. And still get 45-48mpg. | ||
| Ikeman |
Ryker - you got it. I just love the fact that I can flog the hell outta that car and still get 48mpg. The only time the mileage goes down is when I'm sitting in traffic. I was gonna buy another TDI but I found a used Passat W8 4Motion that I just couldn't pass up! | ||
| Cowboy |
It has not hit me yet I had bikes and the weather had warmed up before the last gas hikes. | ||
| Ryker77 |
W8 = bad idea! I too almost fell for it. Untill I learned about the transmission and timing chain issue. Timing chain is placed on the BACK of the engine. Requiring engine REMOVAL to do maintance. Killer prices on them for a reason. | ||
| L_je |
Here's a table that should show the savings of riding a typical Buell vs your typical automobile... The table is formatted as such: _____ thousands of miles/yr ridden $/gal_ $/yr_saved $/yr_saved $/yr_saved $/gal_ $/yr_saved $/yr_saved $/yr_saved $/gal_ $/yr_saved $/yr_saved $/yr_saved Assuming your bike gets 25mpg better mileage than your car, here is your estimated yearly savings: _____ 5k__ 10k__ 15k__ 20k__ 25k__ 30k__ 35k $1.50_ 300_ 600__ 900__ 1200_ 1500_ 1800_ 2100 $1.75_ 350_ 700__ 1050_ 1400_ 1750_ 2100_ 2450 $2.00_ 400_ 800__ 1200_ 1600_ 2000_ 2400_ 2800 $2.25_ 450_ 900__ 1350_ 1800_ 2250_ 2700_ 3150 $2.50_ 500_ 1000_ 1500_ 2000_ 2500_ 3000_ 3500 $2.75_ 550_ 1100_ 1650_ 2200_ 2750_ 3300_ 3850 $3.00_ 600_ 1200_ 1800_ 2400_ 3000_ 3600_ 4200 $3.25_ 650_ 1300_ 1950_ 2600_ 3250_ 3900_ 4550 $3.50_ 700_ 1400_ 2100_ 2800_ 3500_ 4200_ 4900 $3.75_ 750_ 1500_ 2250_ 3000_ 3750_ 4500_ 5250 $4.00_ 800_ 1600_ 2400_ 3200_ 4000_ 4800_ 5600 $4.25_ 850_ 1700_ 2550_ 3400_ 4250_ 5100_ 5950 $4.50_ 900_ 1800_ 2700_ 3600_ 4500_ 5400_ 6300 $4.75_ 950_ 1900_ 2850_ 3800_ 4750_ 5700_ 6650 $5.00_ 1000 2000_ 3000_ 4000_ 5000_ 6000_ 7000 As none of you are paying me, this table is full of inaccuracies. First, you need to subtract out the cost of insuring the bike. OMG, I can only image what some of you are paying! Second, you need to subtract about $450 for every 10k miles traveled to account for bike tires (unless you burn through car tires like a maniac). Some of you will need to subtract out more for tire wear, you know who you are. And finally, these are only the miles ridden where you otherwise would have driven. Come on, be honest, would you really have taken you car up to Deal's Gap last weekend? And one more thing, you probably don't fill up your car with premium, but you do fill you bike with the stuff, so figure that one out on your own. With current gas prices, if you can ride your bike 20,000 miles where you would have otherwise driven your car, then you'd be close to breaking even on your bike in 5 years. -jason | ||
| L_je |
D'oh! Just ignore my previous post. All of those savings should be divided by a factor of two! Sorry for the algebraic faux pas. Just give me my "F", and let me go back to my desk... I will staple the incorrect table to the nearest Analysis "Tree of Shame". New table coming soon[1]...but don't hold your breath, because it is not going to be pretty. ________________________ [1] this new table will work through all of the math, instead of just listening to the voices in my head | ||
| Kdan |
L_je - Wow. Someone get L_je a girlfriend!! | ||
| Chainsaw |
I can commute to work for a WEEK on 1 gallon of gas on one of my bikes, and I ride every day it doesn't snow and some days when it does. Gotta love 50+ MPG. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
1984 POS Ford Ranger 18mpg $3.36 a gallon, 10 miles to work... 2006 XB9SX $3.56 a gallon, riding to work every day 10 miles.... Trip home 30-40 miles FULL of dirt and twisties Guess why the truck never gets out of the driveway... | ||
| Shanetbolt |
Why is this a concern, how long for a recreational vehicle to pay for it's self. It maybe fun to run the numbers. It is just like statistics, you can get any result you want. You got a bike (great that it is a Buell) because you wanted a bike and to enjoy all the things that go with it. | ||
| Aeholton |
Rainman says: "------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- OK, I paid 2,300 for my Blast. I'll drive about 5,000 miles this year to work and stuff that I would otherwise use my Corolla for. The Yoda gets 25 mpg in the city pretty constant. The Blast gets 65 city pretty constant. I will save about 430 gallons a year by riding rather than driving which is about $1,500 a year or paid for in about two years. Finally, I come out ahead on SOMETHING>" Sorry to burst your bubble, but 5000 miles in the Corolla is only 200 gal (77 on the Blast). 123 gallons saved at $3.50/gal is only $430.50 savings.  | ||
| Macbuell |
So you say you get 50 mpg on the Buell and about 25 in Aztek with 3,000 miles of travel per year. So, you'd be saving a gallon of gas for every 50 miles you travel or 60 gallons in 3,000 miles. At $3.50 per gallon that equals $210 saved per year. At $12,000 purchase price, you'll recoup the purchase price in gas savings in 57.14 years. You've got some riding to do. (Message edited by MACBuell on June 01, 2007) |
