How much "weight" do you think, the British put on "European" brands.Rasher said:I think most Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki owners would actually be on a Triumph / BMW / Ducati / Guzzi / KTM if it was not for worries over reliability and delaer support - real or imagined, this is all that has stopped the Europeans putting the Japs out of business long ago.
In OZ you can make a really basic BORING BMW that sells for twice the price of a fully optioned Corolla/Mazda and people will buy them in pretty good numbers.
Now I had a go at one once and was expecting to be impressed by the "Sheer driving pleasure". Nope. it was a real let down. The only plus was that it had good suspension and steering, if you were on a race track.
Same with the VW's out here. 40% up on the equivalent Japanese. I liked the Hyundai better. The VW was just cheap cheap. Guy at work drove one for three years and decided it couldn't take real world roads. It was rattling to bits. He's going back to Subaru. There is a big recall going on as well with "sudden power loss" issues.
It is true that most people get emotionally attached to a purchase and then justify that after the fact. That will either be because it looks good, it is something that they wanted when they were young and can now afford and it has lot's of buttons. It shows they have arrived etc.
With the S10 it was a case of getting excited a little bit at a time as all the real world experiences came in and getting excited that this was the bike to tick the boxes. Only knew about YAMAHA from some interesting things they had done that caught my "Engineer" eye over the years and they seemed a bit "quirky" in there own way.
I just wonder how the triple will make them feel regards the "British" alternatives. Do they have to be 40% better to get a shoe in?