Benelli, China, Italy…

[Speciality]

Hi, italian here, one very important aspect when buying a bike is the proximity and quality of dealers. Piaggio has very few dealers compared to the japanese brands, or even BMW, and also not equally distributed in the country. Piaggio has 93 dealers, mainly in the north and center Italy, BMW Motorrad 107, also biased towards the north, but less so.

The number of dealers is increasing and that’s good, but it will take some time to have a significant impact (and of course Piaggio/Guzzi must keep making nice, high quality and desirable bikes).

Also consider that BMWs, especially the 1200/1250 GS are consistently top sellers in Italy for years now, so there are a lot on the roads. Just in the last few years Guzzi came back on the top sales charts, thanks mainly to the V7, and also the V85TT, so there aren’t that many driving around.

I also agree with scottmastrocinque that, in northern Italy, thanks to many more dealers and a “proximity effect” to the factory, you can se a lot of Guzzi around, especially in Lombardy. I live in the ”lower” part of the “boot” and I can attest that, in the last five or so years, I see many more Guzzi around, especially V7s.

According to the January 2023 issue of Bike magazine (UK) it is the Benelli TRK502X that has been Italy’s best-selling bike for three years. I don’t know if that’s correct but given it’s relatively low price on account of the Chinese QJ Motor ownership it makes sense. Interestingly even a prestige manufacturer like MV uses the same motor in its new Lucky Explorer 5.5.

 

[scottmastrocinque]

I have a customer who brings me his TRK502 for service.

I personally hate the thing. It’s Chinese junk.

The engine is a 2 cylinder, 500cc gutless wonder. Do you like having to rev at 7-8k rpm’s out of a 9k max, in order to have anything resembling a power band?


Everything about the bike is cheap. The engine protection bars are so badly made, none of the holes properly align to the bolts, so if you remove it for clearance on the engine, it’s a complete bitch to reinstall. Every bolt is the cheapest Chinese alloy crap of the same quality as the hardware on garbage Chinese made “furniture” that you can buy at Walmart. Yes. That bad.

The only thing it has in its favor, is that he got it CHEAP because the dealer in Michigan realized what junk they are, and blew them out the door at cost, just to be rid of them.

Sale’s don’t equate to a good motorcycle. Lots of idiots will buy cheap junk. It’s what the Chinese count on.

 

[davethewelder]

Those benelli's are an egg roll, I like cheeseburger or pizza...

 

[Speciality]

January 2023? Is your time zone that forward in time?

The Benelli has being the top selling bike since 2020 (so the last two years), almost certainly it will be also for 2022. But the GS was in second position, and before 2020 it was always in first place, going back at least to 2010 (I stopped there), with an average of 3k to 4k units sold.

Yeah, the Benelli TRK502 sells a lot because it looks like a big ADV bike, but with a small engine, powerless if compared to the size of the bike, and most importantly is CHEAP. Although is designed and engineered in Italy, the bike is built in China with chinese components, this cuts the costs a lot, especially compared to bike built in Italy.
In Italy the base TRK502 retails at about 6k€, which is a lot less than the 9k€ required for the base Kawa Versys 650 or Suzuki V-Strom 650, while at the same time having a bike that looks closer (and uglier, IMHO) to the big ADVs like the GS.
The Benelli weighs about 235kg (520 lbs), 5kg more than the V85TT, but with 48 hp. Versys and V-Strom weighs about 210kg (460 lbs), and have more power than the Benelli

I was just reporting what it said. Publishing dates in the UK are a mystery to me; it is indeed the January 2023 edition from which I sourced the information.
Personally I wouldn’t buy a Benelli or a Morini or any other Chinese version of once-great make. I hate that my Special has a Chinese rear caliper and starter motor, but these days there’s little choice because it’s all about retail cost. Certainly in the UK the hottest sector is 800-900cc bikes with 270 degree parallel twin motors. They’re becoming as boring now as the old 360 degree twins were back in the day. Retro bikes like RE sell very well, both the Meteor and the Interceptor occasionally outselling the perennial GS. The V100 will no doubt do very well as it’s in the ballpark for power, plus it’s gorgeous to look at. Overall, though, Moto Guzzi is a niche market. Personally I like having something different.

 

[loudviking]

Problem is this Country continues buying Chinese crap, cause that's all you can get
anymore... Amazing that when Japanese bikes came onto the scene Americans were hostile
towards them, even though they were a quality ride built with passion, know we have
china crap that is so cheap and low quality it is just amazing what we will buy,

 

[scottmastrocinque]

"we buy"?

Not me brother!

 

[Fleuger99]

Problem is this Country continues buying Chinese crap, cause that's all you can get
anymore... Amazing that when Japanese bikes came onto the scene Americans were hostile
towards them, even though they were a quality ride built with passion, know we have
china crap that is so cheap and low quality it is just amazing what we will buy,

Same here, I avoid buying Chinese products as much as possible, don't want to support their economy or the poor quality of most of their products. I'd never buy Chinese phones, computer parts or cars/bikes.

 

[James Guffman]

Same here, I avoid buying Chinese products as much as possible, don't want to support their economy or the poor quality of most of their products. I'd never buy Chinese phones, computer parts or cars/bikes.

Same but unfortunately a lot of companies will pull the line of "manufactured in China under strict supervision" or it will be made in the West but full of Chinese components. A lot of people don't care my brother-in-law will rant about how horrible China is but of course he would never consider giving up his Chinese made Iphone.

A lot of people are also lazy and racist and assume China=Japan=South Korea in regard to quality, culture and pride in workmanship.

 

[Raven]

China is capable of making very good quality products. It's up to the company to spec what they want put into their product. Sadly most are looking only for low price and with this they get low quality.
I would never buy a Chinese motorcycle. They shouldn't be allowed in the North American market. Their dirt bikes are terrible quality and the people buying them do so because of the price. They are often too poor to afford a decent bike and get stuck with worthless junk when they break down.

 

[scottmastrocinque]

China is capable of making very good quality products. It's up to the company to spec what they want put into their product. Sadly most are looking only for low price and with this they get low quality.
I would never buy a Chinese motorcycle. They shouldn't be allowed in the North American market. Their dirt bikes are terrible quality and the people buying them do so because of the price. They are often too poor to afford a decent bike and get stuck with worthless junk when they break down.

My workshop phone rings weekly with somebody who bought a Chinese made dirt bike, scooter, quad, ATV, motorcycle, and even motorized skateboards, usually off of the internet.

I will no longer touch any of them. They are such horrible pieces of absolute junk you cannot even begin to believe. Everything in them is crafted with the worst quality materials, cables, controls, nuts, bolts, metal, plastics, even the wood in the damn skateboards.

Every single person literally begs for help and although in the past I have previously caved in, even if I could repair the junk now, it usually would take so long to chase down all of the problems (there are no schematics or service specifications published anywhere) the people would scream “I can’t pay $350-$500 for repair, I only paid $750 for it!”.

Ok. There’s the door, because I don’t work for free and my prices are not based upon what you paid for something. Bye bye Felicia!

Easier to just say “No”. So, that’s what I do. “No.”

I do the exact same thing with rat, beater, “cafe racer crap”, “customized”, “Harley clone bikes” and “kit” motorcycles.

All of that crap is just a headache of epic proportions, looking to explode in my face. No thanks.

 

[LaGrasta]

Can't ever imagine a situation where I buy a Chinese bike. Although I'll say my Kia Niro blows me away at the quality and value, backed by 10 year/100k. It's impressive. I few short years ago I would have grouped Korea with China, India, etc.
As for China specifically, Once I discovered AliExpress, I better realized just how many US retailers were actually Ali sourced products.

 

[LaGrasta]

I ordered a new MacBook for work, received the shipping info just minutes ago. I expected to see Cupertino, but instead Shanghai, China.

 

[tris]

Unfortunately we seem to have a belief in the west that cheap is best

All products are cheap if you have no care or respect for the well being of the people that make them

youtube chiness press saucepan - Bing video

微软必应图片搜索拥有来自国内和海外的海量图库，致力于为中国用户提供最好的国内外图片搜索服务。

www.bing.com

 

[DeadEye]

Did this get posted before ?
New bike oil analysis -

 

[V700Steve]

Everyone bitches about Chinese but they keep buying newer Guzzi's that use internal engine parts from there!!! Do they write letters, no, they keep thinking it's all Italian. They should ask Piaggio how much and which parts in a disclosure on all their new bikes.

 

[Raven]

Royal Enfield finishing top of the list was a big surprise. BMW#2 not so much. Ducati and Aprilia near the bottom was sad. The Chinese bike being off the scale terrible was no surprise at all.

 

[scottmastrocinque]

Did this get posted before ?
New bike oil analysis -

Not an analysis at all.

Sample size = 1

Statistically insignificant. The guy obviously never had a stats course in his life.

I cannot even begin to elucidate all of the fundamental errors in his premise, methodology, and worst of all, his interpretation and conclusions. It’s a complete mess.

Other than that…

 

[lemans850i]

My workshop phone rings weekly with somebody who bought a Chinese made dirt bike, scooter, quad, ATV, motorcycle, and even motorized skateboards, usually off of the internet.

I will no longer touch any of them. They are such horrible pieces of absolute junk you cannot even begin to believe. Everything in them is crafted with the worst quality materials, cables, controls, nuts, bolts, metal, plastics, even the wood in the damn skateboards.

Every single person literally begs for help and although in the past I have previously caved in, even if I could repair the junk now, it usually would take so long to chase down all of the problems (there are no schematics or service specifications published anywhere) the people would scream “I can’t pay $350-$500 for repair, I only paid $750 for it!”.

Ok. There’s the door, because I don’t work for free and my prices are not based upon what you paid for something. Bye bye Felicia!

Easier to just say “No”. So, that’s what I do. “No.”

I do the exact same thing with rat, beater, “cafe racer crap”, “customized”, “Harley clone bikes” and “kit” motorcycles.

All of that crap is just a headache of epic proportions, looking to explode in my face. No thanks.

But in all fairness it has to be said that there are Chinese manufacturers that
actually care about the quality of the products…. And there are the ones who make stuff out of chewing gum!

 

[DeadEye]

It’s not a statistical analysis of oil over over the long term.

It was the analysis of oil from the First oil change.
There could certainly be issues related to what oil was used during those first hundred miles .
- cod liver oil
- quality synthetic
- break in oil

now put the same oil in all the bikes and test it again after the Next oil change and see what we find.

 

[scottmastrocinque]

But in all fairness it has to be said that there are Chinese manufacturers that
actually care about the quality of the products…. And there are the ones who make stuff out of chewing gum!

I am sure that they exist in small numbers. Historically though, China has been the land of cheap, disposable, goods. It's primary selling point has historically always been price.

You cannot simultaneously produce highest quality and lowest price. Those two are economically incompatible.