Guest Posted July 16, 2012 Share Posted July 16, 2012 The change in seating position was totally worth it, plus the bike turns a little faster due to more leverage at the bars. 4th gen was in perfect condition when I bought it in 2008, but the fairings started going south last year. It started with the tail cracking which I repaired after almost losing my right turn signal coming back from school. Then after a long ride through some cross winds I had about a 6 inch hole and a crack 12" long in my right middle fairing, plus all the mounting tabs broke off the left fairing which started to crack too. Which I don't understand because the bike has always been meticulously taken care of and garaged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer trjerm Posted July 18, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted July 18, 2012 I was riding home from safeway on Sly Park Rd. this evening and a 4th gen pulled out of the FWY offramp infront of me. , so we had 2 4th gens going down the road @ the same time. So I know that we have @ least 3 4th gens in lil ol Pollock Pines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porl Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Maybe they can last forever. Sometimes it seems they just won't roll over and die. With seemingly heaps of 'Frankenviffers' popping up on this forum and others, how about a Zombie VFR? You know, one you know was killed, saw dead, then keeps coming back? This is the (incomplete) story of my second VFR, a red '94 4th gen bought new way back then. I ordered the bike based on photos and press reviews as a replacement for my much loved 3rd gen, also owned from new. Pretty much as soon as I took delivery I started making some changes to make it 'my' VFR. Significantly, I mirror polished the frame and most of the other small alloy parts, leaving the swingarm and the rear part of the frame standard. I only owned the bike for about 8 months, and clocked up around 14,000km before I traded it in an effort to save some money; new house, new baby, newly unemployed wife... The bike went back to the dealer I bought it from, and was used as the shop owner's personal bike, and than as a shop demo for a couple of months before things started to go bad. It was knocked over inside the shop, denting the tank. A few weeks later it was involved in a major crash into the side of a car at a T-junction. I was shown the damage and it was clear the bike had been killed. Broken front wheel and one fork leg. Bent forks, radiator and exhaust headers. Most if not all panels were damaged in various ways. Fast forward another few months. I was in the shop again and noticed what was a surprisingly rough looking black VFR, surprising because the bike looked so poorly cared for for a current model bike. It was also marked with a fairly low price. Of note though was the mirror polished frame, peg hangers, grab handles, etc. Then I noticed a small area on the frame I had struggled to get just right. MMMmmm. Exactly the same area. Then I checked the registration plate. It was my former VFR reanimated and back from the grave. I asked one of the salesmen I knew about the bike. It turned out that it was cheaply repaired to recoup some costs, and the red was un-matchable so it got painted black. Strange though that it was such a rubbish paint job, surely a not quite perfect red would have been just as good? Then, fast forward another 16-ish years. I now own another red '94, recently bought to keep my GSX1400 company and to satisfy my need for another gear driven V4. So now I am more attentive of the other VFR's I see around town. Last week at work in the centre of Adelaide, I noticed a very run down 4th gen VFR parked on the street. Black, lots of cracked plastic, missing a mirror, looking like it last got a wash in or around 1995. Rusty steel parts. In fact anything not plastic was obviously rusting or corroding. As I rode slowly past, the sun caught the frame. POLISHED? Surely a trick of the sunlight. I rode back around the block to look more closely. Yep. Formerly polished, now largely furry with corrosion, but obviously once loved by someone. OK, check the number plate. IT'S STILL GOING!!! The black zombie VFR, once reanimated has continued in it's undead state. Since seeing the zombie VFR last week, I keep seeing it parked in the city. Is it really parked, or is it stalking me? How do you kill a zombie motorcycle? Would you want to? Do they bite? Can they create a zombie horde? Are they ridden by the undead, or do they move themselves from place to place in search of victims? Here's some photos to make it real. Somehow it looks so much worse in real life (undeath?). That's my work BMfW in the background. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted July 23, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted July 23, 2012 I'm sure you will have plenty chemicals in your works bike's pannier that -if mixed in the right proportions- will kill off any zombie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porl Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I'm sure you will have plenty chemicals in your works bike's pannier that -if mixed in the right proportions- will kill off any zombie Or make me think I'm one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 I think alot of them get wrecked over the years. And lets face it bikes arent very expensive in the over all equasion. An 1199 Ducati is little more than your average econ car. I think people just abuse them because they are cheap fun and they ruin them. I have seen a few VFRs well over the 100K mark around the web still kicking you would be hard pressed to get a sportbike motor to go that long. I had a friend that babied his R6 and the motor was toast @ 60K. Seems the engines are tough. Nice Zombie story thats crazy. That bike just keeps going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheWalt Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 There is a pack of 3rd and 4th gen VFRs I've seen roaming around my town (Madison, WI) but I haven't been able to talk to their owners as yet because they are always zipping by when I see them. They are in various states of repair from crashed out nakeds to pretty immaculate looking originals. As for mine, it has over 50K on the clock, still running strong, and it would be the last bike I'd part with out of the ones I currently have. But I'd rather not part with any of them! One of those crashed out nakeds reporting in here. I don't see many other ones in Madison at all. Saw one on the belt line once, a few at the Crud Run, and one wrecker naked at a VCDC meet up. Yeah, mine's a bit rashed up, but she is coming back as something special. If you see an old VF700 or Hurricane zooming around downtown in the tricolors, thats me. Like others have said, a lot of them are hiding in plain sight. Here's a sneak peek of my pet project. Hope to see another V4 around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer slowbird Posted August 12, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted August 12, 2012 I have maybe seen 3 other 4th gens VFR's on the street. One I saw while coming home from a trip to the Dragon/BRP. It was parked on the street. All alone. Another parked near a cafe near a favorite road of mine here in Ontario. The third was exitting the Highway near my house while I was getting on. 5th and 6th gens I've seen a bit more of. I love my 4th gen. Loads better than my 1st or 2nd Gen. It's my workhorse and I can't think of anything I'd rather have to commute to work or ride to the twisty roads in my area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer HiDesertMLB Posted August 12, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted August 12, 2012 Don't see to many 4th gens around here, either. On whatever limited sightings I do see, they are either missing plastics or looking haggard for the most part. I like my 4th gen, it's a soulful bike compared to my 6th gen. I am truly convinced with the proper care, and a beefy RR in place, they will outlast the any two-wheeled machine on the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer 007 Posted August 13, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted August 13, 2012 They beg to be wrecked. The gear whine and rumble is known to cause excitation in a way that distracts the rider from the purpose of maintaining safe cornering speeds. I wrecked mine and thought if I continued riding it, I would kill myself, so I went with something more tame of the inline variety. At least I can ride without distraction now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 The same problem my 93 had no more pure gas. My carbs were messed up all the time from the additives in gas now days. This... I would say has a lot to do with the disappearance of vintage and classic motos on the road today. It is getting increasingly more difficult to find non-ethanol fuel across the country. Even E10 is bad news for anything other than an automobile engine. Since the introduction of the RFS, our country's fuel infrastructure is now crap for small engines, including motorcycles. If classic moto owners and enthusiasts are smart, they are parking the bikes until a solution can be found for clean fuel. Luckily, I have three stations (yes, only 3) that still sell pure gasoline, although only in 89 octane and with a .50 premium in price over blended E10. The RFS program was created under the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 2005, and established the first renewable fuel volume mandate in the United States. As required under EPAct, the original RFS program (RFS1) required 7.5 billion gallons of renewable- fuel to be blended into gasoline by 2012. I spent nearly a month taking fuel lines off, replacing them along with a softened fuel filter and generally cleaning up the varnished mess that ethanol-blended fuel did to the '93 I just bought. This stuff is just bad news for all small engines and the future is looking dismal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Pittsburgh seems to have a shortage as well. I have seen one 6th gen I believe, and that is it. I will occasionally drop by a local bike night (roughly 400 bikes show up) and still have yet to see one. Still enjoy peoples reactions when I tell them my bike is a 96, I had one guy guess that it was made in 2006! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motographer Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Prior to moving to Tennessee, I'd never seen another 4th- or 5th-gen on the road at all besides the two I've owned. My 4th-gen was destroyed when I lived in New Orleans by an idiotic college freshman driver, and I'm reasonably sure there wasn't another one in the city. Hell, there probably weren't many in the state as a whole. Same story with the 5th-gen I replaced it with, didn't seem like sport-tourers were very high on the list for Louisiana motorcyclists. I've seen a couple of 5th-gens on the highway in TN since I moved away, but have yet to see a VFR of any year in the actual city I've moved to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted August 23, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted August 23, 2012 Met up with some Dutch VFR riders for a little spin..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer trjerm Posted September 5, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted September 5, 2012 I live in the foothills of the Sierra's and I know of 4 or5 4th gen in the local area, I guess most of them are residing where the back roads are awesome Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timmythecop Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 I recently rode a 4th gen, and I liked it very much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted September 5, 2012 Member Contributer Share Posted September 5, 2012 So Timmay, did you buy that silver one with the black side- and top cases???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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