1993 Kawasaki Vulcan 750
Summary:
Your unpredictable best friend
Faults:
Pick-up coil wires brittle (from age) and broke off. You have to lift the engine to do a full replacement of the wires, so I spliced them on.
Hard to start; went through two batteries in a year and a half. Now on the third battery, and I put a battery minder on and leave it plugged in at home, and have not had a single issue since.
Had a problem with it stalling in motion. It turned out the previous owner cut the airbox and covered it with a sock (in what I guess was an attempt at an ear shave), and the thing was getting force fed at speed or in wind, and that would cause it to snuff out... and then due to the above battery problem, it would usually leave me stranded.
General Comments:
Since I figured out some issues, the bike has been a lot of fun. Great handling and a lot of guts to it. I beat everyone off the mark every time. Fairly easy to work on unless you need to do stator work; then you have to pull the motor. Not ideal, but it's supposed to have had a new stator put in when I got it, so hopefully that won't be an issue for me.
It is not a heavy cruiser, so I got knocked around a bit in windy conditions until I got used to that.
These bike are known to have some issues, but once you get a hold of things, it is seriously a fun bike. Even if I got a bigger cruiser, I think I would hold onto this one just for the fun of it.
Would you buy another motorcycle from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 28th October, 2013