I have never been able to understand this …

Ok, so people like ‘tricking’ bikes up, be it purely for cosmetic or performance or both.

Bearing in mind the price of parts, this can run into many thousands of pounds very quickly.

So, potentially buy an SV for say £1500, spend say £2k on tricking it out with nice plastics, fancy exhaust, nice suspension wheels etc etc … bike is now worth say £1700-2k on a good day (sometimes diminishes value as it is too personalised) how can you justify that?

Also if you had/have £3.5k why didn’t you buy a ‘better’ bike in the first place??

I can see why some people might enjoy the customisation/personalisation (so you have the same mass produced can as 20,000 other ppl ) but how can you justify the expense surely KNOWING you are never realistically going to see anything but a fraction of that back??

I think expensive performance (power) mods make even less financial sense … why put a 700cc big bore kit and a full race system (what £2k all in?) on an SV650 for example? Where is the logic in that?

p.s. you do what you like with YOUR money, I am just curious that is all

must just be for the WANT of doing it, i just swapped my cage knowing very well it was from a garage and 1k over priced? still had it tho gotta spend it on something aint ya cuz spends £70 a week on fags which i think if pure daft but he dont seem to mind.

I suppose some people's riding grows with the bike, just spent a little bit of money on suspension mods on the SV to make it better on the road and track, nothing fancy but means I don't have to sell it & upgrade for at least another year (in my mind) as with each sale/purchase of bikes you tend to lose money. Over time I've also added a can for noise and a dark double bubble, oh and crash bungs. All pretty self explanatory bits. Not going to do any more apart from keeping her going.

Now going to save for that 675 Daytona.....just waiting for the 2nd hand prices to dip a bit.

i would agree spending more than what you paid for the bike on tarting it up does seem a bit of a waste of money.

but, look at the boy racers & how much they spend, on what at the end of the day is a 1.2 saxo or whatever.

[northwind]

If Suzuki made an SV with great suspension and maybe a tickle of power for, oh, £5000 or so I'd have bought one. Instead, I built it. My SV's grown with me... And even though it's now specced better than most race SVs (some notable exceptions on here ) it's still cost me barely more than a new SV. Who's the daftie?

If I was buying new just now, it'd probably be another cheap used SV which I'd go to town on again, but, if it were in 6 months time then I reckon a Shiver would wing its way to me, as it's the closest to my "ideal bike". Sure, I could've got a Mille or GSXR thou for what I've spent on my SV, easily, but I prefer the SV motor, it's just right. Or, if the japanese were to revisit the 400s class with modern techniques, that'd probably drag me away from the SV.

I think people spend the money because like me, they can't afford to spend more than say £2k on a bike in one go but then over the next couple of years they can afford to spend the odd £300 here and there to improve the bikes aesthetics and performance. This means after a couple of years they have spent an extra £2k on improvements but it hasn't actually increased the bikes value much.

Originally Posted by northwind

If Suzuki made an SV with great suspension and maybe a tickle of power for, oh, £5000 or so I'd have bought one. Instead, I built it. My SV's grown with me... And even though it's now specced better than most race SVs (some notable exceptions on here ) it's still cost me barely more than a new SV. Who's the daftie?

You could buy a stonking 2-3yr old GSXR (or whatever) for 5k, that'd blow your SV or any other SV away any day of the week!!

If you want the performance, then buying slightly older, but 'better' bike makes more sense to me ...

Or in your case you have an older bike with less performance!!

BTW, I love what you have done with your SV, but if it has totaled £5k, I am not sure I could have ever justified the spend myself

Originally Posted by TheDangerousQuietOne

I think people spend the money because like me, they can't afford to spend more than say £2k on a bike in one go but then over the next couple of years they can afford to spend the odd £300 here and there to improve the bikes aesthetics and performance. This means after a couple of years they have spent an extra £2k on improvements but it hasn't actually increased the bikes value much.

That's government mentality that ... we might spend 3 times as much overall, but as long as we only do it in small chunks each year it's all good (e.g. stone chipping for road maintenance )!!

Originally Posted by hovis

but, look at the boy racers & how much they spend, on what at the end of the day is a 1.2 saxo or whatever.

Quite, what a bunch of t1ts!! But then look at your average IQ of a chav!!

[northwind]

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

You could buy a stonking 2-3yr old GSXR (or whatever) for 5k, that'd blow your SV or any other SV away any day of the week!!

If you want the performance, then buying slightly older, but 'better' bike makes more sense to me ...

Or in your case you have an older bike with less performance!!

BTW, I love what you have done with your SV, but if it has totaled £5k, I am not sure I could have ever justified the spend myself

Just over £4000 I reckon. £4500 maybe. Including £2650 for the bike though But like I say, performance isn't the issue, I love the SV's engine. It's just... Right. I've given it an extra fistful of power just because I can, while keeping the characteristics similiar, but I'd be happy enough with it standard- I'm just a tweaker. I've got absolutely no interest in getting a GSXR tbh... If I did, well, I would My SV has pretty good parts value so I'd get back a good chunk of my "investment" too.

Boy racers are the unwitting comedians of the motoring world. Everyone laughs at them, except themselves. The thing I currently laugh at is the massive "Motorsport sunstrip that obscures half the windscreen. "Motorsport", could it be any more pathetic?