Yep. Your prolly right about the Harley.

 

its your bike you can do whatever you want. Keeping a bike clean is not that difficult or time consuming. Takes me less than 2hrs to do a full detail to my SG. On a rainy day wash, polish and wax the bike. Not talking about bike show quality cleaning either. Do that again on another rainy day months down the road. Do a 10-20 minute wipe down with a quick detailer once a week.

 

Completely different, but often closely related. Lack of maintenance on the outside (for whatever reason) brings to question the same lack of maintenance on the not so visible inside. It's been said that you can't judge a book by it's cover, but I believe the "majority" of us would agree that a poorly maintained exterior would indicate the mechanicals were treated with the same respect.

 

My RK's 14 months old and hasn't seen a drop of water that hasn't fallen out of the sky, I here you.

She gets a detail spray wipe down every few weeks but I don't get showroom crazy on them anymore.

 

Simple Green isn't harsh. The key to this product is using lots of rinse water. If you don't, it will leave a dull film behind. I only use Simple Green as a degreaser. (Dawn dish soap works well too.) I don't use Simple Green on painted parts because it strips wax. I use car wash solution. I've tried em' all and they're all the same, so I buy the cheapest one I can find. Spending extra for a car wash solution with carnuba is a waste if you use polish or wax your bike.

 

My 1996 BMW has no chrome and hardly ever gets washed and waxed. It gets ridden in the rain and put away wet. The bug splatter seems to degrade its paint finish and the stainless steel exhaust headers have corroded.

In comparison, my 2004 Harley Fat Boy has been washed and waxed a lot. It's never been ridden in the rain. The paint and chrome finish is nearly flawless.

The point is, if one cares more about how a bike looks then the bike and rider will miss out on a lot of riding opportunities

 

This is one reason there are so many clean, low mileage bikes in the classifieds. I only buy used so I have no problem with these folks. LOL!

 

Car paint, motorcycle paint = same.

 

I have never put a hose to any of my bikes. There are too many places pressurized water should not get to. I used Simply Green car wash in a bottle....Meguires has a no water wash. I use that on the Spider and bikes. Because of the conv top drains, I don't want water getting to them unless I get caught in the rain the engine and ain which has not happened yet.

 

Many companies out there that make waterless wash, also in the concentrate form. Spend $17 and I can make gallons of it