so being an all weather rider who rides to work everyday, i wonder how many miles can a sportster get before a major overhaul or rebuild. how many miles have you guys put on one sportster?

 

My '85 883 had 126,000+ on it when I sold it in 1997. The guy who bought it is still riding it. It was never rebuilt while I had it, and don't think he has rebuilt it because he says that it is burning oil, and he has to clean the plugs every couple of months. I don't know how many miles he has on it now. If I see him riding it, I'll try to stop him to check the mileage and report back. Even if he has only put a 1,000 miles per year on it in the last 15 years, that would still put it at 140,000+.

 

That is good numbers, my friend has a 1971 sporty he barely rides anymore but before the mileage indicator broke back in 93' he had 122,872 miles on it, the speedo works so he never replaced it and he has had zero major work done to it, still runs good..

 

there is a guy over on the xlforums that has a newer one with an nrhs upgrade that has 100,000 miles on it. the post is under the nrhs section.

 

Just sold my stock 04 883 that I put 44k miles on from new. Bike ran great still. Good maintenance is key. Question is what type of person puts alot of miles on a sportster, and keeps it for years.

 

A customer of mine has a 2005 Sporty 1200 with 80,000 miles on it. We just did the top end gaskets and repainted it recently, but other than that, he hasn't had any problems with it.

 

He is probably out riding another Iron Butt Rallyand too busy to se this but cacomly put 200,000 on a Sportster and had to repair the engine due to oil starvation but it continues. He put up a picture of his speedo showing 260,000 miles.

 

The oil starvation on cacomly's 200,000 mile Sporty was caused by an oil bottle seal that fell into the oil tank when adding oil and then prevented oil flow to the oil pump , not a mechanical problem.

 

Thank you. I remember the picture of the internals forgot the exact cause.

 

Isn't cacomly's well over 300,00 miles now?

My only Sportster concern is the clutch pack, which I preventatively plan on changing out, but other than that I have faith in these. 2017, 32,000 miles and counting.