VFR400R a decent bike?

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About to get the first big bike and have been offered a VFR400R thats been done up. Its a grey import with 42K km's and has been done up by a local bike guru so no problems with the quality of the work. Has has new discs, fluids, chain/sprocket, new brake lines, high spark unit and a kph to mph converter.

Panels are a bit scruffy but thats to be expected from a bike of this age.

og8PR.jpg


My question is if this is a decent bike from a reliability standpoint? From reviews I have read its an incredibly hood bike in the handeling department.

Has anyone here owned one, this is a 93 or 94 model if that helps, and if so was it a good bike for you?

Cheers
 
Love the look of these, if I had a big garage I'd own one. There's a buying guide for the 4 main 400cc bikes in MCN maybe last week? I think they said it's fairly reliable if looked after well but costs more than the others due to scene tax.
 
Go like **** off a hot greasy shovel I'm led to believe. CBR400 is another awesome choice for a 400 rocket though.
 
Love, LOVE these little things! They corner so well and are a barrel of fun to do so!

Honestly, grab one if you can. I rode one for a month or so and was scraping plastic at every chance I got.
 
i think they have geared cams instead of cam chain so ultra reliable

idk if imports are higher insurance?
 
the insurance is the same as on my cbr125!

just need to finish the mod2 and then sell the cbr for this. and buy some paint for those god awful orange wheels! back to white i think.
 
jessjess said:
the insurance is the same as on my cbr125!

just need to finish the mod2 and then sell the cbr for this. and buy some paint for those god awful orange wheels! back to white i think.
Click to expand...

have em powder coated,£60 for both wheels,itll be tougher than paint
 
With things like this you buy them if they are mint, low mileage examples and you take them out every now and again and have a little fun with them.

Tatty examples that havent been looked after are best left alone.
 
I think I read an article by Richard hammond about these. It made me want a bike quite bad.
Do they have somekind of crazy kick when they go past a certain rev's?
 
Mates got a rvf400 and that is really nice. Sweet handing,best noise ever!

Other mate got the cbr400 and that's the same (sitting at 99000k,yes that's right) about to go around the clock again.

Am led to believe they are restricted behind the clocks

This might already have been done for you (grey import all have them)

Still cracking bike
 
RVF's are gorgeous. What I wouldn't give for a 750.

VFR posted looks a bit scruffy to be honest, its had a replacement lower fairing on it so its possibly been down the road - there are better examples around, but it all depends on what you want to pay. :)
 
Are they good bikes ? No they are ******* Awesome bikes. :cool:

As for reliability that will be down to how it's been looked after in the past & how you look after it whilst in use, If all good then you have no worrys. Awesome first bike in my opinion. (As long as you are pretty small)
 
A lot of the 400's are actually the same insurance cost of 600's (if not more)

My personal opinion would be go for something more modern as knowledge is more readily available then, along with parts.

I'd get insurance quotes on it first though, as insurers won't like that it's an Import
 
Awesome little bikes. Ex wife had one. Was a great laugh and handled superbly. Find a nice one is hard and they are tricky to work on (you need small hands, my great big hands couldn't get in the little spaces)

She had a repsol Honda paint job that later got a custom respray as it was a bit tatty. I'll try and dig out the pics.

Again. Awesome awesome bike

Edit

Found em

vfr400-side.jpg


Spray job I designed based on zx12r
DSCF0006.jpg
 
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the tattyness of it wont be an issue, plan to redo all the plastics myself. i'd say 26k miles is fairly low miles for a mid 90's bike.

will be replaced by a ninja 6 at some point when i have a couple of years NCB to lower the cost to a more reasonable level. plus some proper on road experience of a big bike.

4T5 i'm not the smallest but coming from a cbr125 i am sure that size will not be an issue for me!

Yarwood i have done quotes and its the same as my cbr125 with me declaring it an import so no problems there. from reading up on the bike most of the vfr 4's are imports according to various sites.
 
They're awesome bikes, but are also quite small so give it a quick ride before going for it, personally I'm only 5'8 and if I werent such a fat git it'd fit perfectly :p

I bought mine for the road originally, fairly n00bish rider coming from an FZR400 and it felt absolutely tiny, but the handling was clearly in a completely different league, the FZR had more of a kick to the power (and I believe is slightly more powerful at peak, like the ZXR) whilst the vfr just had a flat spread of torque that made it nicer to ride in general.

Since then I've done some racing on it (with some major mods, obviously) and reliability wise the only failures I've had are a coil and a clutch, so nothing major. And with some mods to the suspension the handling is even more epic, it's great as stock but the race bike is just fantastic, better than my Daytona 675 was imo.

As mentioned they're gear driven cams and the engines themselves are pretty bullet proof, the main problems I've read about recently have been pipes perishing due to age (things like a vacuum pipe that ensures the fuel valve doesn't open when the engine isn't running), but the main problem is the charging system which is very prone to failure, but both regulator/rectifiers (uprated) and stator coils are fairly easily available should you have an issue.

I don't really find them that awkward to work on, but can be a bit tight until you find the 'right' way to get to stuff.

It's an old bike but there's no reason to say that it'll be unreliable, there's not really that much that can go wrong :)

There's a good forum, technically dedicated to 400 imports but seems overrun by VFR owners:
http://www.400greybike.info/forum/index.php

But basically do it, great bikes, imo 400's in general are a great size bike for the roads, they're light and generally handle well (the vfr very very well, but the others aren't bad) and they've got enough power to be fun without ever being a problem, the 600's are nice and all but even with them it's hard to have fun under the speed limit really.
 
I had one for about 18 months. Brilliant bike. Bit cramped on long journeys, but being 6' 2" didnt help. Find the stickiest tyres you can. Mine had Bridgestone BT090's fitted, dunno if they make em any more though.
I changed the gearing as well, dropped 1 at the front, went up 1 on the back. Lost the top end but it went like a scolded cat. Stock they are good for 60mph in first. I also fitted a set of PFM cast iron rotors that i had for my VTR1000F.


DSC_3124 by spg_mutts, on Flickr
 
i echo as above. ive got a nc21 vfr400 that i bought for 200 that had been sat for 12 years. took a week of fiddling with new plugs, carbs cleaned and brakes stripped and went through mot with only the collector needing replacing which was epensive but bike stands me at 650 ish and has done 18000 miles. superb fun and ive had hayabusas, fire bladed, ducatis ect and its up there with all for fun.
 
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