What should my yearly maintenance budget be if I get a 70s Harley Davidson Sportster Will it be cheaper than the gas bill on a 01 Dodge Ram?

::eye roll::

70's Sportster = AMF. I wouldn't do it.

You don't want to get an old sportster dude, get a newer one with an Evo motor. Or a softy.

Depends on what your gas bill is and how much you really want to get to where your going.

Harley's are notoriously troublesome bikes. Work on it for a week, ride it 50 miles, work on it another week.

Have you not noticed that these Harley gangs haul their bikes up to their rally's in the back of trucks? The reason they do that is because they wouldn't get there riding their bike.

The ones that do try to ride their Harley's to a meet leave a month early so they can work on them as they go. When you see 50 Harley's outside a bar, it isn't because they wanted a beer, its because most of those bikes broke down and they are waiting until night time to work on them, that way nobody sees how big a fool they were to spend $20,000 on a pretty piece of junk.

Your not thinking right! If you are asking a question like that in here: you can't do a great deal of work on a 70's Harley.

Let me put it this way: I have a friend that 'just had to have a used Harley' He lost the motor far away from home. He elected to have HD factory rebuild the motor.... it ran North of $7,000 and took three months, four different freight legs; two with an empty shipping crate

For that amount of money you can buy a small brand new Japanese motorbike and it will use less gas than the Harley, take less for tires, less for parts, less for insurance, less for taxes. Displacement for displacement it will vastly outperform the Harley. Have a vastly more spacious riding envelope compared to any HD, outmaneuver, have less trouble, and have far better brakes! A stock 250 Ninja will out run your stock 88cid 750cc Sportster.

Any Jap bike will make it to 60,000 miles... that's a difficult bet on a Harley.... I don't even like riding along with them for break downs.... among other reasons. that require riding at least 1/4 mile away.

A '70s' Harley comes from the AMF years... the worst of the worst... so bad the Harley Davidson almost went the way the Indian Motorcycle went in the late 50's ...History hangs it's head: and Hardly a Ferguson still hobbles on.

Too many variables.

Rebuilding the engine can get pricey if you don't have the ability to do most of the labor yourself.

Depends on what shape it was in when you bought it. 70s Harleys were very good bikes---they are much better now, so you might think about a newer Sportster.

WTF, are you that stupid,1 insurance is a quarter of the cost 2.you get 50mpg on the bike compared to 10 to 12 on the truck.Plus who the hell knows what your going to spend,