I’ve owned a 2011 Kawasaki Concours for just over 2 years now and have put about 10k miles on it. I realize that that’s not a lot but it’s enough for me to have a good idea of it. I’m going to list all the things that I think are “bad” about this bike first but I still own and ride it so I’ll explain why I’m not selling it if it’s so bad towards the end.
This is my first proper touring bike. Before this I used to tour on my ’08 Yamaha FZ1, which was a great do-it-all bike. After getting into track riding, I decided I want to have two different bikes for two different purposes.
Let me start by saying I bought my bike used with a couple aftermarket bits on it so I won’t be able to comment on how the stock bike is to live with compared to what I have (I got to do a short test ride on the stock bike so I’ll write about that). I also won’t be able to tell you about how it compares to the FJR1300 or the ST1300 as I didn’t test ride those. This is not a “shootout” where I compare all the similar bikes in stock form and tell you they’re all great. Nobody’s lending me stock bikes to go ride to my heart’s desire. I’m just a guy with a bike.
What I will be able to talk about are the issues I had with the bike and that should be a good indicator whether you can feel comfortable buying it or not. This is all the maintenance I’ve done to it since buying it at 30,000 miles. The 24k service is what I was told by the previous owner.
You’ll notice towards the end, there’s a time frame where I didn’t put any miles on it and there’s a bunch of entries about brakes and clutch. After going to Texas and back from Atlanta, I was hearing a hissing sound from the front when I brake (which is normal) but it wouldn’t stop once I let go of the brakes, as if the brakes are dragging. At 40k miles, I figured it was worth it to replace the brake caliper seals. After doing the job, I had trouble getting the front to bite like it used to. I started to slowly eliminate all possible culprits by changing the master internals, changing the calipers with used ones from eBay, in case I marked the new seals somehow. Bled it in 4–5 different ways and finally got a decent brake feel. This got followed by noticing a leak on the clutch slave cylinder when changing fluid which would explain the notchy feeling of the clutch lever. Upon changing that, the notchy feeling didn’t go away so I went ahead and replaced the master internals on the clutch side as well. This finally cured the notchy feeling. For now at least.
Everyone online will tell you 42k miles is nothing for this bike and that is true for the engine. Engine seems to be as good as ever, however 9 years and 42k miles on stuff that’s exposed to brake fluid is a different story. Not to mention the ABS/Linked Brake system that requires a lot of fluid to go through very tiny tubes that lay horizontally, perfect for air to get trapped.. I’m sure if you had a shop do all this work, it would’ve gone more smoothly which brings me to my first “bad”.
This bike is difficult to work on
While this is true for all the bikes in its class, it is something to keep in mind, even if you don’t work on your bikes yourself. You may not be the one to take off all the fairings and the gizmos in the way to reach the engine for something as simple as a spark plug replacement, but you will be the one paying for all those hours. I did the valve adjustment on this bike myself and it took me 8 hours over 2 days to reach the engine from both sides to be able to get to the valve cover using power tools.
Combining this with the common valve cover and camshaft position sensor leaks, it can be annoying to have to take apart a bunch of stuff to replace these parts. To be fair, you can reach the camshaft position sensor without removing the fairings but it’s still scary to have to lean on the fairings hoping they won’t crack.
Linked Brakes are Frustrating
I personally really like having ABS on the bike but the linked brakes are frustrating. There’s two modes to the linked brakes, highway and mountain. Mountain mode is supposed to be the less intrusive linked brake feel and it’s what I use all day every day but it’s still very unpredictable.
There are a lot of bikes today that have linked brakes and some do a fantastic job of not letting the user know when the other end starts braking. The Concours is not one of them. Get ready for the bike to all of a sudden apply way more brake pressure while you’re braking a steady amount. One other weird behavior is if you press the rear brake, the front brake lever will firm up. Same happens if you start by applying the fronts, the rear brake pedal will become harder, it’ll get rid of that initial slack in the lever or pedal.
While this sounds really annoying and you might be wondering why in the world they sell a bike that brakes violently without prior notice, it’s not that big a deal if you’re on a road trip. I could see it getting very very frustrating at the race track which I don’t go on with my bike. It takes a minute but you learn to not engage one side with the other or if you do, it can be a little more predictable at least.
Tire Pressure Monitoring System is a PITA
Kawasaki in their infinite wisdom decided that they’re going to have a TPMS monitor on the dash, which is a really good idea, it tells you if you have a puncture before you lose so much air that you might have an unplanned dismount.
However, the way they implemented the system is quite depressing. When one of your sensors is low on battery, it lets you know by taking over the entire dash (minus engine temp and fuel) and not letting you see any other info. The answer is to go to the dealer and have them replace the sensor which costs around $250 and needs to be programmed to your ECU. So even if you bought the unit yourself and replaced it at home, your ECU won’t recognize it, you must go to an authorized service.
The smart people who like to DIY decided to open up the sensor to see if they can replace the battery as the dealership will throw it in the trash anyways, so why not. They realized you can solder new batteries to the sensors and keep using the same sensors. Kawasaki must’ve heard about this as they put silicone on top of the battery in their update to this part to make it harder for the DIY’er to DIY without ruining the sensor itself.
Mine has the older generation sensors so I’m happy I don’t have to deal with silicone or dealerships to know how much PSI is in my tires. The readings aren’t super accurate either, usually off by ~2 PSI, which isn’t a huge deal.
It’s a BIG MOFO
You can look at how heavy it is online. It’s heavy. It’s kind of a hassle to move about in the city. I find myself planning where I’m going to stop and put my feet, also due to how tall the RDL(explained below) is. I’ve seen someone drop their Concours at the Tail of the Dragon. They rode the 11 miles with a jillion curves back and forth multiple times. But they lost their footing coming to a stop in the parking lot. Once this bike starts leaning, it’s difficult to hold it. I had my wife jump off the back and help push it back up once. But my bike came with a cage so hopefully when I drop it next, I won’t crack the fairings.
08/09 vs. 2011+
There is two “generations” to the Concours 14. The first couple years with optional ABS and no linked brakes and the later years with both ABS and linked brakes standard. 2010 model year is a little complicated so I’m going to ignore it. One of the main differences is that people who own the 08/09 bikes complain about lots of heat reaching their legs and body from the bike as they ride, which you can eliminate by buying an aftermarket stick on padding kit or something like that to deflect the air.
Aftermarket Bits and Pieces
My bike came with a couple aftermarket bits and pieces which is one of the reasons I bought my specific bike. Just for clarity, I bought it for $5400 in 2018 with 30k miles on it. Was it a good deal, I don’t know but I’m glad I got it as I’d been wanting to try out the Concours for a while so this was the perfect opportunity for me to do so.
My favorite aftermarket thing on the bike is the Russell Day Long seat (RDL for short). This is the most comfortable motorcycle seat I’ve ever sat on. It makes riding long distance without many stops bearable.
Second favorite aftermarket bit is the Helibars Horizon handlebars. They offer way more adjustability than the stock bars, and are regular cylindrical handlebars unlike the stock bars so I can put my Ram mount on it. The RDL is significantly taller than the stock seat so combining it with these handlebars allow me to be comfortable with my arms, no matter my height.
The TwoBrothers slip on wouldn’t have been my first choice but I’ve grown to like it, mostly because it’s not too loud. I always thought TwoBros was one of the loudest brands out there, but not for this bike. It certainly looks better than the stock potato launcher, and it doesn’t bother me riding for hours and hours. Just to give an example, the stock R1200GS exhaust annoys me on the interstate. I’m certainly much happier with this compared to that.
Last aftermarket bit I’m going to write about is an ECU flash. If you search Google for “Concours ECU flash”, you’ll notice that mostly two names come up. One is Ivan who has been flashing bikes for a very long time now. Before ECU flashing, he had jet kits for bikes. He has made a lot of bikes run better than how they come out of the factory from what I’ve heard first hand. I have never ridden a bike with his flash on it so I can’t comment.
The second name you’ll run across is Steve Sefsick who owns/runs Shoodaben Engineering. He is very popular among the Concours crowd and offers multiple different flashes for different riding styles (don’t know if Ivan does that). I didn’t decide to go with one over the other. My bike came with Steve’s Evolution flash which is an older flash no longer offered. If I wanted Ivan’s flash, that would mean I have to send my ECU to Steve so he can “undo” his flash as the ECU is locked with a password by whoever does the flash. I believe they do this to prevent others from seeing their fuel maps or something. Long story short, it was cheaper for me to upgrade my flash. But the new flash definitely helped with the on/off throttle jerkiness that most fuel injected Japanese motorcycles of the 2000s have.
I got a chance to ride a stock Concours14, also 2011 model this past weekend thanks to a buddy of mine who rode down from New Jersey to say hi. I got to ride his bike and mine back to back on the twisty roads near the Tail of the Dragon. The seating position with the aftermarket seat and handlebars is much comfier than stock. The stock has a slightly sportier seating position whereas my bike lets you lean back a little bit. Mine feels more like controlling a podracer from Star Wars. Below picture is how it looks. Two things I noticed about power delivery (ECU Flash vs. stock) is that my bike has less engine braking, and a smoother on/off throttle response. Both make riding in the mountains much more enjoyable.
Why You Should Buy It, Seriously
First things first, it’s cheap. Used bikes can be found around 15k miles for around $5k, $4k if it’s the first couple years, depending on where in the US you live. After that, you will have to do some math based on the add-ons and mileage and so forth.. It’s a lot of bike for $5k. It is quite comfortable and loves munching miles, it’s just so effortless going straight for long hours. It’s not the lightest bike out there but it rides quite well on curvy roads (ideally on bigger diameter curves than the Dragon). Electric windshield is pretty cool. Factory heated grips are nice. The dash is nothing fancy but it gives you all the info you need. It doesn’t have cruise control, but unless you’re willing to spend the money for a certain German manufacturer, you’re going to have to make do with throttle locks.
The main thing I like about it is the fact that the engine is strong and bulletproof. Once you get to live with a couple bikes, especially ones with mileage higher than 10k, you’ll notice that all bikes have certain annoying or fragile “quirks”. For a good example, you can Google “FZ1 rotorsplosion”. Overall, the engine itself seems pretty bulletproof aside from minor oil leaks which can be fixed with oversized o-rings readily available thanks to the DIY community. Considering the engine is the “heart” of a motorcycle, if the heart is fine, the rest I can usually work on/fix.
As mentioned above, I can’t tell you how this bike compares to similar bikes out there. But I can tell you if you’re willing to deal with all mentioned above, Concours is a pretty safe bet in terms of reliability. Aftermarket and forum support is pretty decent. There’s many examples out there with well over 100k miles which is quite impressive. But keep in mind that while the engine and drivetrain is ready for many miles, the rubber bits might need some attention every once in a while.
Update on the Brakes
I finally figured out what was wrong with the brakes and it wouldn’t have been an issue if I paid a shop to do it for me in the first place. After having a spongy brake lever for a couple months, I decided to try to fix it. I was going to try 2 things, and if it didn’t work, I was going to take it to a shop. First thing was to bleed the lines properly. Got an air compressor operated brake bleeder from Harbor Freight and bled everything using that. That did not fix my problem so the second step was to rule the idiot out (I’m the idiot). This whole thing started when I decided to rebuild the calipers. So I swapped the calipers one by one with used ones from eBay, and I finally have a rock hard lever after bleeding with the compressor bleeder. Must’ve butchered something during caliper rebuild. Bike’s a joy to ride again.
While maybe I shouldn’t have touched the brake system to begin with. When I started tending to the clutch system, the master and slave were both leaking air into the system for sure. Now that all the hydraulics in the front end are fresh, I can enjoy trouble free miles without having to pay a shop. It was an expensive lesson but I learned a lot about bleeding brakes and I feel much more comfortable tackling a brake job next time.
