American

Cowpuc, you keep saying Yamaha should have listened to you and put in a V-4, well Yamaha did that in every Venture they built up until this new one, I have to point out that those older V-4 equipped bikes just never did catch the world on fire, Yamaha did clinics to find out what the riding public really wanted and it was hands down an air cooled V-Twin. Some have been making unfounded comments about the longevity of this new V-Twin but there are documented cases of Yamaha's 113 cubic inch V-Twin in other bikes going well over 100,000 miles so longevity will likely not be a problem. I get it you are upset that Yamaha did not build another touring bike with a V-4 engine, the surveys did not support using the V-4 engine again so you were/are in the minority on that one, I am tickled pink with the power of this Yamaha 113 cubic inch V-Twin. I have yet to find myself wanting for power on this bike. Both my 2013 Victory Cross Country Tour and my 2016 Harley Davidson Ultra Limited Low had complete stage one set ups on them with turners and both of those bikes while they ran good have nothing on the stock off the show room floor Yamaha Star Venture. The 2018 Star Venture out preforms both of those bikes performance wise. Heck in my opinion this 2018 Star Venture out performs my old 1989 Honda GoldWing GL1500 as well.

Yet in the video you keep posting you are clearly heard saying at the 13 to 14 second mark "She seems pretty sporty man" as you are outside the power band accelerating up the on ramp. Imagine if you had ridden the bike and knew the proper power band what you would have said.

He is wrong on the weight issue as the Venture is easy to handle in parking lots and slow speed handling. Rattles? Don't know what he is talking about because mine has no rattles. As for Big V-Twin I have owned a Victory 106 ci V-Twin and a Harley Rushmore 103 ci twin cooled V-Twin and this Yamaha 113 ci is better than both of those V-Twins. Power delivery is better on the Yamaha then both the Victory and Harley V-Twins as well. As for the GoldWing he praises the suspension system yet we are now finding out there are problems with the GoldWing suspension right off the showroom floor. Further I posted a short Video from the internet that shows the front of both the 2018 GoldWing Tour and 2018 Star Venture sitting side by side and the Gold wing was down sized everywhere not just the storage, the GoldWing is going after the sport touring market not the long distance touring market with the 2018 GoldWing. Having owned a 1989 Honda GoldWing GL1500, 2013 Victory Cross Country Tour, 2016 Harley Davidson Ultra Limited Low and now this 2018 Yamaha Star Venture Transcontinental the Yamaha is hands down the best touring bike I have ever owned. Another thing not even a mention that the passenger and rider back rests are heated as well as the seats. He did not even say anything about the passenger being able to listen to their own music and make their own phone calls separate from the rider.

No free trial like you get with a new car or truck. I wish Sirius would offer the lifetime subscription again.

Mobil still makes full synthetic oils the problem is trying to figure out which ones are still full synthetic, i.e. group IV PAO/V ester. Mobil makes some very fine oils, Amsoil gets a bum rap as well because their API certified oils are group III hydro cracked conventional oil but the rest of their line up is still group IV PAO with some group V ester added. It has been a while since I did a lot of research on oil but in the past the Mobil One motorcycle oils were group IV PAO oils and not group III hydro cracked conventional oil, being they are used in air cooled engines both their 10w-40 and their V-Twin 20w-50 I don't see Mobil down grading their motorcycle line. Pennzoil is all GTL (gas to liquid) group III+, still not a lot of information on it outside of what Shell has released on it as Shell owns the patents on the GTL process and Shell owns Pennzoil. Shell synthetic's are also GTL group III+. Castrol when you can find the bottle made in Germany for their automotive oil I forget the weight of it was a full group IV PAO synthetic, it is the rest of the Castrol synthetic line up that is likely group III hydro cracked. Royal Purple API oil is Group III hydro cracked, that happened when Royal Purple was sold and the new owners wanted the API symbol on the bottles, the Royal Purple HPS series oil is still group IV PAO with group V ester added to it. I doubt Royal Purple motorcycle oils are group III hydro cracked but still their group IV/V formula due to them being used in air cooled engines. Redline is known for and advertises their group V ester base oils. Back to Mobil One it is the automotive versions they sell that are harder to figure out which ones are group III hydro cracked and which ones are group IV PAO.

Another way they steal you card information is when you are in line to pay at a store and you take out your card, most people think nothing of it and think no one can see it but the person behind you in line takes out their cell phone and acts like they are trying to read something on it and they are lifting the phone up high and to the side and all kinds of angles. What they are doing is taking as many photos of your card as they can so they can look at the photos to get your card number, expiration date, your name and the security code on the back of the card. My wife got hit that way in a Publix a few years back we filed a police report and I will be damned if the local police department did not sit there and call my wife a liar and try to insinuate that she made the bogus charges. Now understand that I was stationed in Miami at the time and it was a Miami Publix this happened at, my wife was living in Cape Coral in our home on the west coast of Florida. The Lee County Sheriffs department really did not want to do their job, I was with the Florida Highway Patrol at the time. Talk about pissed off I called them up and gave them a piece of my mind. Then when I transferred back to the west coast I was assigned to Naples and was a supervisor on Alligator Alley, so I was dealing with both the west coast and the east coast, one afternoon on the 3pm to 11pm shift I stopped in at an Outback steak house and ate dinner in Broward County on the east coast side (Ft. Lauderdale) I used my credit card. Well next thing you know I see a charge to Newegg .com so I contact Newegg and let them know it was a fraudulent charge, I contacted my credit card company and let them know, both Newegg and the credit card company asked me to file a police report so I went down to the Cape Coral police department and boy what a frigging run-a-round, they just like the local Lee Country sheriff did not want anything to do with the case and spit out 100 reasons why they can't do anything about it. I would be embarrassed to tell anyone that as a police officer myself at the time. In both cases the card companies made everything right but it pissed me off that Newegg refused to say who and where they sent the order they received to. All I could find out was that it was shipped to Ft. Lauderdale but they would not give up the address. I know it was the waiter in the Outback steak house that skimmed or used my credit card himself, I gave all that information to the police of where the card had last been used by me at and it was like a month or more since I had used that card so the Outback charge would have been the only correct charge on that card besides the fraudulent charge to Newegg. Our police departments are not as helpful as people think and that is coming from a retired police officer who put in 25 years on the job.

See post 41 as I break down cowpuc's own video he posted that refutes his claim the new Venture "they just don't dance" when his own words at the 13 to 14 second mark in his own video he clearly says "she seems pretty sporty man". Not only was cowpuc trying to rev the engine like a high RPM V-4 he was outside the power band for all of the acceleration run up the on ramp by staying at 4000 RPM and above for most of it. You can't rev this engine the same manner you rev your V-4 engines, they are two different beasts. Cowpuc was on a short demo ride that is controlled and he was/is unfamiliar with how this V-Twin engine runs, yet his own words in the video he posted would indicate he was pretty impressed with the Ventures acceleration even though he was outside the power band and treating it like he was still on his old V-4 bike. The number of miles cowpuc has put on a bike has nothing to do with his inexperience on how to ride this Venture. We all have to adjust when we get on a new bike.

Okay, just exactly what are you complaining about cowpuc? You never get below 3000 RPM until you are up to speed and in one part you did not drop below 4000 RPM, it has been pointed out you rode the bike like it was a high RPM engine like your V-4, and yet you continue to try and make the claim the new Venture has no power i.e. your comment about the new Venture "they just don't dance". Now for the really confusing part, in your own video at the 13/14 second mark while accelerating up the on ramp you clearly said "she seems pretty sporty man". Go back and look at your own video, you kept yourself within a narrow 750 RPM range before redline for much of that acceleration run. Redline for this engine is 4750 RPM and in the beginning of the video you kept the engine at 4000 RPM and above before you finally shifted into a gear that dropped the RPM's down below 3000 RPM. Maybe it would be better to just say it was a demo ride and I am not familiar with the new Venture's V-Twin and its power band. Again I have to point out you did say in the video at the 13 to 14 second mark "she seems pretty sporty man", now that sure does not sound like you were disappointed with the power at that point even though you were outside of the power band during your acceleration up the on ramp.

As I posted I am a huge fan of Liquid Glass, I have used Liquid Glass for years, sadly Liquid Glass is no more, or is it? Seems that MPT was distributing Liquid Glass and have taken over the formula under their own label called MPT Classic polish and finish. So anyone who has used Liquid Glass and thought it was gone can now get it under the MPT Classic Polish and Finish brand. https://www.amazon.com/MPT-MPT142-Classic-Polish-Finish/dp/B00FZRVG1A During my research I also found a product called Finish First that from what I have found out is also like Liquid Glass and the person who started Finish First was a partner in Liquid Glass but there was a falling out so this person started their own company and called it finish first. From what I have been about to find out Finish First may be the original Liquid Glass formula with no updates over the years. https://www.amazon.com/Liqui-Tech-Finish-First-Polish/dp/B00AX9E3OC/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_263_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=ADWDTM34T5KMB7NK7RXC&dpID=51io7-1Mz6L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=detail I have bought some MPT Classic Polish and Finish and some Finish First to compare them. I know the MPT is the liquid Glass formula that was on the market until it went off the market and MPT took it over under their own label. Finish First is the same style of can that Liquid Glass used and under its own label. At any rate if anyone was interested in trying Liquid Glass but found out it is no longer sold under the Liquid Glass name you can get it under the MPT Classic Polish and Finish brand and it is the Liquid Glass formula. I am going to use the Finish First on my 2016 Ram 2500 so I will let you know how it is as well. The Finish First is a little less expensive so that leads me to believe it is the original formula of Liquid Glass and the MPT Classic Polish and Finish is the latest update of the Liquid Glass formula before Liquid Glass was closed. Apparently the owner of Liquid Glass got into some legal trouble with a bank back in 2015 and that is what ended Liquid Glass under its own label, MPT had been the distributor for Liquid Glass so they decided to pick it up and packaged it under their own label instead of the Liquid Glass label, that may have been a legal issued of using the Liquid Glass name.

Hey I resemble that remark!!!!!!!:rotfl:

You hung out around redline far to long so you were past the power curve of the V-Twin, you don't have to redline these engines to get the power like you do with your overhead cam V-4 design that redlines much higher and makes its power in the higher RPM range. In your video you are showing a perfect case of rider error in not being familiar with the power curve of this engine. I can state from first hand ownership experience that this V-Twin will get you up to speed in no time and it pulls hard all the way. Pressing the mode button remaps the throttle system and sorry to say but it is not like the old quarter turn throttle trick, all the quarter turn trick did was shorten up how far you had to twist the throttle while remapping the throttle may sound similar there is more going on. I doubt any Yamaha engineer is going to reveal exactly what they did to the general public and if you are talking about the crew going around doing demo ride with the tractor trailer I highly doubt they are sending an engineer around with the demo ride crew. If you have been talking to a dealer tech take anything they say with a grain of salt, hell I knew next to nothing about the Star Venture and I knew more than anyone at the dealership selling them. What I have read on the mode button is that sport mode and tour mode are two different mappings, and since no one has done a dyno run in both modes heck they don't even reveal which mode they used for the dyno runs we really don't know if the sport mapping provide a little more power or not. The could very well produce the same power but due to how they are mapped sport mode is just more lively than tour mode which was designed to be more relaxed, so there is more going on then just a quarter turn throttle deal.

I will post here the results if a 1st gen ever catches me!

I am thinking they went with the over deliver method rather than claim 42 MPG like Harley does only to find out you have to work to get 40 MPG out of it. Yamaha stated 34 MPG but when you are hand calculating between 38 MPG and 41 MPG you are pretty satisfied while with the Harley you are hand calculating 38 to 40 MPG and Harley said you will get 42 MPG now you are darn it I missed it again. I rarely got the stated mileage on my Harley, while I have exceeded the stated mileage of my Yamaha every tank fill up. My best tank on the Yamaha Star Venture was 47 MPG and that was with the wind being light and in the perfect direction both coming and going on that lunch trip. I never got close to 47 MPG on my Harley or my 2013 Victory Cross Country Tour.

Don't tell anyone but we have planned a jail break at midnight!!!!

I guess this is one way to a make blue bike go faster, pull it with a red truck!

It is not so much the cost of fuel as these bikes take premium fuel but fuel mileage does play a role in how far you can go on a tank of fuel. 6 gallons x 41.7 = 250.2 miles with .6 of a gallon left in the tank. 6.5 gallons x 41.7 = 271.05 miles with just .2 of a gallon left. That is pretty good range. The day we got 47 MPG would come out to a range of 6.5 gallons x 47 = 305.5 miles with .2 gallons left.

It is what it is, but Yamaha rated the third generation at 34 MPG but I have been beating that big time. It would be nice to know what the third generation V-Twin is getting MPG wise from others. A lot of people see that 34 MPG and that scares them away, but this bike is capable of far better mileage than the 34 MPG Yamaha has listed it at. I got just over 47 MPG on one tank of fuel two up on a lunch trip with the wife, there was not much wind to speak of that day and it was an over one hundred mile round trip. I must say that this third generation has power, beauty, grace and it can get some damn good fuel milage to boot!

We would love to help you but we are all in jail and no one has come to bail us out. That streak that you noticed and that you heard was a third generation venture going by!!!

On a new third generation Venture if you are in sport mode and get on it and open your mouth the wind blows out your back side and your hair catches fire and any first or second generation Ventures in your path get tire tracks on them as you go flying by and you hope there are no police officers running radar because you will end up in jail!

I thought it would be nice to see what the owners of the new third generation Yamaha Star Venture are getting for fuel mileage. I filled up today, yes I was out in the tropical storm, bike handled great in the wind by the way, no rain yet. This tank was 90% rider & passenger 10% just rider. Fuel: Chevron Premium 93 octane. Miles: 175.5 Gallons: 4.204 MPG: 41.7 This Yamaha Star Venture Transcontinental is getting just a little better MPG then both my 2013 Victory Cross Country Tour and my 2016 Harley Davidson Ultra Limited Low got. The Victory and Harley both got 40 MPG and would touch 41 MPG now and than and on a real good tank of fuel 42 MPG. All three motorcycle were/are driven on the same roads in the same area and conditions so I am very pleased with the Yamaha Star Venture. If I run in a lot of head winds the mileage will drop down to the 37 to 38 MPG range but so would the Victory and Harley in those conditions. I now have 1,833 miles on the Yamaha Star Venture Transcontinental so it should be broken in engine wise now.

RED, seems red is the fastest color after all, sorry grey owners but you are forever stuck with sniffing our red bikes exhaust as we go by you. https://wonders.physics.wisc.edu/prisms/ Now I know why my last four motorcycles were all red, 1989 Honda GoldWing GL1500, 2013 Victory Cross Country Tour, 2016 Harley Davidson Ultra Limited Low and now this 2018 Yamaha Star Venture Transcontinental. So all you other colors can eat our Red dust!!!!

I decided to order two Dimple Magnetic Drain Plugs. I used Dimple drain plugs in my 2013 Victory Cross Country Tour and in my 2016 Harley Ultra Limited Low, the Victory is a shared sump system like the Yamaha. I will use the Dimple drain plugs to replace the two drain plugs on the engine case. I don't think I really need the third Dimple drain plug for the oil sump. http://www.drainplugmagnets.com The Yamaha oil drain plugs are M14 so I ordered two of the Dimple M14X1.5X16 as that is what most Yamaha's use on the dimple list for Yamaha. The service manual only shows the oil drain plug being an M14. I know on the Harley the primary Dimple drain plug always looked like it had a beard there was always so much metal on it, but that is normal for a Harley primary. I never had a problem with the primary on that Harley. The engine and transmission Dimple drain plugs always looked good and where clean and free of metal. My Victory being a shared sump design like the Yamaha would get just the smallest amount of material on it at each 5,000 mile oil change. The victory was also a gear driven primary like the Yamaha.

Final update: The payoff payment is now showing in the payment section of the HDFS web site and the balance is $0.00 Thank you to those who supported me on this matter, and for those who emailed or called the dealer as well. I made a contribution as I said I would to the forum via the contribution button and rounded it off to an even $75.00 dollars in support of this forum. Thank you again to everyone I think everything combined helped a great deal, it will not be forgotten.

Redline has not hidden anything by the way, they clearly state they are made with PAO and Ester base stocks, I already explained that seals will shrink with pure Ester synthetic, so it is not out of line to have PAO base stock with Ester base stock. PAO base stock causes seals to expand. The combination of PAO with Ester solves the problem of leaking seals due to shrinkage. Every group V ester based oil made has group IV PAO base stock in it. That is all I have to say about this, the argument has gotten silly. If you are not using Amsoil then we still don't know what oil you put in your Venture that you say stopped the gear whine. Not really understanding why it is such a big secret. The Redline 20w-50 I am running has quieted down my Venture, the top end mechanical sounds have been reduced and I don't hear the gear whine in mine. Just saying.