2011 Lifan offerings in the USA

[euphonius]

Pretty funny, MJH. I'm guessing maybe you were the sole respondent?

cheers

[MJH]

Pretty funny, MJH. I'm guessing maybe you were the sole respondent?

cheers

Not me...it was closed when I got to it...

[CantDecide]

the GY-5 is a 200cc air cooled engine, the GY-7 is a water cooled 250cc

I thought that was the case, but MJH's initial post calls it the LF250 GY-5, so I was confused. I would definitely consider the standard or the GY-7 if I could find one in New England.

[MJH]

I changed it…the GY-5 is the mainstay in the Lifan models, 200cc, 163FML engine on the newer bikes are all over head cam the older OHV…came in blue and red mostly with a big 5 on them.

[MJH]

The GY7 and the LF250-19 may show up eventually….when they do they may or may not be priced realistically. The new GY-5 may or may not be priced realistically either, the current versions sold for under $2,000.00 new and most people picked theirs up for less then that.

Lifan stopped selling the bikes to online vendors and in what they called a crack down. But dealers can and do ship the bikes. If you are in Boston then there is dealer in Hyannis….http://www.jmrhondasuzuki.com/
That dealer also offers Qlink and they cost more and are consider better bikes all around. Qlink may eventually be offering a 250cc model that all of us have been waiting on…an actual 250cc single with four valves and 20hp. The Lifan water cooled GY-7 is suspect too many…more power but it has not been proven yet other versions of the water cooled have not been received that well…people would rather have an air cooled then a Chinese water cooled as in less to break and in that less to have to try to find parts for.

[MJH]

Lifan is expanding….

Its my opinion that a distributor that has multiple centers does better…Lifan now has two one in Texas and another in Southern California and plans to open a third in Florida. That’s smart logistics creating shorter distances between centers and dealers.

[moilami]

Saw them in ChongQing at the show...





Seems that Lifan has some interesting stuff, but I don't think any of it is available in China. Man, their websites and photo's are so bad, at least make the stuff look good.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Thanks of these pics, the official Lifan pics are terribad crap - and some propeller head has even "watermarked" one

[culcune]

The GY7 and the LF250-19 may show up eventually….when they do they may or may not be priced realistically. The new GY-5 may or may not be priced realistically either, the current versions sold for under $2,000.00 new and most people picked theirs up for less then that.
Qlink may eventually be offering a 250cc model that all of us have been waiting on…an actual 250cc single with four valves and 20hp. The Lifan water cooled GY-7 is suspect too many…more power but it has not been proven yet other versions of the water cooled have not been received that well…people would rather have an air cooled then a Chinese water cooled as in less to break and in that less to have to try to find parts for.

I hope the new and improved GY-5 remains the mainstay at a good price. I believe the GY-7 is OEM'd by Shineray (if I remember, Hi-Bird and Shineray manufacture for Lifan--kind of difficult to pin down who manufactures what )

I wonder if Qlink's 250 will simply be Qingqi's 250? I had received teaser up-coming product photos from Qlink last summer, and they showed the Shineray water-cooled 250 motard and enduro called the XF250 and XP250 in their photos.

However, CCW will have the Qingqi 250 (I hope they use the Suzuki-derived engine!), so not sure if there will be US exclusivity deals going on or what. I do remember Crazy Carl mentioning a few years ago that Qingqi was not happy with their deal with Qlink , but that was when Johnny Tai was the head guy at Qlink's US operations, so perhaps there was some personal issues between Tai and Qingqi??

What I am happy with is that the GY-5 looks to be improved, and it was a good bike in its old form. The 250 street bike looks sporty enough. The 250 cruiser looks high-quality to compete with the entry level bikes (I used to work with a guy who lived in Mexico and commuted to work in Arizona with me) who had a Suzuki 250 cruiser, and he paid $4k for it).

I wish Lifan luck. I hope they become more professional as they mature here. There was a lot of issues with them a few years back as a company. Remember how they were literally laughing at people who had bought "non-American Lifan" GY-5 bikes and couldn't register them and would not allow parts to be sold for them or other "non-American Lifan" bikes? I remember another issue was when they, themselves had 'dumped' a bunch of GY-2 bikes to another districutor, which were American Lifan bikes and admitted as such, and people could not register those, and AL washed their hands and would not help those people, either, although they were not laughing at them (not publicly at least).

AL look promising.

[Gardo]

Culcune - CCW manufactures at Rhon using the lifan 250 Single Cyl which is based on the Honda CG200-250 OHV pushrod. The bikes are totally proprietary, unlike the Johnny Pag bikes.

[culcune]

Culcune - CCW manufactures at Rhon using the lifan 250 Single Cyl which is based on the Honda CG200-250 OHV pushrod. The bikes are totally proprietary, unlike the Johnny Pag bikes.

Their Hooligun chassis seems to be Qingqi-sourced; however I have seen other 'manufacturers' sites who offer what look to be the Qingqi but not with the Suzuki-based engine; probably a Qingqi chassis with another engine. CCW show the 125 Hooligun without the Suzuki-based engine offered for Europe. So, Gardo, you might have pointed out something--they will throw in their own engine into a Qingqi chassis. I am still crossing my fingers for the Suzuki-based engine....