Triumph Speed Triple or Speed Four?

http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/clasqm/triumph.html

www.t595.net

Don't own an S3 or S4, but do have a Triumph Daytona. If you are looking at buying new wait until they announce the '05 models, the S3 is supposed to get the full-horsepower triple (147 hp) like my Daytona has. If used, try to get a 2000 or newer Speed Triple, they have a slightly larger engine than the earlier models.

The Speed 4 is certainly affordable and has very good performance from what I've read. Motorcyclist magazine had a comparison between the small Jap naked bikes a few months ago, and separated the Speed Four from them intentionally. They stated that from a performance standpoint, the S4 was considerably better than any of them.

BTW, you can usually buy Triumphs under MSRP from my own experience and looking around at online ads. The only downside is that resale sucks and trade-in is worse. A friend traded his Daytona last year and lost 50%, it was a year old and not even broken-in. Last year an MV dealer wouldn't even talk about trading my Daytona, 8 months old with about 1500 miles on it.

 

For $5k you could almost buy a brand-new leftover Speed 4. I've recently seen 2003 bikes at a dealership in Chattanooga,TN for about $5600. Two year unlimited mileage warranty.

You could definitely find a '98 or '99 Speed Triple in that price range.

Reliability of the newer Triumph triples has been pretty good. If you look at the frame and engine cases, they appear overbuilt and able to take a direct hit from a 500# bomb without being damaged. In my personal experience it has been little niggling things which have went wrong rather than any major flaw in the design. Speedometer reeading zero, leaking fuel fittings, and an oil leak from the countershaft sprocket area have been my headaches. You can always find examples online of people whose clutch explodes or they hole a piston. It may happen, but after looking at the huge clutch in my Daytona I wonder how much abuse they piled on before breaking. There are many examples of the reborn Triumphs with 50,000 miles or more with no major problems.

Overall these are very underrated bikes, but have greater reliability than most other European brands. They are pretty rare as well, which for me is a plus. I've never seen another