SEE
  RANKINGS
  BELOW

Based on HUNDREDS of surveys from Motorcycle Dealerships, Used Parts Dealers, and our own in-house sales activity, the following is an undisputed list of the most popular parts for motorcycles. 

TANKS & SEATS:  Tanks and seats are important because they are the most visual parts of a bike.  If you have a bad seat or tank, the rest of your bike looks bad.

CARBS & PETCOCKS:  Carburetors and Petcocks tend to fail, plug and leak after years of use.  Similarly, clutch cables are constantly in use while under heavy tension - they fail more often than any other cable on a motorcycle.

COILS, STATORS, & VOLTAGE REGULATORS: Without spark, your bike simply will not run.  Without "good" spark, your bike will not run well.  That's why 3 electrical items (Coil, Stator, & Voltage Regulator) are all in the top ten!

HANDLE BARS: Everyone has taken a spill on their bike and the Handle bars take the brunt of the fall.  The irritation of riding around with bent handle bars is what drives people to replace them, hence a top 10 rating.

WIRING HARNESS:  The wiring harness rounds out the top 10.  Based on customer surveys, there are 3 overwhelming reasons that brings up the demand in wiring harnesses.  First, when a novice has a dead battery, the first things he does is jump it with a running automobile.  Better yet, it's left jumped to the automobile with the hope that it will charge the battery.  By the time smoke is seen rising from down inside the frame, the damage has already been done to the wiring harness - a simple meltdown.   The next popular reason to replace a harness, is to simply start over clean, replacing a hopeless harness.  For some reason, amateur mechanics seem to think they can splice, trace and troubleshoot wiring on motorcycles - usually creating such a mess that the only real solution is to replace the whole harness.  Lastly, if you have a street or enduro bike from the 60's or 70's, the popular thing to do back then was to cut the main harness at the headlight and make a dirt bike out of it by removing all the extra electrical items (Headlight, Tailight, Turn Signals, etc.).  Have you ever seen this done to a bike?.....What a waste!

Ranking / Description (in order of the most requested):

1    Seat 
2    Carburetor
3    Gas Tank
4    Clutch Cable
5    Petcock
6    Ignition Coil
7    Handle Bars
8    Alternator - Stator
9    Voltage Regulator
10  Wiring Harness
11  Throttle Cable
12  Right Hand Switch
13  Ignition Switch w/Key
14  Headlight
15  Exhaust System
16  Alternator Rotor
17  Rear Fender
18  Tailight Unit
19  Kickstart Lever
20  Rear Shocks
21  Headlight Bucket
22  Sprocket - Rear
23  Front Forks
24  Rear Wheel & Tire
25  Flasher Unit

UPDATE:  During September of 2005, we finished another survey.  Our verifiers only reported on the top 10 results.  The remained UNCHANGED!  The Voltage Regulator and Wiring Harness were tied with reported sales of 462 items each.  These values reflect combined sales for selected Dealers, Aftermarket Internet Suppliers and our own In-house Sales results.  Since they were tied, the ranking remains unchanged.  Just like Heavyweight Boxing Championship fights, you need to clearly beat your opponent to advance.