Reason not to buy a Ural?

I like the ural chair but if I bought the whole rig I'd put a BMW boxer in the frame.

I've heard that long term reliability on late model Urals is pretty good at max 4,000 rpm's which should be about 55 mph cruise (from a fellow with 75,000+ kilometers with minimal internal engine work - final drives are another matter tho).

So much misinformation is prevalent when talking about late model Urals, as is the case (and probably always will be) with Harleys. Ural has come a long way, especially in the past few years, to the point where I recently announced on the now defunct factory forum that a 2012 Retro combo is now good enough to become the sole rig for me, displacing my HD Road Glide. With 33yrs riding under my belt on several different makes and models (with an admitted favourable bias towards Harley), this was not some flippant comment made by a rookie. Finances, however, won't permit such a purchase so the Road Glide is getting a Texas Sidecar and my Ural itch will be scratched by taking customer's rigs out for test drives after servicing.

Much of the improvements in Urals have come about since 07, with a lot of the traditional weak points being outsourced to quality vendors such as Brembo, Ducati, SKF, Nippon-Denso, and so on. The heart of the beast, though, is still very much Russian and it excels at low speed grunt work over rough terrain, which is exactly what it was designed to do. The exception being the Retro, of course, which is purely intended for use as a highway model with its nice 18" Heidenau tires and 3.89 final drive gearing. Knock the chair off and this bike will cruise at 65mph all day long and is capable of 120kmh+ top speed, but this is the only Ural that can do that. The rest are designed to haul everything/everyone you own at 90-95kmh all day long.

That last point is one that North Americans seem to have a problem comprehending and is the source of all the bad rep. Many people refuse to believe and/or outright ignore factory and dealer warnings that the Tourist, Patrol and Gear-Up models are not capable of extended high speed operation. The various owners forums are full of threads about people trying to find a magic elixir that will give Corvette performance on the highway and retain the off-road performance that Ural is known for. Truth is, that just ain't gonna happen. The bike is not and, unless a completely new water cooled motor and redesigned transmission/final drive magically appears from the factory, will never be capable of that. Until people come to grips with this simple fact Ural will continue to have an undeserved bad reputation floating about the internet. Simply put, people who put BMW motors in late model Urals are totally missing the point (and the reverse gear). People who insist on running the bike fully loaded and with the throttle pinned are missing the point. People who read the owners manual, follow the scheduled maintenance requirements and, if needed, keep a second bike/rig for high speed touring duty DO get it.

Don't ask an Ural to do what it isn't designed to do and it will reward you with many, many happy miles of three wheeled adventure.