I’m going tomorrow to look at a used 2002 Suzuki SV650 and to maybe buy it. The bike has 10,000 miles on it. The owner has convinced me that the majority of these miles where put on on the highway with long interstate, overnight road trips. I believe him based on the mods he has made to the bike - heated hand grips, gel seat, 1/4 faring, saddle bags. All comfort upgrades, not performance upgrades. He says it is his wife’s bike and she bought a VFR for the full faring. He is 60 years old and I buy the story. At any rate, this should be easy to tell by looking at tire wear (assuming tires are not new).
Accepting his story as fact, are there any concerns I should address with this bike having 10,000 miles on it? I mean, I can throughly inspect the bike, but who knows enough about the engines on this bike to say when enough is enough, no matter how it was ridden?
I’m not intimately familiar with the bike you’re looking at, but who the hell buys a sportbike for “long overnight road trips”?
Nevermind, nunnuvmybizniz.
10,000 miles, on my Nighthawk, was just broken in. I’ve never owned a sport bike, and I’ve never owned a V-twin, but I can’t imagine any bike so fragile that 10,000 miles is “enough.”
I’ve put over 72,000 miles on my Yamaha Seca II since it was new. Compression is fine.
I haven’t heard much about the SV650, but what I’ve heard has been good. Your best bet would be to take it to a qualified Suzuki mechanic and have it checked out, including compression etc.
10k shouldn’t be a problem, not necessarily anyway. even if it was ridden hard.
Juts ride the bike. If it’s outputting the power it should at all RPM’s and throttle, then it shouldn’t be an issue.
Is that guy a shop owner? Is he selling the mods too? He could have just put those mods on there to try and sell the bike for a higher hwy-mileage price.
Well, he’s selling it from his house so I won’t be able to know for sure if he is a shop owner or not but I don’t think so. The mods and the original parts are being sold with the bike.
He seems to be pretty reasonable about it and is asking a fair price, maybe a little too fair.
I would think after 10000 miles (16000 km) the first set of tires would already have been replaced by new ones. I have a Suzuki Bandit 600 and I have to change tires every 5000 - 8000 km (3000 - 5000 miles). I know Bandit drivers who change after 12000 km (7500 miles). Even with a very gentle driver tires should be worn out before 16000 km (10000 miles). YMMV
I’d imagine that on a V-twin like the SV650 you will soon be looking at new chain and sprockets within maybe another 5000 miles, so make sure you look at the adjusters and see if they are at the full extent.
If you are aware of the repalcement cost then you may have a bargaining chip, when you do replace these parts make sure that you get a top quality chain as these twice as long as average ones, maybe more.
…and for any other bike riding Dopers, you need to put this in your favourites.
http://www.micapeak.com/reg/bikes/
The SV650 is a very light machine so it is possible that it is on its first set of tyres, in any case if this chap has been doing the sort of riding he claims than the chances are that there will be a squared off section and not much wear further across the tyre.
I would pop into a Suzuki dealer and ask them about the cost of the next couple of services, you may well find that the valves are due for shimming at around 16000 miles as part of the routine maintenance. This can be quite expensive as it takes more time than other services.
(not as bad as the latest Honda VFR 800 which costs a fortune to service at 16k miles - just ask!)
Suzukis are known for having pretty thin paint so I would check carefully around the seat/tank area where it is most likely to wear.
I have not heard of any inherent problems and they have been around a couple of years now so it should be a good buy, check and see what they sell for in your local dealers and private ads.
There is a whole world of extras available for these machines, more so than many others from carbon fibre body kits, a host of tuning mods right through to changing the engine for a 750, which the chassis can handle easily.
IIRC, I got 20,000 miles out of my first set of tires! :eek: The mechanic was astounded. (Of course, I did ride on them until the wear-bars were well-exposed. :o ) I replaced the first chain and the sprockets at the same time, too. The mechanic said the chain should only last about 10,000 miles and was amazed that it made it twice that with only the normal amount of stretching. My second chain lasted only 15,000 miles, and the third one lasted 10,000. I guess I was becoming more aggressive in my riding. (My g/f during the early years was not an aggressive rider, so I had to moderate myself at that time so as not to leave her behind.) I just had the chain replaced – this is my fifth, I think. I’m due for my fifth set of tires as well.
I was out and saw the bike today. The chain had little stretch but I could see wear on the rear sprocket that shows it will soon need replacing.
Being unfamiliar with twin engines, I am nervous about an engine noise I was hearing. To me it sounded like a valve hitting a little hard.
Anyone out there know if you can hear the valves on an SV650? Is it something that should prevent me from buying the bike?
I told the owner I am ready to buy but needed to ask a coworker(ex-pro-racer) about the noise before commiting. I figure some of you may have somes thoughts on it too.
Owning a GSXR-7fiddy myself, I have a feeling what you may be hearing is not valves, but the wonderful and ever so well built Suzuki cam chain auto-tensioner. On my gixxer it comes from the left side of the bike, kind of a clicking/ticking, more noticeable at low RPMs or when the engine is either just starting up and very cold, or hotter than 185 by the coolant temperature gauge. My mechanic tells me that Suzuki hasn’t made a decent cam chain tensioner in 25 years. ;D
Find yourself a good Zook mechanic and have 'em check it out. I would also ask people’s opinions on the SVRider mailing list, let me see if I can find you a URL…
Yeah, pretty sure it’s the cheap-ass Suzuki cam chain auto-tensioner:
http://www.svrider.com/tips/ticking.htm
I’ll be getting a manual tensioner for my gixxer fairly soon here. Apparently these are less of a problem for the SV, as it doesn’t redline at 14,000 RPM like my gixx…
-Ben