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SuzukiSavage.com
/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> Proud new owner /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1331675983 Message started by Undecided on 03/13/12 at 14:59:43 |
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Title: Proud new owner Post by Undecided on 03/13/12 at 14:59:43 Just bought a new 2011 Fox Orange/Glass Sparkle Black S40 today. Was looking at a '12 Honda CBR250R, '11 Yamaha V-Star 650 Custom and a still new '09 Honda Shadow 750. The S40 was the last bike I tested, and the one I liked the most - Yamaha 650 was a real close second. I could bore you with what I liked the most about each bike, but I'd prefer to ask a few questions about the S40. Please. The salesman said the bike uses a special break-in oil when first serviced. Is this true, or do I need to add a break-in additive like Lucas or Redline? Would Synthetic oil be okay to start using at the first 600 mile service? Would an anti-wear additive like zddp be needed at each service if already using a good MC synthetic? I want to use Amsoil MC oil - would the 10w-40 or the 20w-50 be better for 100+ Oklahoma summers? Just guessing, how long would you estimate I could go before I would need to worry about replacing the timing chain? - My driving habits would mainly be 40 mile round-trips to and from work/Half of the miles would be 35-40mph in the city and the other half would be 55-60mph on the highway. And keeping the oil/filter changed often. That's it for now. Thanks in advance. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Serowbot on 03/13/12 at 15:33:43 Welcome, I don't know about special break-in oil, but don't switch to synth 'till after the 600miles... maybe even 1,000... During break-in try to vary throttle and accel and use engine decel... Steady hwy cruise doesn't break in rings well... and, avoid full throttle for a while... No additives needed.. Amsoil synth is great oil, but pricey.. Use it if you like. 20w-50 is good for summer, but either is fine... For your type riding, I'd start checking for camchain wear at 15k, (some have gone before that, but probably short errand bikes or bar hoppers)... I put in a Versy modded (see tech section) cam-chain adjuster at 24k... Now it can't fall out,.. I can relax and enjoy. The chain will give me a rattle when it gets too loose, but won't come loose... Our bike is also famous for a harmless, speedo rattle (easy fix, see tech section again).. and belt squeak when wet. ... and the vacuum petcock tends to go at some point (we swap to a manual Raptor)... Other than that,... it's a great little bulletproof torque monster... Peace... ;)... |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by verslagen1 on 03/13/12 at 15:48:14 Welcome to the club. I don't any data on the new bikes, but I'd estimate somewhere between 15 and 20,000. If you're going to use syn, 10w40 should be good enough, I like the cooling better and it doesn't thin out like dino. Didn't like changing oil wt's either. Oil temps and usage comparison (http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1283117891/215#215) |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Buster on 03/13/12 at 16:28:39 I had planned on asking these questions prior to making a purchase, but my forum membership wasn't approved in time. :) Guess it didn't really matter, because I knew the bike had a few quirks and really wasn't too concerned about the "problems" the bike had. Just love the look of it and the fact that it's a 650cc single. Thanks for the answers - about what I expected on the chain, but I wasn't so sure on when I could start using synthetic oil. Thanks again for the help. BTW, I don't plan on fixing the "backfire" should it occur. With this bike I figure it's more of an added bonus instead of a problem. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Tonydtiger1971 on 03/13/12 at 17:24:00 79574E4F5479545F52555E3B0 wrote:
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Serowbot on 03/13/12 at 17:59:29 745A4342597459525F5853360 wrote:
Yup,.. all bikes have their quirks, and problems... The good thing is,. on our bikes, they are known... they've been around for 25 years,... Welcome to SS.com... ;)... |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Borracho on 03/13/12 at 20:41:45 Congrats on the new bike. There is one at my local dealership with that color scheme. It is a real beauty. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by justin_o_guy2 on 03/13/12 at 21:34:45 You should have a look at the chain around 13 to 15 thousand miles, Get a book on it, check out tech section, start studyin up on doing the valves. Youll be needin it soon, 5000 miles doesnt take long, & listen to it now, get in a place thats quiet, away from traffic noise, etc, & listen to the top end, OHH, sitting still & giving it gas, listening to the top end will blue a pipe,, & dont set the idle low because it sounds good floppin & bloppin,, 1,000 rpm is what it takes to keep the cam oiled up.. the cam spins in the aluminum that makes the head, no inserts, |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Bubba on 03/14/12 at 07:36:26 If you have any mechanical ability at all...do all your own work...the dealership may offer to do all the recommended maintenance on your brand new bike but you'll have more fun and do a better job yourself... |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Retread on 03/14/12 at 10:40:06 Did somebody say OIL??????? ;D ;D |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by justin_o_guy2 on 03/14/12 at 10:49:34 033423232070717972410 wrote:
Chances of you totaling it are a lot less than the craptastichanic at the dealership, & youll spend a fortune on things you could do yourself AND your bike will be sitting in the shop instead of under your butt,where it belongs. The $$$ youll save on the first valve adjustment will more than pay for the tools youll need to do the job. Youll have plenty of time to understand what it takes to do the cam chain before its time,& thats another DIY task that will save more than enough $$ by doing it yourself to pay for the tools. Suzuki service manual is the first tool you need, |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Oldfeller on 03/14/12 at 11:21:08 He picked a good oil, so no real need for educational materials for this new owner. If he really wants to understand his weight question that he made then Verslagen gave him the thread link to do that with. He should read it. If he has unanswered questions or gets off on some wild tangent, then the churned earth of the endless oil war will magically re-appear to apply education as needed. Hey, this is the first time a dealership has ever claimed that Suzuki puts special break in oil into the bike -- that is a new stealership line of BS -- they just want to see him again in 600 miles so they can pick his wallet for that fraudulent "required first service" that they mostly don't do (but still charge you beau-coup many many bucks for). Now, if you wanted to talk about that BS first service we could do that for him .... To do the first service CORRECTLY would require a top cover (top end) tear down, taking the gas tank off the bike, etc etc to do the jug stud retorque. This means a 18 year old underskilled mechanic gets to rape your new bike with his vast under knowledge taken from an uncorrected copy of Clymers manual. The very last thing I would allow is a dealership mechanic to rip my brand new machine down to the skivvies, foul up the rubber plug seal, and make the 2-3 valve and solenoid adjustment errors they generally do when working on the bike. We are serious, the turn over in dealership motorcycle mechanics is horrendous and the odd are your brand new Savage is the first one this 18 year old mechanic has ever worked on. Change your own oil and filter at 600 miles. Contrary to your stealership trying to tell you they have to do the oil change, they don't -- your warranty is unaffected if you can prove by receipts that you bought an approved oil and oil filter and you have a cell phone shot of you doing the change and another of the mileage. Simply don't do the rest of the BS they claim you need to do --- most of the bikes here on the list have done just fine without getting screwed up by stealership mechanics attempting to do most of a top end teardown for NO GOOD REASON. Buy like 10 cheap EMCO oil filters from Bike Bandit -- really they are perfectly good filters (least expensive / best quality out there) and if you are going to pop the big bucks for Amisol bike oil (full synthetic JASO MA MA2 rating) I would pick 10w40 for the weight. Testing right here on the list shows that synthetic 20w50 oils DO NOT THIN OUT LIKE THE ORIGINAL DINO OILS DID and because they run unchanged at 50 weight they "slow down the works unnecessarily" in the Savage engine causing both head and sump temperatures to go up unnecessarily. Synthetic 10w40 from Amisol will do just fine at $13-$15 a quart. It's a new baby and he's gonna blow some money on it, so let him. When he's been around a while, he will pick up on T6, no need to rush him. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by justin_o_guy2 on 03/14/12 at 11:32:01 Ive got 20,000 miles on it & the head has never been retorqued, They say you need to do that, then, IF you dont AND it loses a gasket, then its on you. Lawyers,, heck,, you buy a new car, you gotta retorque the heads? |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Oldfeller on 03/14/12 at 12:42:01 I can count on one finger the entire population of leaking head gaskets on new bikes (first 5 years) and I think that was really a stealership mis-interpreting the standard plug leak as a "head gasket leak" as they soaked that poor newbie for a full engine tear down (over $1,000 dollars). It takes more than one hand to count the issues JUST THIS MONTH from letting dealership mechanics work on Savages -- hey no joke, they know not what they do and they really do DAMAGE things. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Savage_Rob on 03/14/12 at 16:11:26 Congratz on your new ride! I think the questions have pretty much been answered but, since OIL was mentioned... I use the 20w50 synthetic in mine year-round in North TX (Dallas area). |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Buster on 03/16/12 at 05:23:01 Thanks for the advice, especially about the dealership service - My bike was delivered without an owners manual, battery vent tube...and the battery was dead. They're mailing me a new "dry" battery along with the missing items. Probably won't return to selling dealer in the future for service work. I live and work pretty close to the oldest Yamaha dealer in the United States and I still see some of the same people in there that I saw 30 years ago. If I didn't want to do the 600 mile service myself along with providing photographic proof, could I let a "professional" do the work at a Yamaha dealership without ruining my warranty? You think a service order from a non-Suzuki establishment would carry as much weight as a phone picture of me doing the work? |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Oldfeller on 03/16/12 at 09:40:12 Let us try to clarify. The 600 mile service is a long standing fraud. The dealerships DON'T DO IT, they just listen for clicking valves and if none are heard then they change your oil and filter and then charge you the book rate for the 600 mile service (which is quite high, BTW). They are really just checking for bad factory assembly and their own goof ups taking it out of the crate. The fact they can charge you hundreds of dollars is just gravy to them. Here is what really needs doing at 600 miles. Change your oil and oil filter. Adjust your valves. If I were doing it again, I would wait until 1,000 miles (let the rings break in good on the original fairly good quality dino oil provided by the factory) then I would change filter and oil to a good JASO MA MA2 full synthetic oil with lots of ZDDP in it (yes, Rotella T6 is a good one that doesn't kill your pocketbook) and I would plan out my first valve adjustment to take place about that same time too. Like while the oil is draining out during the oil change for example. Do you work on your own machines? This is an excellent machine for a new mechanic to work on. Clymers is good (once you correct all the errors by writing in red ink on the pages in the book), our tech threads are better with all the tips and tricks you could ask for. And if you get stuck, there is us (us as a whole is the best Savage resource/mechanic in the whole wide world). |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Buster on 03/16/12 at 13:48:37 Yeah I may have sounded confusing when I said thanks for warning me about dealers, and then turned around and asked for advice on dealers. Let me clarify myself: I don't trust the dealer right down the street from my house at all - they told me Suzuki stopped making the S40 several years ago and the guy looked stoned. The dealer that sold the bike is 40 miles away, and not much sharper. The only other (Suzuki) dealer in the area...I know nothing about. This is why I asked about the Yamaha dealer - wanted to know if a non-Suzuki shop would void my warranty if I let a Yamaha shop do any "required" service - the basic stuff that I don't want to do myself and have to save receipts and pictures of me doing the work? I know the people at the Yamaha shop personally, for the past 30 years, and trust them completely. I'm certain they would do only what is needed, when needed, and not charge me for anything that isn't needed. They're right down the street from my work and if they wouldn't void the warranty, I'd just as soon let them do anything that's needed while it's under warranty. I'm sure I would have to take it to a real Suzuki dealer if parts started breaking and needed to be covered under factory warranty...that's when I would try the last chance Suzuki shop across town. Right now I'm just not feeling too good about motorcycle shops that I'm not familiar with. I'm not trying to be hard to get along with here, not intentionally, but I just don't want to mess up my warranty. Later on, I plan on doing most of my own service. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Buster on 03/17/12 at 04:32:59 1C2E392E282A101D202D4F0 wrote:
Read a lot about temps being higher with thicker oil, but I'd be much more interested in actual UOA readings of 10w40 vs 15w50 vs 20w50 - does thinner oil actually contain less wear metals? Maybe I just missed the used oil analysis postings? |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Oldfeller on 03/17/12 at 07:37:23 We don't generally do oil analysis here on the list (even Bill is too cheap to spend the $50 for Blackstone labs). Such data is readily available on Bobistheoilguy.com though for the major oils that we use (such as the Rotella products). Pick brand and weight of oil you want to see UOA for (generally look for VOA data first to see the real starting spot. Google can search Bobs for your oil and UOA and VOA to get your results. Now, here is the rub -- we don't run an oil through to completion like the car and truck guys do. Bikes get changed out at least once a year, mostly twice a year which is only like 5,000 miles. This is way earlier than the car and truck data was taken. http://photos.gunloads.com/images/Oldfeller/magnet.jpg Plus, we make a lot of metal off the shifter dogs, the gearing rub zones and the cam chain, which would not be present in the car and truck data as they do not run a transmission/combined sump. Clutch wear products are not present in the car truck numbers as well. http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/Low_amounts_of_mud1.JPG Comparing your UOA off a bike to what you see out of a truck or car is somewhat misleading accordingly. We dirty up our oil more than a car truck does (relatively speaking). Watch the silicate build up numbers also as a main threat type number, dust makes it through bike air filters much more so than truck or car filters. And if you are into Ouji boards and tea leaves analysis, the top pic came from 0w50 Mobil 1 and the lower pic came from Rotella T6 5w40. Both are premium synthetic oils but the Rotella seems to produce less ferrous trash for the supermagnet to collect during the oil change interval. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by bill67 on 03/17/12 at 08:05:36 Looks like theres been some wear on the engine there. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Oldfeller on 03/17/12 at 08:37:48 Yup, seems so. No "zero wear oil" here, nor anywhere else in a Savage engine actually. Metal happens on our bikes apparently. Every magnetic oil plug out on the list says so too. I've picked up little bits of cam dogs off my oil plug magnet before when the bike was a lot newer. Ferrous wear products are less so with T6 it seems, which has been surprising since I leave the magnet in for two years at a lick now and just change out the oil once a year and keep it topped up good to the list method. That ugly 0w50 Mobil pic was in there just one year (like 3-4 times more metal collected compared to T6). Part of this was "the break in effect", the earlier pic was earlier in the life of the engine (inside the first 10,000 miles). I am knocking on 20,000 miles now. The rest of it is the T6 simply doing a better job than Mobil 1 did. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Mr Hyde on 03/17/12 at 08:55:19 Buster - welcome. I was in the Suzuki shop for a look see yesterday and they had an S40 in your color scheme on the floor. Now that's an eye catcher. The nicest I've seen in years (other than black IMO). |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Buster on 03/18/12 at 17:18:23 6C6B74000 wrote:
Thanks. Still waiting on the new battery, and the owners manual. Be nice to know what the engine sounds like. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by verslagen1 on 03/18/12 at 17:31:02 owners manual can be found here... http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?board=tech;action=display;num=1138554254 |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by ralfyguy on 03/19/12 at 05:00:59 Hello Buster, welcome. Where in Oklahoma are you located? I'm in McAlester. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by Buster on 03/20/12 at 05:06:51 7C6F626877697B770E0 wrote:
Coweta area, about 20 miles from Tulsa. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by mau2wu on 03/21/12 at 19:37:11 The Savage (as I call mine) is an awesome bike. I have learned so much from this website and the great people on it. I have never taken my S40 bike into the shop and have done all the maintenance myself-- I am not a really mechanical person either so that is a credit to the people here who are generous enough to offer their expertise. The "savage" is about self-sufficiency and doing stuff on your own. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by WD on 03/22/12 at 08:41:27 Welcome to the club Buster. My bike is probably the biggest piece of junk on the board by most standards... Never gets washed, stays outside year round, has been ridden wide open since day one... has been modified to within an inch of its life several times... I've never had to adjust the valves, and mine is a 1998. Absolutely zero cam chain noise. Never had a clutch issue other than stretching the cheap factory cable. My bike got the everloving s**t beat out of it on a regular basis riding year round on the Gulf Coast, Memphis area and in the mountains of Washington state. Takes it and happily comes back for more... 15W40 conventional diesel oil or 20W50 conventional oil, filter changed when (if) I remember it has one. Petcock never failed (ATF or Marvel Mystery Oil in every 2 or 3 fill ups), vacuum slide in the carb never failed. Fuel tank got holed when my stepson crashed the bike a few years ago so I now run a 60s or so era tank with a manual petcock. The electrical parts on the bike suck. Mine has been down for quite awhile because of it. Switches that fall apart, relays that fall apart, too light of wiring (that appears to go nowhere)... Cut a notch in the left side of your battery box and run a 14LA-2 battery, less than 1/2 the cost of the oddball stock battery. And you can find them anywhere (Wal-mart, auto parts stores, independent bike shops, etc). If the bike still ships with IRC tires replace them now. They are only good for a couple months, tread sands off pretty quickly. There are 3 sizes of front brake pad thickness, buy the EBC thin ones. Intruder 800/S50 rear shocks will give you a better ride and firm up the handling a bit. Throw the belt tensioner away (the little brass plunger in the tool kit). Run the belt a bit on the loose side, doesn't squeak as bad or put as much stress on the output shaft. Don't trust the swingarm alignment marks, they are always off side to side. Have fun with it. Great commuter/weekend bikes. Great platform to make it suit your taste. I've seen them turned into cafe racers, Scramblers (dual sports), barhoppers, bobbers, rigid choppers, touring rigs... Intruder shocks, Harley fender, unknown gas tank, semi-rigid bags, ape hanger handlebars, side mount 7" headlight (stock light shattered, tool roll bounced)... http://ravenscroftart.net/watchtower/LiftedSavage.jpg Like I said, have fun and make it your own. We're here if you get stuck. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by RC on 03/22/12 at 20:47:07 Welcome, you will never find better advice than right here. You made the right choice the S40 may be the last great classic bike on the market. Enjoy. |
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Title: Re: Proud new owner Post by SuperSavage on 03/22/12 at 22:09:48 The Savage is a fun and peppy ride. I love the light weight and flickability. Since I put the 32" xlx, Santee bars and Routy's 6" forward contols, it is pure comfort. With those additions, the seat is fine now.(must be the repositioning of my weight on my butt cheeks) And the Harley Dyna muffler sounds perfect. Still gotta put the darn tach on... Enjoy it and customize it to fit your body and personality. |
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