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General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> Starter needs more power to run ??
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Message started by Björn Meier on 03/10/25 at 03:47:28

Title: Starter needs more power to run ??
Post by Björn Meier on 03/10/25 at 03:47:28

Hi we have a problem with my sons suzuki savage LS 650.

Normally it starts easy enough - but after winter or after it had been standing it can be quite hard to start. We have also had a few episodes like yester day where it just died - and would not come alive before it had an extra battery connected

The starter or something says some quite bad "clonking" sounds when trying to start it for more than a few seconds - also it drains the battery real fast...

Last time we had the problem i connected an extra battery and that did the trick - started easy and without the terrible "clonking" sound.

So my son got my battery because it was nearly new - and problem solved ... :-D
BUT - The weird thing is - I just wanted to test - so put his battery in mine and to my surprise that worked fine ??

So could there be a reason his bike requires a lot more power to start than mine ??

We have checked decompression valve, spark plugs are new, valves adjusted within specs ...

Could the starter relay be bad and sucking more power ?? or could the starter motor be bad requiring much more power to turn ??

Only fault I know of on the bike is that - the rubber around the choke handle is unfortunately bristle and have cracks - but its really hard to find a new choke ...

But could that have any influence ( air leak ) ?

Title: Re: Starter needs more power to run ??
Post by ThumperPaul on 03/10/25 at 05:22:14

Have you checked both batteries with a voltmeter?

Is your bike smaller than the Savage and requires less cranking amps? Have you test ridden it to see if it also dies mid-ride?

The bike dying while riding suggests a bad battery or possibly charging system. I suspect a bad battery. It has enough juice to maybe get a couple cranks out of it, but it’s not accepting a charge from the alternator to restore to fully charged. Did you use a charger/tender on it over the winter while it wasn’t being ridden?

Maybe you just had a loose battery cable and when you swapped batteries around, you incidentally fixed the problem. :)

Title: Re: Starter needs more power to run ??
Post by verslagen1 on 03/10/25 at 09:36:21

If you changed the battery new for old and that fixed it... most likely that's the problem.

The savage does have a powerful starter than most bikes, you didn't say if your bike was a savage too.

What year is the savage? How many miles? Locale?