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SuzukiSavage.com Rocks!
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Hi, I just bought myselft a used '97 Suzuki Savage. It has 10,800 miles on the odometer. Previous owner, had it last serviced 1-2K miles ago. I'm planning to take it to a local motorcyle shop, and having a service tune up done to it. They're charging me $130 plus parts, compared to the Suzuki dealership that wants $230 plus parts. Should I go to the local shop or the dealership?
Previous owner also told me the bike was always hooked up to a battery tender when it wasn't being used/ridden. Unfortunately my parking space doesn't have any outlets for the battery tender to be hooked up. And sure enough after a day and a half of not riding the Savage, it was hard as hell to start. Took me about 10 mins. of on/off restarting until she finally fired up. The weather wasn't cold, it was a warm 75-80 degrees. I don't want to always rely on the battery tender, so I was wondering what could be the problem? Do I need to buy a new battery or is there any electrical gremlins that I need to look into.
There's also an oil leak at the cylinder head. It leaks pretty bad when ridden. I'll see drops of oil on the left side of the engine after riding. But it doesn't leak when its not being used. My initial thought was that a valve adjustment would fix it (included in the tune up), but the local shop said that the source is from the pistons towards the middle/bottom part of the cylinder. And that a valve adjustment wouldn't fix it. They quoted me $500-$600 to get it fixed. They also suggested, just to keep riding it that way, and just maintain my oil level and I should be fine. The previous owner also did the same thing for 3 years, just kept the oil level checked. I haven't taken it in to the dealership. They're charging me $80 just to look at it.
So anyway, I just want to know ahead of time what could be the potential problem with the battery/starting, and the oil leak quote I got was a fair quote or should I even worry about it? The previous owner rode it for the last 3 years with the oil leak, so? I just want to get a heads up, so I don't get blind-sided by the local repair shop or the dealership with tacked on fees.
Thanks guys for all your help/input.
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