It is not called out in the Suzuki Owner's Manual Maintenance Chart, but the Clymer's Maintenance Schedule notes that every 4000 miles or 12 months "Inspect drive and driven pulleys for wear and mounting tightness".

It is not enough to remove the front pulley cover and verify that the tab on the spline-fitted lock washer is correctly bent against a flat of the engine drive pullley nut. Bend back the tab and use a torque wrench with a 32mm socket to verify 73-94 ft-lbs.

The engine drive pulley nut may come loose even with the lock washer apparently locked. So, I repeat, a visual inspection is not enough.

The failure mode on my Savage was to strip out the teeth on the drive pulley and to damage the splines on the transmission drive shaft. The drive shaft is hardened and the pulley is not, so my hope is to avoid a transmission rebuild by installing a new pulley and using Loctite 660 Liquid Metal Retaining Compound. Others here have reported the same issue and have used JB Weld successfully.

Symptoms leading to the failure were a slow wonka-wonka-wonka noise from the front pulley area when pushing the bike in neutral, engine off. I pulled the front pulley cover and everything looked OK. I wrongly thought this was just normal belt noise (my first belt-driven bike). It was not. If you have any unusual noise coming from the front pulley area, do a mechanical (not visual) check of your drive pulley nut/lock washer now. Or you'll be sorry ... :'(

Mine has loosened up twice,...  symptom was a valve ticking kinda noise...
I have a new noise now,... reminds me of a shift dog clacking, like downshifting into first a little early...
Hoping it's the pulley again...

Check it, check it check it... ...