Most Savages in the wild "die" because they are parked in a garage and ignored to death.   Then they won't start and they get sold for nothing.   (Yeah!! We'll buy them !!)

The "active" savages out in the wilds of suburbia eventually die because of NO OIL -- somebody forgets to check it.  (we buy them and sell off all the pieces)

First real cause of long term death for a wild Savage is the cam chain stretching beyond what a stock adjuster can accommodate.   It goes crunch on them and that's it for a normal owner.   (Verslagen can fix that up for you !!)

Slowest most insidious long term cause of slow death for a suburban owner is low idle speed slowly killing the cam bearings.   When the head begins to knock, that's all she wrote for normal owners.   (Poo, I can fix that ...)


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Savages around here die because the owners get too old to ride or the human suddenly gets cancer and dies on us.   We can always fix the bike (we know how to fix all the issues above).

Or they get bobbered completely out of existence -- take your pick.


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Other than that -- we have a lot of 1987 Savages running here on the list.   That's as old as they get as 87 was the year the Savage came out.   Highest mileage is over 100,000 miles and building.

Any machine can be kept running indefinitely by replacing or rebuilding parts. The question to ask may be 'what's the highest mileage on a Savage/S40 without a top or bottom end or drive train work' That is, no valve, cylinder, piston, cam chain, transmission, or clutch work? And on original pulleys and drive belt.

BuckRYCA wrote on 07/26/10 at 05:20:14:


Does that count putting in a VerSlavy cam chain tensioner/adjuster?  If that is allowed then:
63k+ miles.  (2002.  bought used with 3800 miles about 3.5 years ago...  I think   )

If you don't allow a VerSlavy mod, then (like OF said) not many will make it to 25k without.. issues.

'96 with a verslavy, 46k miles
'8802 with a verslavy, 33k miles

Serenity's original engine -- 57,000 miles without doing anything but changing the oil and the filter ??  

Duh, you've really given us a trick set of parameters to deal with now,  nobody is around here is gonna NOT check their cam chain tensioner and deal correctly with it when the time comes, so saying your initial cam chain check is "engine death" is really kinda nonsensical.

You are going to have to pull your clutch side engine cover and pay attention to your cam chain tensioner around 15,000 miles (give or take 5,000 miles for luck of the draw).

Death by excessive performance modifications -- now that's another real cause of engine death around here (my favorite !!)