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... ...

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.

Buster wrote on 03/13/12 at 16:28:39:


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... ...

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,

 Did somebody say OIL???????

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.

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.