Early/later 650's

[burger uk]

I have a 2002 burgy 650 it's had the problem with the drive failing and the previous owner had a replacement engine fitted by suzuki at a exorbitant cost, whilst it rides fine other than the usual pogo stick over the pot holes and man covers I at some point may get a newer one, so all you know it alls ... Please can you tell me at what point did suzuki address the drive failing issue quite common and is there a better model to go for from where they eliminated the problem or are the later ones still prone to failing drive?? Secondly does the 650 have a cvt drive? I have owned 3 x 400s and I know they have cvt but was told the 650 is different, in the drive area are x5 metal gears. Other than the final drive and gear oil is there anything I should be looking to do on mine with a service? I have done the oil and filter, it's on 42k at present, the motor drive failed at around 30 k so the new motor went in with around 15k on it meaning it is now circa 27k I love it as it's a bit ratty I lean it over so the exhaust springs scrape on the right (gpr full system) and the side stand on the other side

[Data]

Hello burger uk. Yes the 650 is a great bike.

Now, the thing with the cvt failure! It's not really a fault as such...funny thing to say I know especially when you hear of some breaking. It's a complex system combining electronic control and mechanicals. Very different to the 400 bike. But, very very few fail early and mostly those that do fail early have one or two things in common, usually! Those are: the bike has been run in using Motoman technique; and or the cvt transmission oil changes have been ignored or wrong oil used. Suzuki expressly say that the running in technique MUST be carried out using the book method described in the owners manual. This is because the CVT belt which is a metal one is easily damaged during the running in period. If it is over stressed it shortens it's life considerably. The bearings in the CVT also don't like too much stress until they are fully work hardened. If the bike is run in correctly the CVT and it's belt should go 100,000 miles. In fact it usually only breaks when it's worn out. Suzuki don't specify a replacement time for the belt but if it were me I'd replace it at 80,000 miles to be sure. It's quite easy to do and I did my first one last year for a friend at my local mc dealership. I boned up on it first and spoke to my Suzuki mechanic. It took me two days however as I was keen not to rush it too much. I replaced all bearings in the CVT and the clutch too. I did it for virtually free as I've always wanted to do one, I'm a sadist!! Great experience and there is nothing to be afraid of if you are competent with spannering. But not for the faint hearted.

The 2013 new bikes onwards should last better as the CVT creates less friction overall. It's also more economical. But it will face the same issue of needing a replacement belt at some point. It's just when that point is reached that no one knows. But be proactive and always replace before failure.

[poldark]

Just to add to Data's excellent summary, there was a design flaw in the initial 650 bikes (K3/K4), which would have included your 2002 bike. The Primary spline was completely redesigned but critically Suzuki didn't recall the existing bikes, I know as I later bought a K3 bike before I found this out, should've researched a bit more in reality.

Many K3/K4 bikes have failed in this area, 25-30k miles seems to be the mileage these failures occur, in fact there's a Polish mechanic who's designed a fix for this weakness and sells a kit to resolve it, sadly too late for me. Mine failed about 3 years back and although Suzuki UK actually agreed to inspect it, when I kicked up a fuss, given it was nearly 8 years old they were legally able to walk away (checked with Trading Standards and 7 years is deemed the "life" of goods). They offered the parts at 50% off, but rebuild labour costs are huge, so I sold it as seen to the dealer.

Anyway the key part in this is that after the redesign the overall reliability is good. They did make some further improvements in 2009 and again in 2013, so I'd happily buy another but would limit myself to a later model.

The very best source of information on maintenance is here - Le Dude and the most detail on these failures is recorded on the Burgman USA (BUSA) forum - BUSA

P.S. You may want to investigate the "Polish adaptor" fix, several Yanks have imported and fitted with good results (about $200 IIRC), the Youtube video is here, but not sure how you make contact and buy/fit the kit, maybe worth looking into - YouTube

[burger uk]

Very interesting!! Thanks for all your replys, I will change the gear oil and final drive very soon, I will also check out this dude fellow, I don't have a service manual for the bike but will look on the internet to see what the correct oils are seeing as it's such a critical area. After owning nearly all bikes and models from Harley's, yammy, honda gsxr, cbr, aprilia tuonos, milles this is the most useable and fun bike I have owned!! Thanks again for all your replys [THUMBS UP SIGN]

[Data]

That's good information from Poldark. Yes, the 650 is great fun, I ride one from time to time on quite long runs. If your spannering skills are pretty good and you have good working facilities ie: a garage with plenty of space and some good tools, then replacing the belt is not too demanding. But you do need some experience of taking down complex motors to make things easier. I'm ex-tech amongst other things, so it's not a big deal for me but if you don't do that sort of thing on a regular basis get a tech buddie to guide you or really really spend loads of time watching the videos and reading the workshop manual. It is complex and many have fallen by the wayside doing it, thinking it was easier than they envisaged.

[burger uk]

I think I'll just keep servicing it at the stated intervals, it's running fine at the moment just want to understand the difference between the conventional cvt and this I think I will stick to "it's slightly different" approach, I have don't the oil and oil filter just need to do the hear and final drive and the air filter, I have re built the front calipers and fitted new oem pads to the rear and cleaned out the caliper, someone had mullered the pad retaining pins which proved. A bastard to get out but once I did I ordered new ones and copper greased them. I was thinking of riding over to France for a trip at some point soon (lovely Tarmac, good food , nice people)

[Steve_D]

A friend of mine fitted the Polish adaptor kit to his 2002 Burgman 650 as a precaution. It'd done around 35-40,000 miles. He sold it a couple of months ago with 42/43,000 miles on it. It was running fine. He contacted me last week and told me to look at an eBay ad for a non-running 650. It was his one. The belt had apparently broke at 45,000 miles.

[Data]

Yeah, the one I did was only on 43k miles and wasn't very old. It had been Motomaned from new!

[poldark]

I was thinking of riding over to France for a trip at some point soon (lovely Tarmac, good food , nice people)

Took mine to Brittany a couple of times for group trips, it's a great machine for distance touring unless you're the 500 mile a day autoroute flat out see nothing sort of rider. And I guess it'll do that unless you want cruising speed above a ton.



I can't recommend enough the Le Dude maintenance info, the material is first class with step-by-step videos of just about anything you'll want/need to do, including a full CVT strip down. It's so much easier to DIY if you can see beforehand what's involved, for instance here's the final drive oil change info - Le Dude