How well does the 400 Burgman go underwater!!!...

[Data]

Well...not actually fully underwater as I'm sure you realise! It's just that as a Vstrom 1000 rider of past years, weather that produced big deep pools of water on roads and in country lanes didn't worry me in the least. I just road through and had plenty of ground clearance etc to go in pretty deep without causing any problems for the bike or me. Now the Burgman, that's a bit different I imagine. There is not so much ground clearance compared to my motorcycles and yet I still come across the odd slightly deep, water logged road. It varies of course but some water I come across is 4-6 inches deep, but in the worst rainfalls I've seen it's probably 8-9 inches deep on normal roads around where I live. Yesterday I went around several very moist area's on my way to Ipswich, and mostly avoided going through anything remotely deep. Incidentally, I was caught out without my full wetgear on. I had a summer riding jacket (water proof), gloves and boots of course and my motorcycling armoured jeans, but these are not water resistant let alone water proof. However, I was on the A12 at 70mph and was simply amazed at how dry I stayed in quite heavy rain. Upon arrival at my destination my jeans weren't even damp! I only had to stop a couple of times mind you in Ipswich traffic before my end destination.

So, having beaten around the bush a bit, what do you guys reckon. Is it safe to go in a few inches maybe upto 5-6inches of water to get through? I imagine it's the transmission that would suffer a bit, but how bad? Any guys on here who have experience of using their Burgmans (or any other make/model as submersibles? And did you survive or are you dead?

[barryG]

Hmmm, not sure I would take it beyond a few inches myself with everything being so low down. I used to ride my Vespa PX through water over the floorboards, but they have everything up high apart from exhaust.

[Mr Angry]

A Fuocco will plough through a couple feet but you get soaked with the bow wave

I've aquaplaned across a deep puddle on a Vespa too

[Waldorf]

My X9 coped with water up to the foot-boards - I was caught unawares!

It was after that I christened it, 'Nautilus'.

[gn2]

The key factor is the airbox inlet.
The height of it sets the depth you can ride through.
It's why you see these on some Landrovers.
Once you find out where the inlet is located you'll have a better idea of how much water you can safely ride through.

[TmaX9]

Terminal damage will only be done if the engine ingests any water, even only a little bit.
Considering on most scooters the air box and induction inlet is at least as high as the top of the transmission casing it shouldn't be a problem, but what will be is where the ignition coil is located. A lot of scooters have them below the foot boards in the side of the belly pan. The pan will keep the water out initially but as some have grilles for air cooling the regulator and some have quite low down radiator grilles, it won't take long to fill up although they will drain almost immediately. Conking out mid flood is not a good idea.
A bigger danger in such circumstances is dislodged manhole covers. You don't know what's below these flooded areas so always best to try to ride along the centre of the road where it is higher, and the likelihood of manhole covers is less.

[Dave Weller]

We all went through flooded roads on the Pie and Mash ride to Walton on the Naze last weekend, no problems, just silly car drivers bow waving us and trying to hog the middle road.

[Data]

Thanks for the opinions. The air intake is quite high on the Burgman 400 so no real worries there. It's mainly the clutch and variator I'm concerned about as the induction fan for the transmission is going to suck in lots of water and being new to this auto thingy, don't know what lasting effects this could have. Especially, if lots of muddy water is inducted. Don't want to have to strip it just to clean out muck that my own silliness is responsible for.

[Bluebottle]

Another advantage for electric bikes, they will run fully submerged!

Not sure I'm in total agreement with only considering the inlet height.

The exhaust back pressure might be too much on a small thumper engine and CVT's don't like it much either.
Shock cooling can be a problem on castings too.
Having said that I snorkeled the exhaust on my off road 2cv, shielded the fan shroud and the damn thing would go through anything, sometimes where Landrovers couldn't.

Edit:
Sorry Data, we must have posted at the same time and both mentioned the CVT as a cause for concern

[Ralph]

The engine air intake is just above the engine about 2 inches,
The spark plug about level with the foot boards,
And the CVT air intake on the later scoots is just behind the small grill under the front of the seat.