Burgman 400 4000 mile service cost

[bornagainbiker]

From the price quoted it seems to be 2 hours at £60ph plus oil etc?

My local dealer wanted £286!! for my 650's, 600 miles service. I called and according to Suzuki UK they have it scheduled for 4 hours x dealer rate (£50 plus vat - £60) plus parts!
I took it to another smaller authorised Suzuki dealer (with only 1 mechanic) and they only charged £130, which equated to the correct time spent of <2 hours plus parts etc.
The newer model 650 valves do not need checking until 14000 miles or 4 years, I would presume the same for the L1 400? (As a footnote to this according to the expensive cost this was to include valve checking, but after explaining the newer model schedule they had no answer).
I complained to Suzuki UK about their 600 mile, 4 hour schedule via letter, including that valves now do not need checking and their reply was quite embarrassing as they basically said that 4 hours were correct as it allowed NON experienced Suzuki mechanics time to learn on the job for scooters!! They also questioned the £130 charge stating for me to ask the mechanic if he had completed the service as per the schedule! I have shown the letter to the said mechanic and needless to say he was frothing at the mouth.
My 4000 mile, full 1st year service is due soon so I'll be going back to my trusted small dealer.

[Data]

According to the shop manual for my K4 - an oldie but a goodie - here's the 4,000 mile service:
Replace the engine oil, but not the filter or the gear oil. Clean and oil the air cleaner element. Clean the cooling fan filter. Inspect all lines and hoses but not the drive belt. Check idle speed, throttle play, brake fluid, plug, and valve clearances. Inspect/tighten exhaust bolts and chassis nuts and bolts.

There's very little there to justify 160, except the valve clearance, I suggest you specifically question the dealer before letting them do the work that the price includes the valve clearances and if they say yes ask how they can do that if not collecting in a van or keeping overnight?

Alternatively there's many that take the view the valve clearances are a complete waste until at least 12-16k miles, so if you're happy for them not to do this then sub-100 would be far more reasonable.

Poldark, we posted virtually at the same time so you prolly missed my post about this. There are no valve clearances to be checked at the 4k service. On the double overhead cam engines in the 400, these are checked at 14,500 miles.

It's up to individuals of course to decide what is a good price or not. When manufacturers, that's all manufacturers not just Suzi, set there chargeable service times, these are based upon a fully trained technician or competent apprentice doing the work according to the factory manual, and how they were trained on the factory courses. What individual dealers charge per hour is within reason is up to them as most manufacturers don't tell their dealers what hourly rate to charge as that is impractical and will vary from country to country, area to area. So the time is set to be the 'best (shortest) time' in which the job can be done properly! That's not to say that a technician will always follow the factory recommended route to doing a particular job. Sometimes a job can be done perfectly correctly in another way that may differ from the manaul that may save some time and money. For example, on the Ford Mondeo, the start motor packs up early on some of the diesel engined models. This is due to a clutch and flywheel fault. So Ford will not replace the starter unless the clutch and flywheel are replaced at the same time, as the new starter will fail very very quickly if it isn't done at the same time. Total cost therefore is around £2100 just to get the starter fixed! Total work time for this is 9.5hours as laid down in the Ford spec dealer manaul. Yet, I and other technicians could do the job in around 5hours and charge our customers less. This is because to do the job the factory manual way you must remove the whole front suspension. In fact, most techs don't remove the front suspension. It can be dropped down on one side and the work completed. You get my drift. But you must be careful to not damage the car by doing this. If you know what you are doing it's fine to do it that way. It's the same on bikes or cars, there are ways to get the job done without always following the official route. But an untrained person or a trained person having an off day doing it that way could totally cock it up. That's why official methodology is laid down and costed accordingly, and mostly it's adhered to as it's the safest policy for most work.

Regarding the bike service cost. You pay for the tech to do a detailed check of your bike and do the stuff that needs doing to make it run reliably and safely. Checking something means taking off panels, looking and torquing or whatever. It takes time. If you paid much less he wouldn't be able to do that in the time available. If it wasn't done like this and suddenly the bikes starts to vibrate and misfire and the engine grinds to a stop in a cloud of evaporating petrol, you'd ask...why wasn't this checked at service? You can't have it all ways. I watched my dealers tech servicing my Burgman on it's first service, he was indeed very thorough and 'nut and bolted it' carefully. That has to be done throughout the life of the bike, time consuming though it is and it has to be paid for. Just fact of life. My advice is always take the bike to a qualified dealer if you cannot do the work yourself. The bonus is that you get the work guaranteed and you get the ecu updates as and when they become available. Heck, this is alongish post...sorry about that!

[JimR]

Got my new burger 6 years ago,never returned to a dealer always seemed rather expensive for what you get ,the basic service is super simple,oil ,air tyres ect.Tappet clearances the only time consumer,altho these never seem to move far .All time versus money i suppose ,never really fancied £50 an hour meself

[EDW]

My garage would do the lot for about £50 plus parts is my guess.

Edinho Motos
020 7987 9161

34 Quixley Street, Canary Wharf, London E14 9PU



I just had new front pads fitted (cheap ones), belt drive inspection and clean rollers, oil level check, coolant level check, suspension and brake check on my SH300.
£33.00

[monty9120]

From the price quoted it seems to be 2 hours at £60ph plus oil etc?

My local dealer wanted £286!! for my 650's, 600 miles service. I called and according to Suzuki UK they have it scheduled for 4 hours x dealer rate (£50 plus vat - £60) plus parts!
I took it to another smaller authorised Suzuki dealer (with only 1 mechanic) and they only charged £130, which equated to the correct time spent of <2 hours plus parts etc.
The newer model 650 valves do not need checking until 14000 miles or 4 years, I would presume the same for the L1 400? (As a footnote to this according to the expensive cost this was to include valve checking, but after explaining the newer model schedule they had no answer).
I complained to Suzuki UK about their 600 mile, 4 hour schedule via letter, including that valves now do not need checking and their reply was quite embarrassing as they basically said that 4 hours were correct as it allowed NON experienced Suzuki mechanics time to learn on the job for scooters!! They also questioned the £130 charge stating for me to ask the mechanic if he had completed the service as per the schedule! I have shown the letter to the said mechanic and needless to say he was frothing at the mouth.
My 4000 mile, full 1st year service is due soon so I'll be going back to my trusted small dealer.

i always thought people payed a qualified trained mechanic so they could do the job properly and easily with the correct tools

i service my own scoots. i dont expect to be as quick as a piaggio specialist but im not too fussed and im not in a rush

its like me servicing someones scooter and taking my time as i dont know what im doing. sounds an awful excuse to me.

suzuki should be training these people surely

[Data]

I would be very surprised if Suzuki allowed apprentices to train on customers scooters at the customers cost/expense. In 33 years of being a tech on cars and bikes I've not heard of that one before! I suspect the Suzuki Uk person telling bornagain all this was completely inexperienced and without knowledge of reality. It is true that a qualified person must service your machine, either a fully qualified tech or a qualified apprentice who has attained a level of experience in his training that allows him to do the job to the factory standard. Or in some cases a qualified tech must supervise an apprentice to do the work, but this is not at the customers cost if it takes longer than usual. I must admit I don't know what Suzuki quote regarding the number of hours needed for a 600 miles service for the Six Fiddy but my Burgman was just £25 + oil and filter at Orwell Motorcycles, Ipswich for it's 600 miler. Very good indeed I thought especially as the guy who did it was being watched by me all the time through the inspection windows in the showroom into the workshop. He was amazingly thorough. No problems there I can assure you. And I know exactly what he was supposed to do, and he did it.

[barryG]

The problem with main dealers is this.... doesnt matter how well they are trained, if they dont like your bike then they wont service it properly. An awful lot of bike dealer mechanics hate scoots, and it shows on how they service them.

Id love to service my scoot, but want the warranty and the CVT system just foxes me!

[mightbesane]

I really don't have a dog in this fight. I do most of my own service, too. But think about it. You're stripping all the plastics. You are checking valve clearances, checking all lines and hoses, torquing all nuts and bolts. How much time would it take? Add the oil change and, if you're a good shop, wiping stuff clean and spraying with anti-corrosive, and it could easily be three hours plus parts.

[Dexter]

I'm gonna wade in here...
I just changed the oil on my K9 AN400.
Undo drain plug and wait for 1200ml of oil to drain... 5 minutes
Refit drain plug and tighten... 20 seconds
Refill with 1200ml of oil... 2 minutes

Cost? 25% of 5L semi synth 10w40 from halfords... £6.50

@4K everything else will be fine.

[Data]

Dexter, I agree it's an easy task to service most bikes. I'll do my own servicing when the bike is out of warranty. But until then I'm going to be way too busy to mess with it (once I can walk again with this knee injury I'm currently nursing). There is one point I would make though about your comment that at 4k everything else will be fine. Just because you 'think' everything is ok you cannot ignore a manufacturers service schedule. If a customer brings his bike in it has to get the full treatment. And from experience I can tell you that many times I found everything not to be fine. And any tech on here will tell you the same too. I've found loose calipers, loose exhausts, loose/coming off fuel pipes, loose engine mounting bolts and nuts, leaking cylinder head gaskets, leaking batteries (cracked cases), loose electrical connections, leaking brake fluid, leaking rear suspension struts and the list goes on. All stuff you often cannot see until you remove panels and actually check. And it's amazing just how many times you can find this sort of stuff on new bikes at 600miles and 4k. I teched on Honda cars and bike for a while and these were better than most, but still found a nice assortment of faults that needed correcting. Owners are of course blissfully unware of what we find and often dont' believe you when you tell them. But that's how it is. Servicing properly wether you do it yourself or wether it's done by a dealer is vital. And of course a dealer will guarantee his work and has to insurer against missing something too.