|
It
has been a week since I bought my Suzuki GSX1400. There’s
about 1,000 km on the ODO meter and the first (1,000 km/ 600
miles) service has been carried out earlier today.
I
took my bike to the nearest authorized Suzuki dealer to provide
the service - Kenneth’s Motor in Eskilstuna. The charge
for the first service was 1,000 SEK (about 110$ or 110€)
plus material. I bought the engine oil in a different dealer
and brought it with me. After reading a couple of articles on
the Internet I was convinced that there’s really no reason
to pay more money for motor oil intended for motorcycles only.
High quality motor oils intended for automobiles works as well
(in some cases better) than the bike oils. Five liters of specific
motorcycle oil cost 400—500 SEK in Sweden, I bought five
liters of Texaco Havoline (Formula 3 X1 Extra) 10W-40 (semi-synthetic,
API SJ/CF) for 170 SEK… The service guy agreed with me:
there’s really no reason to pay too much – the oil
doesn’t get better when you put a motorcycle label on the
bottle.
”Never
use fully synthetic oil on this bike”, the guy at the authorized
Suzuki service said. There will be problems with the clutch
if you put fully synthetic oils in the engine. The clutch plates
that have contact with the oil will be eroded while storaging.
Semi-synthetic oil won't do that.”
The
guy who carried out the service asked also if I wanted to buy
a Suzuki original oil filter for 250 SEK or Hiflo oil filter
for 150 SEK. ”Is there really any difference in quality?”
I asked. ”Not really” he replied. ”Hiflo is a
high quality filter. I wouldn’t pay the extra cash just
to get an original filter. I don’t know the reason why,
but the prices of Suzuki original parts had gone up almost 100%
since last year.” I chose the cheaper oil filter, of course.
The
guy at Kenneth’s Motor really liked the looks of the GSX1400.
He was also impressed of the enormous engine. ”I’m
sure this bike will be popular at drag racing. The enormous
engine can deliver so much power if you replace the original
exhausts and air filter and put on a power commander.”
He wanted to test the bike’s performance in a bench. ”I’m
anxious to see how much effect the bike can deliver at it’s
rear wheel. Shall we test it in the bench? We charge only 300
crowns for it.” ”We can do it at the next service”,
I replied. ”I’ve heard the engine deliver it’s
best after two or three thousand kilometers on the ODO.”
The
service guy measured the amount of oil he removed from the engine
before he took out the old oil filter. ”I use to do that.
Now the amount was 4,2 liters, the correct amount. Well, there
is no reason to worry if the amount is slight less. Brand new
engines can consume more oil. But if the oil consumption had
been a liter or more I should have reacted. I also look if the
oil looks very dark or if there’s lots of metal pieces
in the magnet of the oil plug. The oil they use to pour in the
engine at the factories is quite crappy, but this oil still
looks like new and there’s only small amount of metal particles
on the oil plug. Everything looks just fine”, he told me.
The first service included also overall inspection of the bike,
several bolts needed to be inspected and re-torqued (the only
bolt that was really loose was one bolt on the front wheel cover),
the drive chain was inspected and so on. Everything seemed to
be in order.
The
service man was quite interested in test-driving the bike. He
drove a couple of kilometers and came back with a satisfied
look on his face. ”It’s so easy to handle – and
it has huge amounts of torque. I took it only up to 5,000 rpm
but the response was enormous”, he said. ”The price
of this bike is almost too low. It’s worth a lot more”,
he continued.
The
high cost of the service didn’t seem longer that disturbing,
thanks to the nice guy at the bike shop. The sun was shining
and I felt quite good, knowing that I rode a bike that everybody
seem to love.
What
about the difference between a brand new bike and a bike with
1,000 km on it’s ODO meter? – The engine seems to
be more powerful and more responsive compared to a new bike.
Otherwise it’s still as easy to handle and great in every
way. Even the exhaust system is slowly ”opening up”
and probably a bit louder. It’s still too quiet, I don’t
know how many times I have tried to gear down and then realized
that there are no more gears. After a glance on the tachometer
I realize that the 6th gear is already in. According to the
acceleration there should be another gear… A gear indicator,
at least an indicator for the 6th gear (like the ”OD”
indicator on the Gold Wing) would be a nice option.
There’s
also another problem. During the initial break-in period –
while I was allowed to drive with maximum 4,500 rpm engine speed
– there was no problems. My friend Esa drives a Honda 650
Dominator and back then he had no problems in hanging on –
while he was riding at maximum speed my Suzuki engine was running
at about 4 500 rpm. After 800 kilometers I could increase the
engine speed to 6,700 rpm. He can’t keep up with me any
longer. And the bigger problem is: it’s too fast even for
me! The bike is built to speeds greater than that but I’m
such a coward. The bike likes to go faster but I don’t.
Many
people is telling me that I should replace the sissy mufflers
and get more horsepower. But do I need more power? At the moment
I think the bike is powerful enough for me. More than enough.
|
