Has a Pointy ever broken down?

Proper break down, nope, and mine gets treated pretty badly, it lives out in the snow, it has *never* been cleaned since I bought it 18 months ago, it gets serviced and in between gets it's oil checked (only once needed a bit of a top up) and that's it. Oh, and it's been dropped twice too.

Niggly fault which I'd go so far as to say is a partial breakdown caused by bad design is the old problem of dropping onto one cylinder every time it's within ten miles of a single raindrop. I'd say of the 7k miles it's done, a good 2k have been done on one cylinder. Copious quantities of silicon based grease seem to keep the problem just about at bay, but I'm pretty sure I probably need new HT leads and plugs as well now.

http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=115751

Aha- good point. How many questions have we got about the FI light showing?

I'm sure any bike has its flaws really.

Like the pointy not being so god damned gorgeous as a curvy!!

But- yeah. Carbs can be a pain!

And lets talk reg/rec's on any SV!

Originally Posted by Stu

countless ones for Curvies with carb icing, stuck choke plungers, wiring loom catastrophes etc.

My curvey had 28k on it and the only problem was my own fault, oil starvation. (OK so it needed a new engine, but still )

In any weather conditions. No other probs.

[northwind]

I've never been on a rideout where a curvy's broken down- apart from my own when I flattened the battery, but that was rider error. But I've been on 3 where pointies have 2 of 'em coil issues I think. They're as susceptible to wiring problems as the curvy, just that they're mostly newer. And they certainly have more catastrophic stress-related engine failures when tuned.

Carb icing isn't a breakdown, it's just bad planning, but you can always ride on. Stuck chokes are just neglect really, and if they get to the point that the bike's immobilise they've been going wrong for a while.

I had my starter coupling go sometime during the second year I owned my pointy SV650S K3. I had it fixed under warrenty. No problems since then. As far as I know it's a fairly rare problem.

[yorkie_chris]

A fair few pointies have spat rods for the sake of it, think it was the early ones. FI engine rods are lighter, suppose it reduces stress but they shaved the wrong bit...

Originally Posted by G

Mine never battered an eye lid with mostly spirited riding.

+1

So when's Stu's bike going to break down now?

Mine did, something big went in the gearbox and it needed a new engine.

Its wasnt from lack of oil either, and from chatting to the mechanic at the garage he had seen a few with serious gear box probs as well.