Leave well alone or get it all done?
 

All,

I have a 2001 naked. It had done 14k miles when I got hold of it last year and has now done c16k. Previous owner had it main-dealer serviced until 12k then did it himself including new chain, sprocket, plugs, brake fluid, coolent etc.

I gave it an oil, oil filter and air filter service in the summer and generally keep it well lubed and checked over I'm confident with that sort of thing, but chicken out quite quickly if it gets more complex than that.

It's running fine, starts, runs and stops as well as I would hope it should. Question is being a tight fisted individual, should I splash out and get it serviced by a dealer getting the carbs balanced, valves checked etc, or do I just keep it in fresh oil and filters until it feels like it needs to have something done to it?

Alternatively is there anyone in the Fleet area who knows what they are doing and could do the tricky bits for beer money?

Cheers,
Mark

Ps for those local to me, I've just come back along the A339 from Alton to Basingstoke. What a wonderful bit of road. Anyone know of anything similar round here?

I think the 16k Service is the big one. This includes carb balance but more importantly the valve clearance check. Did you do that? Don't panic if you didn't, most times the valves are fine.

Most of the services for the SV are just oil, plugs and filters which are easy enough to replace and the replacement periods are in the owners manual. So maybe you should let a dealer do the big one at 20k and then do the rest yourself until you get to the next big one at 32k.

I should also point out that a good mech will also check out head, wheel and swingarm bearings. He would also service the brakes. You might not need pads but the pistons and retaining pins might benefit from a clean up and greasing especially after a winter.

HTH

John

One thing to mention is that when something goes wrong over time, you might not even be aware of it... My clutch lifter machanism fell apar very ver slowly, so the clutch got heavier over the course of months- I had no idea it was doing it until by chance I rode another bike, and realised how heavy mine was. And I'm pretty good at that sort of thing, usually...

Getting a second opinion is one of the advantages of dealer servicing- you might think something's perfectly fine when in fact it's potentially a problem.

Thanks for that.

Local dealer quoted c£220 for the service incl bits and VAT but if it needs shimming it will be more. Does that sound about right? There's only one real service centre around me, and several dodgy looking breaker/dealer outfits that I have no experience of and they do not inspire confidence from a casual glance.