Curvy or Pointy

**** AND BREATHE ****

Back to OE question, Id get a curvy (i'm a pointy owner), for sheer fact of the little use its had.

BUT i agree with kingsmill, BOTH bikes are way over price

I bought for my gf a black K5 pointy faired, with 5K miles on, FSH immac etc. for £2500 2 weeks ago, its a buyers market, go haggle!

[northwind]

Originally Posted by SmudgeK3

pointy for reliability and better specs/looks, but you'll properly find more people will say curvy cos theres more curvys than pointy's and there not gonna say a different bike to what they have are they? i dont think Suzuki would go backwards would they?

Originally Posted by SmudgeK3

look up the stress test and the fuel consumption oh yeh and the BHP difference junior

At the risk of agreeing with the knobber, the frame was changed entirely on cost grounds. The original cast-and-extruded frame was the most expensive single part Suzuki made in the year the SV was launched, which was insane, so they replaced it with a more conventional, cheap beam frame. It's not really any worse, some would say it's a wee bit less stiff but it's certainly not too weak or too bendy. Especially not when bolted to the standard suspension.

The power isn't from the fuel injection- a carbed SV with the FI cams in it makes almost exactly the same power. Suzuki cunningly used the spec of the Yoshimura cams for the curvy when they respecced the pointy, so essentially it has very mild race cams as standard. This is where all the power difference derives. The FI was fitted entirely (IMO) for emissions purposes, the carbs arguably work better but they're much dirtier and couldn't have been made to pass euro 3. Fuel injection is better than carbs, all other things being equal, but the SV fuel injection is very limited and doesn't really make full use of the technology- it's more or less a carb emulator. The big advantage is that they don't carb ice, which at this time of year I wouldnt' say no to myself

The pointy got a revised cam chain tensioner, revised again for K5, both of which work better than the curvy one. (the K3 and K4 ones retrofit incidentally). Nice wee improvement that. And the oil cooler was added of course, but that doesn't add much but complexity if you ask me, the SV has no cooling issues. The K5 onwards has an upgrded shifter setup based on the Factory Pro design, which is a very nice upgrade, this is the sort of thing Suzuki do well- evolution in action.

There's downsides too though... The single piece clutch casing makes it impossible to access the clutch without draining the coolant, and the revised crank bearings have been accused of causing cracked crankcases. From what I've seen, the finish on the pointy is less good, the tank and tail scratch very easily and the frame wears too fast in both silver and black. Obviously the pointy tail light is ace, while the curvy one is boring...

This is all a longwinded way of saying, get the one you like the look of. There's differences, but they're not massive and none of them makes one an obviously superior choice. Most can be worked around or even reversed- you could make a curvy more powerful than a pointy for less than the price difference between the two, if you were so inclined.

I like the curvy, myself, that's why I got one. It's not a case of people liking what they have, it's a case of people getting what they like

Thanks once again... What do you think would be a reasonable offer on the curvy sv ? id imagine 2000 cash would be hard to resist. hmm decisions!

[Sid Squid]

The practical differences to the rider are so small as to not be worthy of mention.
I can't stress this enough - buy the best bike you can find for the money you've got, irrespective of which model it is as the differences are in all practical ways irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Drew

Thanks once again... What do you think would be a reasonable offer on the curvy sv ? id imagine 2000 cash would be hard to resist. hmm decisions!

£1700

I would be well choffed to get it at that price. Watch this space.

pointy pointy pointy pointy pointy

[Lissa]

Originally Posted by SmudgeK3

i rekon curvey for a lady and pointy for a bloke

You calling Pete a lady?

He'll bite ya!

We've got a curvy. We've ridden a pointy and hated it. It felt flat and gutless after the curvy, and let's face it, they are sooooooooooooooooo ugly

after seeing your curvey lissa ive looked at 2 since binning the pointy tho

The pointy SV has one thing that the curvy hasn't got that all curvys owners would die for, a built in clock, they're just too proud to admit it

As far as the curvy Vs pointy frame goes, yes the pointys frame is cheaper and not as stiff as the curvys, but for average Joe road-user like myself I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two.

Then again cheaper isn't allways worse, take the AK47 Vs the AK74M for example:
The original AK47 used a reciever milled from a solid lump of metal which was expensive/complicated to manufacture not to mention heavy.
The updated version of the AK47 (the AK74M) now uses a much cheaper reciever which is stamped from a single sheet of metal, not only is it cheaper, lighter more reliable it's stronger too!
Cheaper shouldn't really be looked as as worse, just efficient, which is what the Japanese are all about.

Seriously though, If the curvy had the pointies plastics/styling i'd of gone for a curvy.
I've allways thought the curvys look awsome when they've been streetfightered, far better than the pointy, I think it's the curvys frame, it just works.
The Pointies frame (in my oppinion) does'nt really work so well (style wise) as a streetfighter, even though I own one.

To be honest (to my knowledge) there isn't a lot in it between Pointies Vs Curvys for the average Joe, I do like my built in clock though