Running in nan engine

[caecilius]

I picked up my new Burgman 400 today. The sales guy pointed to a passage in the handbook that said you should't exceed 4000 revs for the first 500 miles. My Piaggio Beverly didn't have a rev counter so i thought that would be achievable. BUT, as soon as I hit the motorway for the journey home I was doing 4000 with just 30 miles an hour. I wouldn't have survived on the M40 for long at that speed, so I took it gently up to 60mph and 6000.

Is the handbook completely unreasonable? 30mph for the first 500 miles would take extraordinary restraint.

Alan

[Drago]

Personally I would ignore it. All my scoots when new I've ridden at various speeds/rpm with no negative effects. Just avoid WOT throttle and vary your speed/rpm. I'm sure I heard somewhere that the clutch issues that effected the Burgman 400 were partly caused by the running in advise. The clutches wouldn't be engaging fully and resulted in glazing/juddering issues.

[SH125Paul]

Warm it up...
Vary the revs...
Add a few more revs 500 or so every 50 miles, or hour or so...
Don't labour the engine...
Change the oil...
Don't nurse it
You need to give it a firm-ish run through the increasing rev range to ensure a good piston ring to cylinder bore seal...

Most bikes scoots cars are put through the rev range to the limiter on a rolling road beford they leave the factory...
A lot of the talk in the manual is mittigation against littigation...
I.E you havent gone mad from the shop and crashed!

Just ridd it nicely

[MrGrumpy]

Yeah do as Xmax400Paul says.
The handbook recommendations can be utterly impractical - they used to recommend 4000 rpm max for the Tmax which is around 45mph - not a good idea on a dual carriageway. I suspect that such recommendations are made with geared bikes in mind, not scooters with CVTs, which are designed to rev at around 5000-6000 rpm before anything much happens.
At least the new Tmax had more sensible advice, allowing 5100 rpm which was about 70mph

[caecilius]

Thanks for the advice. The instructions in the handbook did sound entirely impractical. They put me on a new Burgman test bike before I decided and I took it out with a dealer and he said nothing about sparing the engine.

Alan

[Maxsymuppet]

It said the same in the handbook for my 2012 Burgman, and it also meant 30 mph. I stuck to it at first, but when I asked my dealer about it he said to keep to it most of the time but occasional bursts to 5000 were okay. This is more like it. I think this 4000 rpm for the first 500 miles may be a bit of a get-out clause for Suzuki. In the event of any engine problems they can ask 'did you stick to 4000 rpm for the first 500 miles?' And if not it gives them an excuse not to honour a warranty claim. That's what I think anyway.

[kayz1]

I have been running in the J300, only 300 and odd miles at the moment and the same in it's book also.
As soon as i saw the rev counter and speedo i thought sod that for a game, who on earth is going to ride
at 30mph every where. I went up to 45 for for a couple of hundred miles then 50 for a hundred with a few
bursts of 60 and some high torq stuff like starting on steep hills. I will be doing 60 next time out until i get
to the 600mile limit for the first service..in a week or so.
Lyn.

[Mr Xmax]

I've been fairly good keeping my Xmax 300 to the 4.5k rpm limit during the first 600 miles. Works out at 40mph. Fortunately I have an alternative route to work along country roads so this is ok. Have thrown in some high rpm bursts too as manual only says to avoid prolonged use advice that rpm guide. Glad I'm nearly at 600 miles though. First service Monday coming up.

[Ralph]

One thing in the Xmax 300 owne book I noticed was the the ECU recorded some
peamites it does not say what but I suspect speed is one and goes on to say one
of the ways these will be disclosed is if required by law or in case of litigation so
they can likely see if you ragged it during running in, have heard this goes on but
not seen it written down before.

[rayb]

I worked for Rank Xerox in the early 70s and we had 1250cc Avenger Estates. I collected my new one at the same time as a colleague. Now these were not the best engineered cars and I ran mine in carefully, whilst he thrashed the bum off his from day one. After two years and a lot of miles, his was faster than mine, more reliable and had better fuel consumption.