Too V Strom or NOT, U B the judge

[robopie]

I rode 10k/mi. on my '06 Strom DL and wanted to report my experience.

The bike was majorly loaded with allot more shit than I needed. Side and top case, seat pack for cloths and tank bag. I had tent, sleeping bag and giant free dive fins tied on my side cases. My guess on weight would be near 1000 lb gross w/ me.

The bike was heavy but handled very nicely on pavement or hard pack dirt roads. Rode with 2 riding mates untill La Paz ( rider lost due to him not checking oil on his bike and blew motor in La Paz) and then my major break down in San Jose, C.R.

Took long dirt road, very rough in Baja to Sea of Cortez. This was a brutal long sandy, rocky road. I had to either go super slow with landing gear down and ready or very fast. I had 2 low speed spills in sand. Bike was too heavy for this road.

Started having charging issues in GUAT. battery was drained. Suspected R.R. but could not pinpoint. Was dogged with electrical issues and was recharging battery as needed. In HONDO capital Taligulapia had major break down. Battery dead again and w/ overnight charge could not get started. About 2pm decided to un plug Power Commander after numerous Taxi ride and getting a Suzuki tech to look at the bike where I had to leave it. Bike started and came to life. Suzuki tech no help. These giant bikes are a marvel for these folks.

Changed rear break pads in GUAT. Break shoes not seating in. Numerous assembly and reassembling with no change. Running on very hot rear rotor for many inner pad finally seats and rotors cooled. Found out that calipers need to be lubricated when I got back stateside!

Back on the road with a large battery charger I bought in Taligulapia. Nightly charging untill I made it to San Jose where a BMW rider I had met came and took me to the largest Suzuki shop in C.R.

Guy's at Suzuki shop initially said the charging system checked out. I insisted they look further where they pulled the rotor / stator cover and found one of the magnets had come un-bonded from the rotor wiping out the stator with bits of magnet floating around. Repair time estimate was 1 MONTH while new parts were shipped from Japan. I thought I could speed things up by ordering parts from U.S.

After languishing for 3 weeks waiting for parts from U.S. the Suzuki GM tells me he revived the 2 shipments and BOTH the rotor and stator are the wrong parts! My U.S. mechanic got the wrong rotor and the stator from regulatorrectifier.com was also wrong.

Suzuki GM found a rotor in GUAT and they ended up re wounding the stator. Back on the raod after 5 WEEKS with advise that the stator may not last.

Still with my battery charger I continued nightly charging and noticed battery taking charge at night on some days and others not taking on too much charge.

Road long dirt road, 171 mi. in Honduras, way the hell out there working my way to the Atlantic side. Bike stopped working and sounded like I had blown a plug out of 1 cylinder. After 2 hour repair on dirt road with curious on lookers and one guy who stopped to watch / help I discovered that one of the throttle body boots had blown off of the trailing cylinder. I was bummed to find that Suzuki had a smooth surface on the rubber / aluminum surfaces w/ no groove or mating machined surface. Only a clamp holding it on the throttle body and air cleaner box. BAD DESIGN!!!! The bumpy dirt roads vibrated the T.B. off the boot. None the less, glad to have made the repair and back on the road.

Another dirt road in Belize the same thing happened with the T.B. coming off boot. Only advantage that I fixed in 20 minutes w/o pulling tank.

Guadalajara Mexico my charging system completely dies taking the battery with it. New bike battery brings everything back to life. Not wanting to be stuck for another 3 weeks OR MORE again I decide to buy a large Deep Cycle battery and wired it parel and secure in my top case.

Running hard back to the border with very deep overnight charging with the battery charger I carried I made it back ON BATTERY POWER! Stator replaced in U.S. and bike is sound again.

The stator / rotor issue is a 1 in 1,000,000 shot.

The T.B. coming loose is a design defect from Suzuki. No excuse to have not machined some mating surfaces in these components. The smooth rubber boots against the smooth T.B. is just plane wrong.

Would I take a V Strom on this kind of trip again?
Probably not.

Although it navigated the dirt roads it was very cumbersome and shook / vibrated allot. I wish I had coughed up the money for a GS that I was looking at before I bought the Strom. My luck was bad all around with the Rotor going down.

Overall I LOVED my adventure! Incredible and I have been bitten by the overland experience! Even though I ended up riding the majority solo I went placed FEW white men have gone and saw so many beautiful and amazing places.I had people either stare at me in disbelief for what they were seeing or whoop and hollar. The giant free dive fins came in handy in many places. I had no fear and NEVER had any dangerous events that I was aware of, except the animals in the roads.

V STROM OK FOR PAVED ROADS NOT AN ADVENTURE BIKE !!!!!

I'm pretty sure the magnet broke loose from the rotor on the sand road in Baja.

HIGHLIGHTS; Too many but.... Big Surf- Puerto Escondido, Killer reef free diving- Bocas - Salt Creek, Killer reef free dive- Placencia-Belize , Tecal, the ride, the ride, the ride, meeting Indigenous people GUAT and Salt Creek-Panama.

lowlights; Spending hours and hours and hours and...... thinking about- working on- paying for bike repairs, languishing in San Jose waiting for parts-repair and returning back home to the "real life."

AFRICA to RUSSIA anyone!!! If only I had a GS and the money.