Posted by Ray Alstrom on November 25, 2000 at 04:05:53:
I rolled a new black & silver LS650 Savage off the dealer showroom floor on October 21, 2000. The weather has been lousy and I haven't been able to run the miles up on my new Savage. I've only got 300 miles total as of today - November 24, 2000. Right away, I suffered the speedo rattle phenomenom. I cured that today using an old bicycle inner tube to insulate the cable from rattling under the gas tank. I also experience the occassional backfire (more like a "poof") and the "fart-on-shutdown" syndrome. This isn't really bothersome to me. It's macho in a way. However, the trick about letting the bike idle for a minute or two before killing the engine works. I spent a little time and elbow grease removing the "for-your-own-good" stickers on the tank, frame and chain guard. The WD-40 trick works to get the sticky residue off. Removing the stickers makes the bike look at least 20% better. I'm armed with a pile of advice from this forum and ready to tackle any problem that might pop up with my Savage. Hopefully, it'll be as reliable as the majority of the users that have posted here.
As a side note, I had a 1983 Suzuki GN400TX "thumper" preceding my current Savage. I really enjoyed that bike. It was about as reliable as any bike I'd ever owned (and I've owned 6 so far). The Suzuki seemed to improve on everything I ever wished the GN400TX had. It's nice to know I've got so much company with the Savage users biking on this forum!