K for all of you DS 650 owners. How many of you really run into reliability issues with your bikes? I keep seeing tons of like 03 ds's that have rebuilt engines because something has gone wrong with the engine. How many common problems do they experience? I am thinking about getting an 05 DS for playing in the dunes.

 

If you take care of the engine it will take care of you, the engine is pretty durable, the only engines that had problems were the 00 and 01 cause of weak shift forks. If my forks would not have been bent i would not have built my bike, they respond well to the bolt on mods, like pipe, filter and rejet. All in all they are an excellent bike and if I go back to a single cyl I would not hesitate to get another.

 

My guess is that these people that are rebuilding did it to themselves, unless the rebuild was for bigger and badder parts. But I have not really seen that on the e-bay side of things. As long as you get the valves checked after the first 10 hours of break in, and then about every 100 hours or so after that you are good there. Keep you oil levels good and changed when needed, you are good. Keep coolant in there and where it should be you are good there. Keep it clean and proper normal maintenance and you are all good. My brother's only has bolt on parts, and have had no motor problems at all, and we are almost 3 years old with them now, and hours and hours of ride time. It is getting bigger and better stuff put on in a month or so, and I expect everything to be looking sweet in the motor.

The only thing I will really tell you to watch, is you will need to grease the carrier bearings or you will have an expensive fix there. Of course we did not run into that problem until we hit well over 200 hours....

 

I agree with Dragon and Cynick, keep up on your regular maintence and you will not have a problem.

The only reason I did my motor is because I had to do my shift forks. When I did pull it apart the jug and piston it still looked great after 5 years of abuse.

 

the only thing that might be a problem is the screen in the oil tank, people never cleaned that in the beginning.

 

I've never heard of that many people doing "rebuilds" b/c of problems, ppl do builds for the mods and such, only prob i've ever had is strippin the oil drain plug and it jarrin loose and then losin all my oil lol very bad for the engine!!! haha [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Actually I've NEVER heard of anyone rebuilding a Rotax 650 motor because of problems. I've seen tranny's being reworked, cranks being stroked, pistons and rings being swaped out, intake and exhaust porting being applied due to bolt on this and that's, bigger/badder cams being installed, and the usual things that go into any build of any make and manufacturer after you tire of the stock configuration.
Lots of people get the bug for lots of reasons but as I've said, I've yet to see a rebuild due to problems. If duning is what you seek then the DS is what you're after.

 

The '04 baja x had ring issues. I own two of them and both failed. We had a thread on here with others with the same issue. We narrowed it down to a certain build date or model. If you are looking at an 04, research that.

 

Halfliter, would you mind posting a link to the thread that discussed the problems specific to the 04? I vaguely remember it, but couldn't find it using a search. I recently got an 04 Baja X, and am curious if mine might have that problem. Thanks.

 

i've dealt with two different dealers and both have told me this engine is bulletproof. just keep it up and it will be fine. give your cam tensioner a check everynow and then though, it only takes a second