Cheers bandit, not sure what the gauze was all about on mine but it was in a right state anyway. Ah right yeah I remember you saying you were going to weld yours up skipper, how has it gone? Yeah I had one patch welded on mine but they still feel a bit thin in places and the guy said there is only so much he can do, his welds will hold but new holes may start appearing in time. I guess I will get stainless pipes in the future but for now I am happy painting these tomorrow and refitting them when this gasket arrives. I still have the standard end can at the moment but fancy upgrading that at some point too.

The best review I found of these bikes was in ride magazine, I have it somewhere was a great read. Whilst I'm new to this forum and have only been on an unrestricted licence for a few months myself, I have been riding for 4 years and am lucky enough to have "test ridden" a few mates full power bikes. For me personally, I am extremely pleased that I settled for the Fazer because as a bike it is the best all round package, is comfortable, really is fun to ride and inspires me with confidence. On my budget it was a choice of Fazer, Hornet, SV and dare I say it....bandit.


Hornet from the off was an instant no, I just really didn't feel comfortable on it and thought it was too small (I am 6 foot 4). It is a good little bike no doubt, I agree with the hooligan comment, it is light and powerful but that isn't really my style and I would buy a supermoto for that, plus having a mate crash his at 110mph from a random tank slapper was a big eye opener. 


My dad has an SV, I have ridden it on a few occasions and it is great fun, probably more so than mine in certain situations. Sounds lovely, handles and pulls well but fells a bit weezy the faster you go. His looks great but some look a bit strange in my personal opinion, doesn't feel as well built to me as the Fazer either but would be my 2nd choice.


Not as of yet ridden a bandit but a lot of my friends had them and they all put me off unfortunately. As bikes they all feel very heavy and bulky, plus all my mates crashed theirs for various dodgy reasons, mostly riding like idiots so probably unfair to attribute that directly to the bike. One of my mates does have a nice one though which he bought in May and is the mark 2 faired version, he has never been on a Fazer so we're going to have a little test of each others soon once I weld my down pipes up next week so that I can say I have tried them all. I like his bandit but doubt I would ever own one. Another mates GSX 1400 that he kindly let me try on the other hand! Pwhoar.....

Awesome cheers yeah I can't weld anyway ha but I have painted stuff before so I'll give it a go, saves me a lot of money too cheers for the advice

Haha fair enough, this is why I was quite surprised to read they are not as good as the originals which nobody seems to have in the "show me your fazer" thread. I was under the impression as long as they have the two connectors between the outer and inner pipes on both sides all is good? Also, what is the difference between the venom motad and very expensive motad pipes just in case anyone knows?

This also happened to me, could not work out what it was for the life of me and drove me mental. I actually ended up taking the whole front end off except the sub frame and clocks and rode it around the block adding a section at a time to eliminate possibilities. It was all fine until I got to the black infill fairings, one of the plastic weird screw things that holds them to the frame was missing two of its clips and wasn't holding it down properly on the right side meaning it was slapping against the metal fixing. I've bodged it for now with an ugly looking allen fixing and rubber washer but the replacement I bought off ebay this week wasn't the right size unfortunately so I am sending it back with the broken one I have removed in it to see if the guy has any of those, hope that helps

I was a bit bored this evening after watching MOTD 2 and after the usual kicking about on the internet and chatting to mates on facebook etc I stumbled upon the SV.org forum (pretty similar to this site actually just full of dirty SV riders  ) and ended up finding this randomly! (Bear with me)


http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=183639


Started reading it through, looked quite interesting and was unsure of a few peoples clearly biased comments. Anyway, I get to the last post right at the bottom of the first page and someone has done a pretty comprehensive, unfair review of the FZS600 which to me of course is a cracking bike. So I'm reading it through and straight away think oh cool mine is a W reg...wait what...gutless...wheezy.... wow this guy sounds just like........ Wait a second!!!! I kid you not, that is my dad. Cheeky git I was absolutely stunned!


The story is completely true and legit and he is a member of the forum, he in fact was the one who suggested I search for a Fazer forum. We have swapped bikes a couple of times and yes his SV is actually a good laugh but I am not letting him get away with this! My side of the story, his SV for me honestly feels half as well made as the Fazer, could be the big weight difference and the V twin vibes. It is a good engine and was a laugh, but polar opposite of mine in that it is powerful up to a point then falls of the cliff completely, it is strangely quiet however when riding (he has the standard can), just rumbles with this strange whine like it has a supercharger. The brakes were absolutely shockingly poor in comparison, although the engine braking rips your face off before you need to pull any levers which was odd. He actually said to me he enjoyed riding mine however even when I told him he was riding it wrong after hearing his complaints, so this is why I was so stunned at his reaction when back on his home turf (the SV forum).


We do go out for rides every now and then together, I am often following him and out of respect if we are on the dual carriageway or some twisties or whatever I do not see any reason to overtake or make it into a race as we aren't usually hanging about anyway. But at no point when he pulls away or goes for an overtake am I struggling to keep up. One rare time I was actually leading and properly opened it right up for a test on a small stretch of dual carriageway near our house and all I could see was his headlight getting further and further away in my mirror, he later admitted to accidentally red lining his, obviously stunned at the "gutless" Fazers sudden turn of pace when taken out of 6th gear. 


I'm not annoyed that he doesn't prefer the Fazer of course, to each his own and he loves his SV I am just surprised that he would go as far as to not reccomend one to someone. I would always take my Fazer over his SV personally as an all rounder, however have reccomended the SV to some friends who are looking at getting their first "big" bikes as it was no doubt a great machine. Essentially, before I rumble him I just wanted to level the score a bit and see what some of you guys think on this site! Anyone tried an SV? All comments will of course be as unbiased as the guys on his forum I hope.....   Cheers

Hi unfazed, ah right I understand what you meant now, I was always under the impression that to keep it even you would just replace both at once though, they arrive as a pair etc and cant remember but I think the Haynes suggests it. Interestingly with your point about impact damage though, the bike is in brilliant condition except for a fairly large crack and hole in the front fairing on the left side above the leaky fork which is quite annoying as everything else looks great, doesn't look like its been down the road at any point. I was actually considering street-fightering the bike because of it but to be honest I like the square eye fairing and clocks and didn't like how the clocks are bodge mounted on others I have seen plus didn't fancy spending loads on a replacement naff digital one. Do you think that could be part of the issue? I can take some photos of the forks and fairing damage if you like so you can have a look, I can remove them from the bike and clean them up although I do quite often like you say clean them with wd-40 and a cloth when I clean the rest of the bike. To be honest, as soon as I got the forks back and refitted them I went for a ride about 50 miles or so and straight away when I got home I had a look and saw some oil residue on the fork on the left which was really annoying. When I fitted the forks, I did give them a pretty good pump to make sure it all felt good and there was no leaking immediately at that point but I guess me pushing on them is a lot less force than having to break from 60-70mph even though I was being as rough as I felt would be necessary to see any leaks. When we took the forks apart like I say we didnt get the lowers away from the tubes so didn't get to see how the bottom of the tubes looked, but they do look good above the seal with no real bad corrosion that I can see. 

Hi again guys, just an update on this post, we managed to do most of the work ourselves bar getting out the nuts holding everything in at the bottom with the broom technique so decided to accept defeat before breaking anything and took them to a local garage to remove and replace the seals and oil. Only cost £15 so can't complain, he did mention bushes would need replacing soonish. However he also mentioned the left side (the leaky side) seal didn't fit as tightly as he would've liked. Anyway after refitting them to the bike, annoyingly a few weeks later now I have noticed that it is still leaking... I noticed small amounts each day since the work but thought it may just be residue from when he fitted the seals to make them easier to fit, but due to rain past few days havent cleaned the bike and looked today and there was a pretty substantial amount.


I asked a mechanic friend what he thought and he said that the stanchion could be damaged / worn and isn't making a tight enough seal or is damaging the new seal to allow fork oil through and probably needs replacing  . What do you guys think, any experience with this problem? If it does need replacing, any tips on where to get a decent second hand one and would I need to replace both? Cheers

Hope the pics are clear enough, what's the opinion on the dust seals then do you think they are good enough to clean up and be re-used?

Awesome thanks very much, that is exactly the sort of guide I was looking for. I just recieved the Haynes Manual for the bike today which does reccomend replacing the dust seals too but I wasnt sure if it was really necessary if they were in good nick. I got the seals from the wemoto website and they arrived earlier in the week, was hoping to start working on the forks tomorrow but think I will probably order the dust seals and retaining clips too. The fork seals are made by Athena, im guessing that isn't the genuine Yamaha one's? Would you suggest returning them if not?