new strom cuts out/backfires/stalls on pull away

[sharealike]

Upwards of £500 to see if a non stock silencer fixes it is expensive poke and hope diagnosis. Keep it stock and change one thing at a time with the option to go back to 100% stock are the first rules in my 40 year old book of diagnosis. Most other bikes behave as stock and so should the rest of them.
There could be something in this throttle blipping theory. I have an SV engine where idle speed is set with a scew by the owner. Am I right in thinking the new Strom has this set by the ECU? In other words no screw.
If I slow my engine idle down to half what it should be to say 500 rpm it will make that metallic clack described and then stall. No matter how you try to catch it by opening the throttle its very hard to avoid the stall. I put the noise down to the decompressors holding two exhaust valves open once below 500 rpm. Only having the engine driven by the starter motor or by the road passing by the back wheel will get the engine back above the 500 rpm so the decompressors let the two exhaust valves close and the engine run as it should.
Riding my SV with idle set low at 1100 rpm invites some stalls much as described here. Stalls accompanied by the metallic clack. Raise idle to 1200 or above which is still within book spec and all is fine with no stalls or clacks ever. I'm thinking your dangerous stalling at least might be reduced or eradicated all together if you can get the idle speed up by as little as even 100 rpm. The higher the natural idle the more time due to momentum in the engine has stored to carry it over until the ECU opens the throttle a whisker to compensate. That's what an ECU controlled idle speed does. Constantly checks the idle speed and opens or closes a throttle to keep it where the book says it should be.
A further complication with modern ECU's is that some do cut the fuel supply completely when the bike is driving the engine such as when on the overun. Blipping the throttle simulates being on the overrun as far as the ECU is concerned. Throttle is shut and the other signal of high inlet manifold vacuum is there to kid the ECU you are going down hill with no need of fuel. In the riding situation the whole bikes momentum caries the engine speed until the ECU turns the fuel back on when the throttle opens or the on let vacuum decays. Only the engines own flywheel momentums carry the engine on until the fuel arrives in the throttle blip scenarios.
It would not surprise me if idle speed were one of the parameters that could be adjusted by someone with the right bit of kit.
The point I make here is that an already weak idle both in terms of mixture and power only needs the slightest upset so it misfires once and the engine is in trouble because the ECU can't catch it and the decompressor kicking in kills it dead. SV and first DL engines used to keep a little too much fuel going in all the time at idle to keep it robust so to speak. That PAIR system used to pump fresh air into the exhaust to keep it clean enough to not stink and perhaps pass a sniffer up the exhaust test for hydrocarbons
Just ideas and food for thought.

[Oop North John]

Two thoughts after Sharealike's post:

1 - Can the throttle cables be adjusted to tweak the idle speed up, or is the ECU clever enough to know what it wants the engine to do and sets the idle irrespective of throttle cable postion?

2 - On the BM oilheads it was well known that the ECU needed to relearn the throttle position, so after disconnecting the battery / messing about with exhausts etc there was a need to fully open and close the throttle a couple of times. Might doing that help for this problem?

[Oop North John]

Unfortunately I am one of the poor bastards that has been affected by this issue.

With so many off topic posts in this thread I'd loose the will to live reading them all again, so if you've already posted the answer to my question please accept my apologies. Have you ridden other 2014 DL1000's, and do they do the same when you're riding them?

[sharealike]

Two thoughts after Sharealike's post:

1 - Can the throttle cables be adjusted to tweak the idle speed up, or is the ECU clever enough to know what it wants the engine to do and sets the idle irrespective of throttle cable postion?

2 - On the BM oilheads it was well known that the ECU needed to relearn the throttle position, so after disconnecting the battery / messing about with exhausts etc there was a need to fully open and close the throttle a couple of times. Might doing that help for this problem?

1 Don't do it. Idea of play in the cable is so the throttle is not affected as you steer. Increase or decrease in engine speed as you steer is going to make for one beast of a bike in tight maneuvers. TPS tells ECU I'm in idle position. Do we know if idle is by screw or ECU?

Just another question. Does the new engine have PAIR? My guess is no and they brought in the new twin plugs and ECU to clean up the exhaust at idle.

[Frankenstrom]

Unfortunately I am one of the poor bastards that has been affected by this issue.

I am sadly all to aware of that. I didn't mean any disrespect. You and Tim's posts are 'evidence', definitely not noise.

Good to see constructive on topic responses too (except, ironically, this one...   )

As a confirmed forthcoming Veek owner I am also keen to see this issue resolved!

[bosnjo]

So, we are getting somewhere...
Now we have to try to rise idle by 100 rpm and keep it stable there and see if it helps.
We just need to find out how. I know it can be done by changing angle of TPS but I don't even know how it's done on new DL1000. It looks like by software only. I just don't know.

[UK_Vstrom650]

If I paid £10k (or whatever) for a new bike and was unlucky enough to have the problems some people are having, I would not be spending any more of my hard earned money trying to fix it, that would be Suzuki's job. Isn't that the point of buying new? And with the post suggesting some changes are in the pipeline, I'd be speaking to my dealer about this now.

For those who read my 7.5k Glee service issue, the dealer insisted it was fine, suggested I spend money on a new chain and sprockets which might fix the issue (I didn't) and it was only through my persistence that they eventually looked into it and eventually admitted there was an issue, stating the fault was down to incorrect sparkplugs being listed in the service manual. (The dealer claimed they stripped down a demo bike and swapped components such as the TPS and test rode it after each change)

I appreciate the comments re: I want my bike working and I'd feel the same, however that would not stop me taking the bike back and asking for it to be fixed, replaced or having my money back. And I'm sure Suzuki would rather fix the problem than replace the bike. If 6 months is the cut off to do this I'd be getting on it because I know if this issue persisted with my bike I'd end up hating it and regretting buying it which would be a shame.

As I've said already, the demo Veek I tried in the summer was fantastic and didn't miss a beat however if I had the ££££s to buy one I'd be waiting to make sure these issues were being resolved first in case I was unlucky to receive one of the lemons.

[sharealike]

We all need to bear in mind its your dealers workshop staffs job to bring some money in for the business as a whole. They have to be salesmen just like the staff at the clean end of the operation. Second thing on the blokes mind in the workshop is spending lots of unpaid time diagnosing your intermittent fault. If he can spin you into having lots of paid work done on the back of the stock bike having problems then he will. And many of us will recall the times a dealers used a fault on a machine as an opportunity to talk a trade onto another bike. They are not interested in fixing your bike to the same degree as the owner. I could argue as long as the bike carries you away from their shop and back again with your wallet filled that there is very little incentive for them to fix any bike.

If you got a faulty bike then for the first six months its up to the dealer to prove it was not faulty when supplied. After that its up to you to prove it was faulty when supplied. If there is record of them trying to fix it in the first six months, then that should be proof enough it was wrong when supplied and not a new fault. There's a case not far back in this thread where a dealer has ridden it close to 100 miles and provided a report that all was well in that test ride. Fault there or not that reads to me like a dealer trying to protect himself from any come back into the future.

Fact is this stall might only occur in situations the dealer did not recreate in the test ride. He would probably use fast roads to get some miles in (like Suzuki might on their factory test track) and my guess is this happens in town when you need fine low speed control such as at junctions etc. If its the typical heavy bike with a large capacity V twin engine stall I'm thinking of its very dangerous. It stalls and you can't get the clutch in quick enough nor get your foot down and muscle enough strength up in your leg to prevent losing your balance. Bike falls over straight into the path of a passing car that anticipated you would be out of the way by the time they got to you. A stalling car just stops. A stalling motorbike does the same but suddenly becomes four times as wide as it was into the bargain. And unlike a car you don't have half a ton of cage round you as a buffer. Its dangerous Suzuki. And if emissions regulations say we can't have a rich bottom end to the engine fuelling for a safety net then we all have a potential problem into the future.

I think the new bike has all the makings of a brilliant bike. Come on Suzuki. The price in nearly right. All you need do is convince me this glitch is understood and sorted out and I'm in.

[sharealike]

Just did some reading about the new engines control of idle speed.

"Advanced Idle Speed Control - The idle speed control unit is built into the secondary throttle valves of the Suzuki Dual Throttle Valves (SDTV)".

I interpret this as there being a little electric motor that constantly adjust the equivalent of your old throttle stop screw according to what the ECU thinks the idle speed should be. The same motors, one each cylinder adjusts the SDTV's which are those large flaps in the throttle bodies (always there in the old engine) that only move with large changes in throttle opening. In other words the motor controlling your idle speed will be disturbed and have to rush back to that job quickly after you just blipped the throttle. Perhaps OK with changes to throttle position as you ride and then slow to a halt and need idle control. Not so good blipping the throttle while stationary or just as you are about to take off. The SDTV's motors were always used before to increase idle speed while cold. Seems they are now used for idle speed adjustment all the time.

[greywolf]

A bad TPS can cause failure to idle. I've never heard of it causing misfiring at speed.

[SimonW]

We all need to bear in mind its your dealers workshop staffs job to bring some money in for the business as a whole. They have to be salesmen just like the staff at the clean end of the operation. Second thing on the blokes mind in the workshop is spending lots of unpaid time diagnosing your intermittent fault. If he can spin you into having lots of paid work done on the back of the stock bike having problems then he will.

Slight correction: he might. Not all dealers work this way - mine certainly doesn't.

And you're right in that no trade likes an intermittent problem because they're often expensive (for the business) to try to resolve.

[Timmo]

It seems there are more rogue veerks out there than thought. Can we do a roll call of veeks without problems to put this in perspective as I really want to buy one but am being put off.

[Oop North John]

It seems there are more rogue veerks out there than thought. Can we do a roll call of veeks without problems to put this in perspective as I really want to buy one but am being put off.

Pointless doing a poll as there may be 100 owners not on this site who have had no problem, another 100 on this site who have had no problem but don't want to respond to the poll, two on the site who do want to respond to the poll and haven't had a problem, and another two who do want to respond to the poll and have had a problem. And that means, according to the poll 50% of the veeks have a problem. Or 1% have had a problem based on those who haven't responded, based on my hypothetical figures.

I suspect the actual problematic number is nearer 1% than 50%, which doesn't mean it's not a 100% PITA for those owners of bikes who aren't 100% happy.

BTW I agree with Benjamin Disraeli's take on statistics  

[tallpaul]

Can't beat a good statistic. 8 out of 10 cats agree...

[SimonW]

Excellent, ONJ!  

I don't have any stalling, cutting out, popping etc.

I do have a *slightly* harsh on/off throttle at low revs, but since turning the TC down I'm not sure I'd describe it as a problem.

[Timmo]

So onj has a rogue and smon w has a good one,did Suzuki sell anymore than two? That's statistics for you!

[Oop North John]

So onj has a rogue

 

[wunwinglow]

...and I have a rogue, and Oddbod has a rogue, and CandyFloss has a rogue, and......


Tim

[wunwinglow]

And Timmo, perhaps you could let Suzuki you are being put off their product because of this?! That might gee them up a bit...

Tim

[Firestorm]

I've already let them its putting me off