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Once and for all, Truth about Timing Chain Failure

25894 Views 76 Replies 29 Participants Last post by  jasonpinson143
There has been a lot of talk about timing chain failure on the C 50 Boulevard engine. I find it hard to believe Suzuki built a motor and continues to build the same motor with a timing chain weakness considering todays advances in motor technology. Any well designed motor should be able to go 100,000 miles with proper maintenance today. So here is the question. has anyone ridden their C 50 motorcycle 100,000 and did you have to replace the timing chains and tensioners. And if you did have the Timing chain problem, how many miles were on your motorcycle. Please include the year so we can look for problem years.
Thank you for participating.
I just bought a 2007 C 50 Boulevard with 13,000 miles on the clock and want to know whether I can plan on riding it another 87,000 miles without a timing chain failure or whether I should sell it at 25,000 for something better designed. Thanks and hopefully we can get to the bottom of this timing chain issue
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So here is the question. has anyone ridden their C 50 motorcycle 100,000 and did you have to replace the timing chains and tensioners. And if you did have the Timing chain problem, how many miles were on your motorcycle. Please include the year so we can look for problem years.
I don't think you are going to get many responses from people who have put over 100,000 miles on their C50s- there are only a few owners on this site with that many miles on their bikes, and they have all replaced their entire engines at least one time, sometimes multiple times.

You are going to get a lot of responses with cam chain problems in the 40,000-50,000 mile range. Myself included- cam chains starting to have problems with 45,200 on my meticulously maintained 2006.

The C50 is an inexpensive bike, with a very small engine for a bike as physically large as it is, and steeply geared to make it work- my C50 is actually slightly longer than my Electra Glide, but the Harley has an engine more than twice as large. So it stands to reason that the bike with the 800cc engine that cost $6,699 brand new is simply not going to last as long as the $18,999 bike with the 1700cc engine and six speed overdrive transmission. Cars are the same way- no one would expect a $11,000 Chevy Aveo to last as long as a $35,000 Acura RDX.

A C50 should give you 40,000-50,000 good miles. As the average owner of a small Japanese cruiser only puts 3,000-5,000 miles a year on their bike, this is considered to be a more than acceptable life span, and is about what you would get out of similarly priced and sized models. If you want a bike that will last 100,000 trouble-free miles, get something much larger, like a Kawasaki 1500, a Honda Goldwing, a Kawasaki Concours, anything from BMW, or anything from Harley that is not a Sportster.
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