The Husqvarna Terra is more Chinese and Italian than it is BMW. Far as I understand it ... chassis, cycle parts/components are mostly Italian made, Japanese ... and a few German items. The motor is based on the Rotax F650 motor ... but is 3 generations evolved as constructed by Loncin in China. I know well the common BMW failures and the arrogance with which BMW Gmbh deal with said problems and how they treat customers. Suzuki are positively altruistic by comparison. Amazingly ... the Terra thread here on ADV ... and on Cafe Husky have remarkably GOOD reports on these bikes! No real problems, no explosions or failures of any kind ... at least none I've heard of. It's true it is still early days and only a few Terra/Strada owners have topped 10,000 miles thus far. By end of Summer I'd bet we'll pretty much know how these bikes are going to hold up long term. I'm betting they are good. Go test ride one. I did, was very impressed.
I have to wonder about the cush rubbers and 3rd gear failures. I recently changed mine (27K miles and I assume they are original on a '96) and couldn't believe the difference in drive line slop and shifting. It feels like a brand new bike now. All that slop would put a lot of load back through the transmission. It is a gradual thing that you don't realize as they deteriorate, it doesn't become obvious how bad it is until you put new ones in and feel the difference. Maybe people are waiting too long between replacements and it is causing damage to the gears? Thoughts? Tim
Thanks for the heads up GSF1200s. I definitely got lucky and stopped the engine as soon as I began to hear the chain rattle noise coming on when driving in third gear. Shift forks are fine and do not appear to require replacing. Luckily the gear tooth seems to have sheared off and fallen, without missing a beat, into the oil pan. As far as I've been able to see there are no damages caused by the tooth while free falling. 3DChief - I hear you on the cush rubbers and will check. However, I also have an XF650, with similar mileage ( 2002) and have never replaced the cush rubbers. Locally there are several thousand units of this model running around and there is no history of gearbox failures ( which the two models share). Will keep exploring and see what comes up.
Please do keep an ear out for what NordieBoy and others more experienced have to say. That said, usually when third fails, so does a shift fork. Your case really does suggest the gear is the problem, though who knows. Also, make sure to flush the motor as best as possible before you reassemble. Its usually the metal getting circulated through the motor that destroys it, though in some cases the can chain gets jammed and snaps which destroys just as well
I believe its been decided it could contribute but isn't likely the main cause. I think gear teeth sheering shows its a metal problem. That said I replaced mine before I left on my trip and I am watching them. Any signs of wear and they will be replaced immediately
I think that is a pretty fair theory. Imagine chugging hard, lugging the bike in the wrong gear, riding off road, pulling up a very steep long hill? ... Imagine the beating the gears take under this circumstance? Fresh Cush Rubbers make a startling difference in smoothness, we all know that. (I first posted about this years ago) But perhaps they also protect the gear box more than we realize? I'm on my 3rd set of Cush Rubbers ... and now over 50,000 hard miles ... and still chugging away ... in the wrong gear!
The biggest problem I have with the Terra is the weight- 408lbs?? The Dr650 is called a pig and its like 365. I went crazy trying to lighten my DR as much as possible. I took off prolly 20lbs, and 345 can still be a ton depending on the offroad. The KTM 690 has the terras power and it weighs what 310-320 lbs? You can prolly cut 20lbs of crap off of it too and get a 300lb missile. That thing has to scream on road and off. That said, its problems are complication and weird stupid problems. The Terra also has 7.5 inches of suspension travel.. isnt the DR around 9 and ribbed for that as well? I think the choice of bike depends heavily on where you ride it. The Terra would work as a fire road bike, but the KTM is bound to be much better in nasty conditions.
I think a metal problem would show with breaks in additional areas other than the teeth, and also other gears since they are all made with the same metal. If you think about it, each tooth is point-loaded and if it is getting hammered by the drive train, all the stress would be at the base of the teeth. The teeth are by far the weakest point in the entire gear. The pictures of failures I have seen are a tooth breaking off at the base. I have seen one or two where the whole gear broke in half, but was that after a tooth came loose and jammed the gears? If I'm not mistaken, those were the instances when the whole drive train locked up. Let's get away from the DR650 and look at any gear failure. It is always on the teeth. Not a metallurgical problem, but a mechanical problem that stressed or jammed the gear. What puts the stress on the gear? Who knows? It might be design, it might be vibration or shock loading, or maybe lubrication. But whatever causes that stress has to be eliminated to change the outcome. We've already had a pro look at the gears and say it isn't the metallurgy or the design, so we are left looking for other potential sources. Even with this thread and documented failures, I will continue to ride mine and not concern myself with it. Should it fail, I'll replace it with another DR650 and ride on. It meets all my needs and life is too short to worry about what could happen. Every bike out there has its own issues, I'd just be trading this issue for a different one. Any bike on the road could have a mechanical failure at any time. The odds are much better that an idiot on 4 wheels will destroy my bike than a mechanical failure, so I'll direct my focus and concern towards that threat. Tim
The piece in shown in the last picture is too big to get out through the opening in the crankcase. It looks like a piece of shifter fork too me.
Good thoughts.. I certainly can't argue with you as I dont know much about transmissions in general. I do think though, if it had nothing to do with the metal, why wouldn't every failure just sheer the teeth off the gear (some XRs have had this problem actually)? When you see a gear broke in half, then the forces subjected to the gear that broke it broke the weakest point- the gear into pieces and not the teeth. That means the teeth were stronger than the parts of gear that broke, and that would suggest to me (pure conjecture again) that any lubrication or sudden mechanical failure is unlikely as that would, by virtue of how force is applied to a gear, destroy the teeth first. Sorry if its repetitive- trying to be clear with novice language. *edit* this is what leads me to think its a problem with how the gear is made or the metal used, especially when they do fail without shift forks breaking AND other gears have even been known to fail in a similar fashion (I believe a case of 4th and a case of 5th- please correct me if I'm wrong) I am doing the same as you (riding it), but I am because I can't get anything else. Its a shame because I love the bike as long as it keeps running. If this issue weren't present, I wouldn't even consider another dual sport at least for awhile
If the transmission is subjected to sudden seizure, you will see gears break like that. But it's not because of a weakness of the metal, it is because the way the forces are transferred to it are different. When the gear is spinning normally, most of the load is on the teeth that are engaged and that force is distributed throughout the gear evenly. When that entire transmission suddenly stops, all of that momentum/inertia energy of the sudden stop changes the way the gear transmits the force. Now it is all loaded at one point on the gear and the teeth are fully engaged and supported, so that force finds the next weakest point. The force of the sudden stop is way beyond the design parameters of any gear. Think about all of the force it is suddenly subjected to if it seizes and in an area that doesn't normally see that kind of force. On one side you have the piston and crank trying to spin it one way and the drag of the wheel trying to spin it the other way. It normally only sees force in one direction, now you have effectively doubled the force it is seeing, and in a twisting motion as well. You will notice that occasionally people find a tooth on their magnetic drain plug, but no other indication of a problem other than maybe some extra noise. The ones with the catastrophic gear failure are ones where that tooth went into and jammed the gears instead of dropping into the pan. This is not unique to the DR650, if you suddenly jam any transmission under load, it will do the same thing. Car, tractor, semi, bike...it doesn't matter. Even understanding why it happens, I still don't have an answer as to how to prevent it. Again, this is such a miniscule problem, but the internet makes us think it is bigger than it is. If this happened 10 years ago, you wouldn't know anything about it and would be cruising along blissfully unaware. It's like lightning or an earthquake, we know about them, but don't even think about them since a) we can't do anything about them, and b) the odds against it happening to us are huge. Relax and enjoy your ride, that's why we do this! Tim
Makes me wonder about the failures that happened on bikes which had sudden loads (stopping or starting) applied to them. I can imagine both wheelies (any kind) and stalls due to the rear wheel stopping (or the opposite - stalling the engine while rolling at speed) being part of the problem... but then I thought some guys were swearing they treated their bikes like angels and still had the problem... or weren't they?
Unless the DR is in 4th or 5th gear, when 3rd is loaded via the side dogs. Note that when 3rd does shatter, it does so on the edge of a side dog. The gearbox places I took mine to said that it was just the manufacturing process. A sintered gear can't be as strong as a billet gear. Point loading, no problem with 1st and 2nd. It's the side loaded gears that die.
I follow you here. I really wish I had a motor apart to look at and try to figure what would cause such a stoppage. You mention that a stoppage likely causes the types of failures where the gear is busted in half, but what might cause the type of failure you mention later where a tooth just shows up on the magnetic plug and the bike otherwise seems to run fine? I keep thinking cheap/too small being dogged to 4th and 5th/poor manufacture, but you seem to have more logic behind this then I do. If a force is subjected to the gear and a tooth strips as you said, why wouldnt any other teeth break? Why not any other type of transmission problem suddenly showing itself as a symptom beyond just busting off a tooth? I definitely follow you on the stray tooth potentially blowing shit up. (EDIT- in light of the shitslinging that has happened in this thread, I just want to point out these are questions and not me arguing with you..) I disagree with the prevalence of it, especially considering the ones not on this list that have blown up, etc. But, everyone here already hates me for my insistence on this I think it might be good for someone to sit down and consider what you say while looking at the entire design of the gearbox. Someone else may get a bright idea as to what causes it..
And there he is I need to bow out of the technical side because honestly you guys know more than I do. I seem to be back to cheap gears again considering where it breaks (edge of the dog that is engaged by 4th, 5th)
there, fixed. yup, says a lot about me, for sure... practice what you preach. sell the fooker or stfu. meanwhile, i will still enjoy your suffering, as long as you make everyone here suffer with your whining. and, no, whining is what you are doing, beating this to death. it has nothing to do with agreeing or not agreeing w/consensus, blah blah blah... you made your point already, after the fith or sixth time, it's whining... doug s.
Lots of those failures are some-what confirmed,as in "something broke inside the engine" and they never find out as they never take it apart or cant tell what happened when they do take it apart. But its fun to jump on the exploding 3rd gear bandwagon so they do.
i don't think anyone hates you for your insistence. it's yust that it's tiresome... and, i think you are mistaken regarding the prevalence - i would say it's extremely rare. in today's digital age, i cannot imagine anyone w/the wherewithal to own a dr650, who would not immediately be jumping online to figure out what happened to his/her bike if its transmission imploded... and they would find plenty of info, directing them to forums like this and the others mentioned... ymmv, doug s.
Confirmed as far as I can over the interwebs. One was even excluded from the brotherhood for being a mere 4th gear failure. I don't know what they were thinking, our standards are higher than that! My 3rd engine should arrive tomorrow! Nothing wrong with my 2nd one apart from the whine in 3rd and 90,000km on the clock, but does need a major freshen up. Paid the equiv. of about $1500us for a 10,800km engine which over here is an absolute bargain. Still love my DR.
