Suzuki DL250 hands on

Everything can obviously get damaged

A few days ago my Suzuki V-Strom 250 (DL250) has been damaged during something like an attempted theft or an intentional impairment of the back plate light. Yeah, I know, it sucks but shit happens and I’m not going to discuss it within this post 🙂

What should be done then?

Normally people goes to an authorized dealer or to a certified mechanic to repair the damaged part, eventually applying for a refund from the insurance company and so do I.

As these are not normal times I started looking for another way of doing things with a specific aim, i.e.

Lowering costs for repairing

When I discovered that the estimated cost was about 120/160 € (parts + work), partner some spare time and most of all because I really like to get my hands dirty to better understand almost everything I use, I decided to search one way out by myself.

The original part was missing (because as I said it was stolen or destroyed in a million pieces) but fortunately it was a small part then I decided to start looking for used parts on various websites.

DL250 is not so common in Italy / Europe

It turned out that, as this bike is still not very common in Italy / Europe these days, no used parts seemed to be easily available 🙁

I decided to not surrender and I kept surfing some forum dedicated to the major sisters V-Strom 650 and V-Strom 1000 till I was able to found some thread talking sometimes of the new V-Strom 250: except for some poor comparison (someone still thinks that you can compare apples and pears) nothing caught my eye until I read of the Suzuki GSR250 from which the DL250 seems to inherit its engine.

That did the trick

I started documenting about this GSR250 (japanes codename for the Suzuki Inazuma 250 / GW250) and I found that not only the engine was almost the same but also some external parts, included the rear fender and thus… the back plate light 🙂

I started again my research with those new keywords and tadaaa: I found the piece I was in need at something around 22 €, in a relatively good state if we consider that it was coming from a 7yo Inazuma (thanks to GTV Solutions).

Bought it, received it in a few days and mounted it within 40 minutes carefully proceeding.

How to remove remaining parts before replacing

In my case only the more external part has been damaged, thus I replaced only that one.

Firstly you’ll find under the rear fender two self-locking nuts DIN934 M6 (size 10): they must be removed in order to detach the plastic support with the lamp inside.

Secondly there’s a rubber gusket that must be extracted from the rear fender before being able to unscrew the two screws holding the plastic cover: it requires a bit of well dosed energy if you don’t want to tear off the cable.

Conclusion

Well, if you’ve found the time to read up to this point I’m going to thank you: as anyone can see, I’m not used to write about these topics but -also inspired by this Covid-19 emergency that is causing econimics issues to so many families- I decided to try to be of help to everyone out there looking for support for his/her Suzuki V-Strom 250 while aiming to keep the costs soustainable.

DISCLAIMER


The author of this post has no responsibility and cannot be held liable on damages of any kind arising out of the use of the information provided.

Applying changes to your motorcycle can void your warranty.

You need to make sure that you have received all the required permissions from the respective government bodies so your motorcycle is street-legal after the mod-job has been carried out.


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