Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Checked out the Kawasaki Vulcan 900 today and it seems like a great bike and with my height at 5 ft 5 1/2 in., I can plant my feet on the showroom floor without any trouble. My only reservation is the belt drive on it. What material are the belt drives made of? How many miles are they good for? Could one break when you're on the freeway? My other choice has been narrowed down to the Honda Shadow Aero 750 which has shaft drive.

By the way, does anyone else out there have the same problem that I do with this site; //b.casalemedia pop-ups appearing 2-3 at a time whenever I log on, change topics, etc? Very annoying!

A belt is likely to last as much as 40K miles or more.

I know of someone who got 90K miles out of his drive belt. (That was on a BMW f650CS which weighs just over 400 lbs). But it did look pretty ratty by the time he replaced it.

All you need to do is a visual inspection for damage, periodically. A hole through the center is no problem either.

They're tougher than you'd imagine.

>As for the pop-ups. They're part of this site. I've found that my google toolbar kills nearly all of them.

P

I just bought a Vulcan 900 a few weeks ago. Great machines.

Anywho, no need to worry about a belt drive. They last for 10's of thousands of miles. The Kawasaki's anyway, are designed kinda like steel belted radial tires to reduces stretching and breaking to infintesmal amounts.

No worries on the belt drive, dude. They're reinforced with either steel or kevlar and last longer than a chain and need essentially zero maintenance.

i posted something on this not too long ago, here is the thread

viewtopic.php?t=14923&highlight=shaft+driven++drive

Ok. Question for those of you with a belt drive. Does your owners manual recomend changing your drive belt, and if so at what interval?

My Yamaha Majesty 400 scooter has a "V" belt drive, that they recomend changing every 12,500 miles. Now, I don't know a lot about motorcycle, but I know a little bit about industrial belts and those thing last for a LONG time. The same applies for most belts under the hoods of automobiles. I doubt this belt is made much differently than any other belt, it looks just like a standard toothed belt from the pictures I've seen.

What few people who have put the kind of mileage on a Majesty, to have gotten to the point of changing the belt, have all said they see no wear at all on the belt, but have gone ahead and changed it anyway.

Now I'm reading on here, that the belts on conventional motorcycles last for a lot more than 12.500 miles, so I was just wondering when/if the manufacturer recomended changing them.

the V-Belt on your scooter doubles as your transmission.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/cvt.htm

this explains the inner workings of a CVT transmission which is the type of transmission your scooter has.

belt drive motorcycles work just fine. Millions of Harley-Davidsons have been running belt drive for decades with no problems

as for the pop ups. Google toolbar will kill most of em. Also switching to Firefox will kill most of the pop ups as well.

Thanks for the info on belt vrs shaft drive and the pop-up problem. Since I felt reasonably confortable sitting on both the Honda Shadow Aero and the Kawasaki Vulcan 900 and the drives aren't really a factor, I guess my decision will be based on the choosing the company I feel produces the best product and support system: Honda or Kawasaki. One dealer suggested I go with Honda as there are fewer dealers in BC and especially on Vancouver Island servicing the Kawasakis. Food for thought!

CajunBass wrote:My Yamaha Majesty 400 scooter has a "V" belt drive, that they recomend changing every 12,500 miles.

V-belts experience slippage, timing belts do not.