Hey everyone! Just picked up an brand new 04' Superhawk the dealer had leftover... A good friend of mine years ago had a red hawk that I drooled over and I've finally got my own.

My question is this... I've been working on cars for years (mainly european, specifically VW's) and doing quite a bit of custom work to them. My point in saying that is I'm fairly mechanically inclined with quite a few tools, but I've never worked on bikes before, ever.

I keep seeing the dealer stress the 600 mile service, but I also see the $300 price tag and was just wondering if this is something I can do myself or if it's worth having the dealer check. I have no problem paying the money if it's worth it, but I'd really like to learn to work on bikes and figure this would be a good opportunity to start on.

I'm guessing that it starts off with an oil change and checking various fluid levels, chain tension, etc... but any advice would be great at this point.

Thanks in advance!

 

If you have not found a service manual for your bike, try to get one soon. IIRC, it lists the items to check during the service intervals. It's mostly to check things over and see if it is all copacetic (and that oil change).

 

Yup, you got it right. Oil change, which I think should be more like 50 miles, and various checks like fasteners and chain tension. It's something you can do in your garage in about an hour and if you know your bike you won't have to most of it anyway. And no, it won't void your warranty if you do the work yourself. Log it in a memo pad and keep the reciepts.