FATE OF THE DR650 & DRZ400 | ABS & Emission Regulations Are Coming

so i'm calling i'm calling on solid mate i would love you to do a video just on the dr 650 and what you can speculate guesstimate on what's going to happen with it with that in 2022 i would love to know so mark this looks like a pretty complicated topic mate and i have done my best to get to the bottom of it like you said we're going to need to chuck on our tin foil hats to get to the bottom of this one so let's roll that intro and get straight into it [Music] all right mark as requested here's the damn tinfoil hat now let's get into this ridiculous business with this silly hat on the things i do for youtube so let's talk about the abs laws the adr laws the emissions standards and the grandfather clause the abs laws are mandatory for every motorcycle that isn't an enduro or a trials bike by 2022 in australia so that's what's got everyone worried including mark and myself about the dr650 it's a very real possibility of being discontinued because of that now the reason it's been able to be produced until this point is because of what's called the grandfather clause so because the bike was made before those regulations it didn't have to adhere to those regulations as long as there aren't any significant changes made to the bike it means that they don't have to appease the abs regulators and they also don't have to appease the euro emission standard regulators either so that's why the bike just keeps going on and on as well as the drz-400e now there are a few exceptions to the abs laws and that's enduro bikes and trials bikes and you might ask maybe the dr650 could get through as an enduro bike the answer is not really to be classed as an enduro bike you need 900 millimeter seat height or more that scratches out the dr 650 you need 310 millimeters of ground clearance again that scratches out the dr 650 you need to have only the capacity to carry one person so that counts out the dr 650 although you could remove the pegs and the major one is that it needs to weigh 140 kilos or less so that completely hobbles the chances of the dr 650 passing as an enduro bike unfortunately so it looks like they'll either have to add abs or completely revise the bike the drz i hear you saying yes i'm going gonna shoehorn that bike in there because it's my bike and i do enjoy the motorcycle i don't think it will make it past the enduro standards as well it passes everything but the weight getting the drz-400e under 140 kilos i think would require significant changes and if it does have significant changes to the bike then it no longer gets considered under the grandfather clause so that strikes it off the list so i think the drz will be in the same category of needing to acquire abs to survive moving forward so i hear you all saying that's an easy fix just add abs and we all sail on into the sunset and enjoy our happy little dual sport lives so the big challenge here is significant changes if they do add abs will it be considered by the regulators to be a significant change because if it is that means it's no point just adding abs because then they will have to make significant changes to the bike to adhere to the emissions standards because they're currently protected by those grandfather clauses but if they make significant changes like abs if it is considered to be so they will have to address all the emissions problems as well which means basically designing bikes from the ground up from scratch which is not really what suzuki are probably looking to do with their limited funds at the moment and they're kind of gun shy at doing completely new motorcycles at the moment if you hadn't already noticed so abs just adding it as is is a tricky question it could be considered as a minor update and not get the focus of regulators but it is a real gamble and i'm not sure if it's possible i'm pretty sure if i was a regulator and i saw abs being added it'd be considered a significant change and a good excuse to apply the emission standards to the dr650 and likewise the drz-400 so i don't think you can just slap abs on there and everything will be fine but who knows i could be wrong let's hope i am but let's look at the other scenarios now that we've discussed all that annoying legislation and i'm going to remove this ridiculous hat okay so let's talk about if they do have to make significant changes to adhere to these emission standards and to the abs regulations so i don't necessarily think this would be a bad thing and in fact the first scenario i can think of i would really look forward to i understand what mark is saying when he is waxing lyrical and talking about how he loves the simplicity of his dr 650 and i think they really should try and keep the spirit of that bike one of the amazing things about the dr 650 is how simple of a bike it is it's a blank canvas for anyone wanting to create their own bike it leaves it up to the owner to decide how to customize the motorcycle i think they can keep that spirit with an updated dr 650 but you will have to let go of a few things you're no longer going to be able to have a carburetor it's just a fact of passing the euro emission standards i'm sorry but it is just a fact of life at the moment the other big thing i think it needs is six speeds i know a lot of dr650 riders are gonna shout five speeds is fine it's perfect for this bike and i don't disagree the dr650s five-speed gearbox is pretty capable but hear me out on a 6-speed gearbox it's so much better for being able to keep a close ratio gearbox for the tight stuff in the off-road conditions while still maintaining that sixth gear for an overdrive it's just the six gears that is able to allocate to the different riding situations is just way better for off-road and on-road scenarios compared to the five-speed gearbox a five-speed gearbox like i said isn't terrible but we can always make it better and if we're updating it we may as well add six speeds because in my opinion it's 20 21 it should have a six speed gearbox so efi six speeds look if i'm going crazy they should address the weight as well it is fairly light but they can always make it a little lighter update that suspension as it really is quite old tech and just freshen the dashboard it doesn't need to be too technical i'm happy with a simple dash please do not add any more electronics other than abs i don't want traction control on here i don't really want a tfd screen with all these whiz-bang majigs on them i know that sounds a little old-school but on a dual sport it's just not needed if they add it sure nice but please don't add traction control or any techno wizardry it's already annoying enough having to turn abs off when you get to the dirt so that's scenario number one basically suzuki's version of a ktm 690 enduro r but a much affordable price of course adding all those things and huge r d which will be required because remember this dr 650 is oil cooled so they're going to have to completely revise that motor to add liquid cooling because there's no other way for them to pass those euro emission standards without liquid cooling if you ask me and that efi they're probably going to have to completely redesign the engine maybe even make a completely new motor because of how many changes it'll require for that efi so it really is a big task to do so i would expect a price increase here if they can keep it between 10 and 13 000 australian i think that will be right on the money for basically a budget version of the ktm 690 enduro r that is my biggest hope and basically the unicorn version of the dr 650 for myself but i'd love to know what you think the other scenario which i hope they don't do and mark did talk about here is doing a kawasaki and basically doing what they did with the klr 650 making it more modern but in the process they didn't really make it better they just put more weight on it made it heavier dragged it towards the adventure bike world even more and it left most of us scratching our heads and wondering even if it was a dual sport anymore so i hope they don't do it to the dr 650 just make it heavier make it a little more modern and try and get through as cheap as possible and freshen it up i hope they don't do a klr 650. so that is a second option that can happen the third one that i've heard bandied around as well is basically a parallel twin dr-650 i think this is pretty unlikely it also would take far more r d yes it would pass emissions far easier than a big single but it would require a whole lot of r d re-jigging the frame to accept a parallel twin it's a lot of work for not a lot of payoff because i think people from the dual sport world won't like the weight of it people will be asking is it a dual sport is it an adventure bike no one will really be sure and we can be certain that suzuki won't concentrate on keeping the weight down if they could do a parallel twin and keep at the weight of the current dr 650 i think that would be amazing but i don't think suzuki will so i think the parallel twin idea will probably die before it even makes it to the marketing team at suzuki the final option is also a very real one and if you're emotional brace yourself now and that's that suzuki just kill off the dr650 i don't like saying it but i think it's something that we just have to keep in our minds as a very real possibility because if something so simple as adding abs will mean that they'll knock on effects mean they have to meet the emission standards completely revise and rebuild the dr 650 then they might just put it in the too hard and too expensive basket you've got to remember suzuki are finding it tough at the moment japan have been in a 30-year recession particularly suzuki have not taken any chances with motorcycles lately try and think to yourself when was the last all-new completely designed from the ground up suzuki model you can think of they've used engines from old motorcycles and update after update they really haven't made a new motorcycle in a long long time so a big undertaking like a completely revised dr 650 they might just put it in the too hard basket like i said so they might just say no and just cancel it and we might not ever see it again so that is worst case scenario but i do think we need to consider that as an option so i also wanted to fit the drz into that commentary as well and i think it's basically the same lines as the dr650 it's not going to fit the enduro category because it's a bit too heavy and i think to make it lighter it will be considered as significant changes and then it will have to adhere to the emission standards it might be easier to get the drz-400e to pass emissions with some redesigning as it is already halfway there with the liquid cooling so it's just the efi side of it that the drz has to face as opposed to the dr650 which will probably need both to pass the standard so it is a little closer to being considered as a refresh and i would really like to see that as can you imagine a modern drz-400e with efi six speeds and even lighter that would just be damn amazing i'd be even more excited than the dr 650 personally but if they did either of those a complete revision would be absolutely amazing so i would love to know what you guys think how do you want to see this dr 650 thing moving forward do you want it just with abs and keep the carburetors do you want it to keep the ethos of the dr 650 but efi six speeds and keeping it light or do you want a parallel twin dr 650 let me know in the comments section down below so again mark thanks for throwing that topic my way if you haven't checked out mark's channel it's absolutely fantastic it's called bike a bit it's got everything you can imagine to do with dual sports so go check it out if you haven't already and as always guys i've been chronicles of solid don't forget to stay shiny side up and i'll catch you in the next video guys see you later

Channel: chroniclesofsolid

Views: 17,402

Rating: 4.9346213 out of 5

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Id: w99w-lz_Wbg

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021