Mechanic Claims Rod is Thrown

[Frankentut]

Hello, all!

I am so glad I found this forum. Aside from here, there isn't much out there concerning GZ250s.

Here's my story -- my wife has a 2008 Suzuki GZ250 she loves dearly. We ride our bikes back and forth to work, mostly, and for fun. Hers has around 5000 miles on it. It has been maintained regularly.

We rode them to work two weeks ago, and her GZ250 started making a popping or clacking noise. We made it to the office, but at lunch we went to a local motorcyle shop to let the mechanic listen to it. He wasn't sure what he was hearing, but he agreed to keep it and have a look. this was not a Suzuki dealership; that's out of town.

He calls later and suggests we take it to a dealer. He took the valve cover off, thinking it might be a cylinder issue, but said it wasn't.

So I got the truck and loaded up the bike and hauled it to the dealership from whence it came.

Their mechanic rode it around and frowned a lot and listened and took it in the back. Finally, he came out, and said it was low on oil, and he had filled it back up. He rode it again, and when he came back, he said it was about to throw a rod any second and it was basically ruined.

Not good news at all.

We talked, and I agreed to let them open up the engine and survey the damage and give me a quote on repairs. That's been two weeks ago, and they still haven't gotten around to doing any of that yet.


So I have a couple of questions. First, does that sound reasonable? And next, at 70 bucks an hour, can anyone give me a ballpark on how much a complete rebuild might cost?

I found a 2004 GZ250 Marauder engine on ebay for $299. If that would work in a 2008 bike, I might put the grab on it, just in case.

Any advice would be most welcome. Thanks!

Frank