2012 14R, with 30,000 miles on the clock.

Maintenance schedule says new radiator water hoses every 3 years.

Mine look fine at 4+ years, but I'm under the fairing for other maintenance.

Replace them, or leave'em?

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The thing about radiator hoses is the wear isn't usually visible from the outside. That being said, never in my life have I seen,or even heard of a coolant hose failure at the 4 yr mark. I would inspect them for soft spots, but if none are found I'd roll with it.

* Last updated by: Nastynotch on 1/11/2017 @ 6:00 AM *

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Like Nasty mentions, run your hands up and down the hose and feel for a bump or bulge. Press fingers up and down the hose and fell for a soft spot. If all feels fine, run it. Same goes for brake hoses.

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With rad hoses you can detect soft spots by feel but not brake hoses; the pressure they see is not to be duplicated by your fingers. However, I've had heated discussions wrt replacing those on my 2007 GSXR 1K that's now almost 10 years old, has always been stored inside and only has 12,000 miles on it. I'm "taking a chance" on those brake hoses and those brakes feel awesome, even with the original pads still in there. I change the fluid every once in a while but that's it.

Thanks fellas. Very Good advice, and I'm thankful to you both.

A new set of oil and water hoses is running about $140.00 new for all of'em.

Just FYI.

The oil hoses are small diameter rubber right next to the exhaust manifold. I'm looking closely at them, too. They get a lot of heat from oil and exhaust.

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I still have my factory hoses in service on my 08. 49k miles.

$140 sounds pretty inexpensive for a full set. If I replace mine, I'm going with Samco. They say, "good for life" and that might be because they know any hose is good for life. Blue hoses would look cool on your bike. You could purchase smaller Samco tubes for overflow hoses.

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Same for me, '08 with original hoses and I personally have no concerns about them springing a leak. The only time I have ever had a rad hose fail on me was my 82 Buick LeSabre, those hoses were probably 20 years old by the time they started leaking; it was the upper rad hose and it had a pin hole leak.

Although I'm a fan of preventative maintenance having the fairings off in my opinion, is a good reason to check the hoses but unless you've got some money burning a hole in your pocket not a good enough reason to replace them.

I also agree with Rook in the sense that if I was going to replace the hoses I would go with the Samco ones, the lifetime warranty would be the clincher for them plus they would look pretty awesome. They're a fair bit more money than the stock ones (I can't believe the stock hoses are only $150!!) at $260 for the kit and $30 if you want to buy their clamp kit as well.

Warranty claim in their FAQ:
http://www.samcosport.com/usa/faq.asp#Q1

Parts list for pricing:
http://www.samcosport.com/usa/downloads/Bike%20Kits%20&%20Clamps%20USA%20MSRP%20-%202016%20-%20Issue%201.pdf

OK, good.

The OEM hoses are of course fine at the moment.

Thanks for all the good tips!

I'm "under the hood" investigating a new, rubber / plastic burning smell.

Cropped up a couple rides ago, and it's still coming from the cycle now, after getting the motor warmed up.

I've looked for the "usual suspects": Brakes, coolant hoses, hose leaks, electrical wiring. So far, Nada.

I *did* find:

Right side engine cover O-Ring leaking a miniscule amount of oil (o-ring part on order).
Left fan frozen, immovable (and is now freed after I yanked on it a bit to free whatever was sticking), and
Cox rad guard rubber "standoffs" had deteriorated and a couple of them got between the screen and the front of the rad (and this could be the problem).

Or, it could be the fan fried, I need to check that still.

Smell seems to come off the top of the motor, up through the upper fairing and steering head space, on the right side of the gas tank.

No recent maintenance, just appeared a couple days ago.

I figure, as long as I'm in there, lets look around :)

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We had a warm summer and i was running the motor slowly up to 6000 rpm as a part of the learning process in tuning. Under those conditions, without air running through the rad, i think smelling rubber is a given once the temp reaches 6 bars. I avoid it now but you, being that you're in Tucson, AZ, you might get 6 bars all the time. Probably you just have a piece of random rubber that got thrown up on the engine.

Left fan frozen, immovable (and is now freed after I yanked on it a bit to free whatever was sticking), and
Cox rad guard rubber "standoffs" had deteriorated and a couple of them got between the screen and the front of the rad (and this could be the problem).

Right side engine cover O-Ring leaking a miniscule amount of oil (o-ring part on order).

you mean the crankshaft cover? The small one up front? That is supposed to have some sealant over the joint between the upper/lower engine case. and also at the grommet where the sensor wire goes in. I had my grmmet leak a tiny bit years back before i removed that cover.

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It's called "COVER,PULSER", #14091 on the Engine Covers page of the online parts fische.

It has an o-ring for sealant. It leaks a tiny amount.

'nother 3-4 hours crawling all over it, looking for random plastic trash bits on top of motor, or plastic / rubber trash on the manifolds or mufflers underneath.

Nothing found, still stinks. I've had it for over 4 years over long hot summers riding it daily, you'd think it would have stank before now.

This is new, and I'm worried about being stranded or damaging the cycle.

There's no visible smoke, or burns.

On a cool winter day like today, I can get it to 201-205 deg. on the dash display. In the summer, I can get it a little hotter, not much.

Fans are well behaved, and cycle on/off, and run quiet.

Water and Oil hoses are tight, in good shape, and no leaks.

Air filter is relatively clean, no stink coming from the intake manifold.

I *think* mebbe I smell it out of the exhaust pipe, too. After awhile, my nose gets "uncalibrated".

Is there a "feature" of the emissions system that would cause unburned gas to percolate in the exhaust?

I'm thinking of handing this one over to a service dept... Oh Boy!

* Last updated by: mebgardner on 1/11/2017 @ 5:27 PM *

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The guesswork:
1. Crate coating for ocean transport; was not washed off or wiped off well enough and thus burned-in this smell.
2. Gas sitting for awhile and now fire that off and the burn in the pipe gives off this smell.
3. Condensation inside the pipe could boil what old carbon would be coated inside the pipe, meaning...
4... you cannot create or destroy matter so it was a liquid, then burned to a gas, then cooled and turns to a carbon solid. Think of it as recycled crude rotting in the pipe if you want to keep chasing A Stench.

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<smirk!>

Hub: Too funny! OMG, I'm ROFLMAO!

Still, I see your point. In a way, you're saying "screw it, life's too short, don't worry be happy." ... about A Stench.

Kind a... We should have a beer, you and I. Really...

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The only thing I can really think of is Kaw wants to prevent the rare but possible blowout. It's really the only reason I can think their interval is so short on these hoses. It's probably worth inspecting for any external damage and like others are saying make sure there's no weak spots and that sort of thing.

It's called "COVER,PULSER", #14091 on the Engine Covers page of the online parts fische.
It has an o-ring for sealant. It leaks a tiny amount.

Yeah, that's the crankshaft cover. If it's just the grommet or case seam, the sealant will take care of the leak. I've had mine off twice and never replaced the o-ring but they do say to replace it each time the cover's removed.

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