Can't help with the high mileage thing, as I had mine for only a year and about 6k miles. It was faultless in that time, apart from the snatchy low-revs fuelling mentioned above. You can fiddle with the CO levels via the dash and tune some of it out. Mine was an 04 - I hear later ones had it cured.

One other thing - way over-geared as standard. I went up a tooth on the gearbox and it transformed the bike. You will need to find some way of correcting the speedo, though.

Overgeared as in high geared? Sorry for the dumb question. :confused1:

No such thing as a dumb question :)

Yes, I found the gearing far too high. I found first gear too high for trickling along, and the top end was geared for about 110 mph max. On an upright, unfaired, dual-purpose bike I thought that was silly. I think it's to do with noise regs - many bikes are over-geared from the factory because that makes them nice and quiet at whatever road speed they test at. Going up one tooth on the gearbox sprocket lowers the gearing by around 8% from memory (can't remember the sprocket sizes) and gave me a) first gear at walking pace without chain snatch, b) much more flexibility in top at normal road speeds, and c) about 5 mph off a top speed I never used. Well worth the 10GBP or so it cost for the new sprocket. (I did the same to my Ducati GT1000 with the same results, so it isn't just a Yamaha thing.)

I liked the bike a lot, and I am seriously considering getting another. Trouble is, the 600E is showing no signs of dying yet :)

16000miles and going strong
 

Hi,

we are into our big trip on two XTR's, we have done the Trans west Virginia trail and the Trans America trail and off road in much of Baja so far. That's about 7000 miles off road. We crossed the high passes in Colarado, Cinnamon pass was rain and snow with ease. These are not MotoX bikes but we are not racing MotoX, We are loaded up and touring - these bikes are perfect for that. We get 200 to 230 miles per OE tank and carry spare fuel as needed.
As mentioned before = the OE gearing is high for dirt. We took and fitted lower geared sprockets of 14/46 for dirt but to be honest it only came into it's own in the mountains. We now leave the 15t front sprocket on but swap between 46t for dirt and 45t for road - it works good for us. The bikes have proved tough and reliable. We have fitted Yacugar rear shocks and fork springs that are light years ahead of the OE stuff. We rode some of Baja with a guy on a GS Adventure and had a much harder time than us - his bike shook it's self to pieces on the corrugations. Ours were fine. All in all the XT is easy to service and work on, take off the luggage and you can lift it - take off the front wheel and undo the bars and you can fit it in a 1.8m2 crate (2.0 long 1.080 high 820 wide) It shares brakes with KTM's and the engine is fitted to a few bikes so cross reff'ing part numbers helps your chances finding bits.
If I was doing this trip again I would stick with the XT. Have a look at our site, a few bits in the Maintenance and prep page that could be handy.

Welcome to Two Bikes Running


Paul

xt660 r
 

tengo un xt 660 r 20000 km de caminos malos y mal clima y es muy confiable y comodo aunque unos kilos de menos no estaria mal. es una motocicleta con la que tranquilamente me iria a un rtw
suerte

Hi, you gear the bike "higher"/"longer" (less revs) going UP on the front sprocket.

Perhaps you ment you went down one tooth on the sprocket, going from 15 to 14? :)

:oops2:

Yes of course that's what I meant :) Tak!

I was tired.

:blushing:

Mike the courier
 

Hi all, i've been riding xt's for over 35 years. My present xt660r is an 06 model with over 152,000 miles on the clock. There's much to say but i don't have the time right now. The engine is the best yamaha have ever produced, the clutch lasted 98,000 & i changed the cam chain at 148,000. Unheard of for an xt. The cush drive rubbers are made too small from new but if you add 4.5 mm of rubber, total , to the inside of each of the 4 dampers you will get at least 35,000 miles out of them. I've already spoken to yamaha but i'm sure they are not interested. Gotta go but will come back another time.

Cant wait for you to get back, thats awesome :)

Hi and welcome Mike.

Are you the very same Mike that had the 55w Tenere with equally silly mileage on the clocks, back in the late 80's?
If so, I think you and I where the only two couriers with the Tenere at the time.


Socks