South West Bikers | Motorcycle Forum

Just come back from having my Virago looked at, going on a long haul roadtrip soon and wanted to make sure she is in tip top condition. Asked the guys to have a look at the tappets as well as she was starting to sound like a beefy sewing machine. Picked her up in the rain and she was outside the garage waiting for me, soaking wet (as I was too!), rode away from the garage and she started missing a bit and the odd backfiring (not too loud but I noticed it all the same), shes never done this before......... particularly noticeable when waiting to pull away at junctions, bit of pop pop popping going on. Now, could this be something to do with the heavy rain (and it was torrential there for a while) or it is due to something they have been fiddling with, has air/water/pigeons got in somewhere?? To be honest, I've never really ridden her in heavy rain before as the chrome takes me an eternity to clean so dont know how she normally behaves in those conditions. Any thoughts?

i have seen/heard that bikes can be a bit dodgy after being pressure washed and that some chinese bikes electrics will start playing up as soon as humidity levels rise.

it also sound like tmaybe he carbs need balancing.

give the garage a ring and explain to them what going on.

then when you know the bike has dried out, go for another trundle and see if it happens again.

if it does, give the garage a call and say they haven't finished the job

All i can tell you is that my W650 behaves a bit similar in very heavy rain. Behaves a bit better since it's last service but in torential rain it often needs extra choke.