SUZUKI VL1500 INTRUDER (1998 - 2002) Review

Version: VL1500 LC

Year: 1998

Very comfortable. Fairly economical. Typical cruiser, slow steering. Difficult to throw around enthusiastically, not that you should need to with a cruiser. Could do with a bigger fuel tank.

Buying experience: Have owned it 6yrs. Obviously bought used privately, mainly cos it only had 12,000 miles on the clock.

Version: VL125LC INTRUDER

Year: 2002

IT DID NOT HAVE VL125 AS A CHOICE? SO I PUT IT HERE HOPING IT WILL BE NOTICED AND SORTED OUT, PROBABLY CLOSER TO 4 ON PURELY THE CARBURETTOR STYLE, SET-UP AND LACK OF INFORMATION FOR FUEL AND AIR HOSE/PIPE ROUTING

Buying experience: I BROUGHT IT PRIVATE FOR £900 MAY 2020 18 YEARS OLD, BROUGHT AS A NON-RUNNER IT STARTED RAN FOR A MINUTE AND STOPPED, SO I NEW IT HAD CARB ISSUES BUT I DIDNOT OR EVEN HAD NOT EVEN HEARD OF THE AIR-PUMP SYSTEM, I AM NOT A BIKE MECHANIC, BUT I AM A MULTI-SKILLED ENGINEER AND MECHANICAL ENGINEER HENCE THE REASON I DIDNOT NO ABOUT IT.

Version: vs800 intruder. is missing from your list

Year: 1998

Annual servicing cost: £50

worst thing about the bike is replacing the battery, real pig its in a box under the swing arm mount, the door on the bottom wont open enough untill you stick the back wheel on a brick or block of wood. recomend the bike to short folk specialy women , has moden bikes have grown taller than humans in the last few years ???

Buying experience: bought privately 3000 years ago

Year: 2001

worse then Honda VTX1300 and Yamaha Wild Star

Buying experience: dealer in Holland better price then UK

Version: LC

Year: 2002

Big, logy, brutal machine for fat leather-dressed men like me. Minimum of options, maximum of simple. If you wanna ride this bike, you have to be strong and undemanding rider (with an axe :-))). You have to not want speed, this bike is for calm traveling through night avenues and long highways.

Year: 2000

Annual servicing cost: £100

Best bike I've ever owned thus far. Fat factory seat. I throw on the airhawk 2 if I'm going out of state or something. I put on some apes tuned the carbs to k&n took out the baffles and it's a whole new bike. I love this bike. Gas tank could be bigger but I deal with it. The 3.5 gallon gas tank is literally my only complaint. This bike is very easy to work on and stays running strong. Very little maintenance. Not sure what the reviewer has against the steering of this bike but I get through traffic just fine. I've put on about 10000 miles on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to ride this until the motor blows. It's a metric bike so it will out last a Harley.

Year: 2002

Annual servicing cost: £200

Its interesting that the professional testers know so much on one ride. Example one said the clutch lever is too long and grabs. It's true it jumps forward but the lever is adjustable for length. Missed by the experts. Fair to say it is not a race bike. But who would race a bike that weighed 700lbs and had floor boards? That's what the testers want? Kind of impossible. If you want the power of a ninja then you would need 2500cc. It still will not go around corners. It is just about as big as possible as a Vtwin. This is great and you find your old bike is very different. VL1500 is very different from a mid size motorcycle. Brakes I feel are just fine. Harleys come with one front brake. It is a bad idea to over brake a bike. Why???? In bad weather or sand the bike can lock up a front wheel with little effort. In a panic its easy to do. Down you will go - if you are unlucky. Locking up a front wheel is not good. Intruder would you ride a bike so named hell yea. what does it have to say Harley or cost 25k to be cool? Are people being paid for opinions?

Buying experience: Used private seller 2500

Year: 2000

Annual servicing cost: £100

Understimate from official review.

Buying experience: privately

This is more than a 2 star bike. Very comfy, only 120 ish miles to a tank which is a little annoying. Engine has loads of grunt and makes the right noise. A few custom parts out there for it but you have to search for them. bike was really reliable, easy to maintain. rode great loaded with gear. If you have the choice between a cheap harley 1200 or a newish 883 then its a no brainer. the vl wins for me.

My 2002 was much better than competition at the time and this site just isn't really very fair to the bike at all. Hind Sight is 20/20 so you should use some and update this review... Quality and Reliability have been nothing short of a 5 for most LC VL 1500 and C90 owners and easily on par with that of the Fatboy. I really don't understand why so many bike Mags favor Harley over their competition at all... Do you realize these bikes are consistently over 100,000 miles without a single engine repair? Think about that, you gave the fatboy 1 more star in this area and I guarantee they're not crossing 100,000 miles without rebuilds on most occassions. Seriously, by your records, it Takes 1584cc Engine in the Fatboy or Road King to match that of the 1464cc Intruder and yet you noted the weight of the intruder as an issue... Well, get this, the weight of the fatboy is 665 so even that is a disadvantage from this same year. So Harley needed a considerably larger engine with Fuel Injection to match the performance of a now 8 year old Intruder with a smaller, carbuerated, engine. Oh and by the way, again this 1464cc engine was the top performer in its class back in 1998 to 2004. Oh and for the record, your stats are wrong, the Fatboy and the Road King were 1450cc 8 years ago so to say they're 1584 since 1989 is inaccurate... Also, the Intruder is incredibly well balanced, has a very low center of Gravity and a higher ground clearance than anything that it competed against back in the early 2000's. As for the Name Intruder, I would absolutely ride a bike with that name on it given the fact that it happens to be one of the smoothest riding bikes on the market and I can squeeze another 10 horse or 10 ftlbs of Torque with a Stage 3 Jet Kit, Air Filter and Some Pipes. Oh and one last thing, you never mentioned all the goodies you got on this bike that you didn't get on some of the others... Like the Hydraulic Clutch and the Fuel Sensor with Warning Light (these weren't standard on some of the competitors as they might have one of these features but not both).

Does 120 MPH according to GPS. Range on that small tank 150-160 miles Two-up and full luggage. Gearshift is heavy. We do not have British winters so keeping the shine is probably about the same as other similar bikes, gee funny about that. I have ridden many many other bikes, and own a number of different styles from a dirt bike through to a duke, a speed triple to the VL1500 and I also love my Z900's, and for what it is the VL handles O.K. and looks the part. Mine is actually a company vehicle, and as such, is my hack to travel to the many building jobs that my company, performs, and it just does not let me down. In OZ with 25,000 miles they still in 2009 still fetch approximately 9-10 thousand dollars,and considering that mine is a 2002 model that's not to bad. Your tester is right they are rather bare when new, and buying them second hand is the way to go as mine had the whole catastrophe, OEM extras screen, rack, sissy bar, customised guards, spotlights, twin discs, saddle bags etc. Also suspension can be adjusted to quite a hard setting. New price was about $15,000.oo