Drive belt snapped

[ridendude]

Hey there all! Sooo I was just riding along, you know middle of passing an rv, with traffic coming at me and my drive belt snapped. After all the excitement and I got pulled over safely, found the belt 1/4 mile back, yup, she's trashed. Clean break, teeth just starting to delaminate. All the things I suggested checking for in a previous post.:o. Could have been a lot worse.
Any way, my question is, does anyone have experience with the Gates 5469 belt, or has everybody just gone with the Goodyear/Buell belt? I've got a line on the Gates @ a pretty good price, just don't want the thing snapping on mid mid-stroke so to speak. ;)
Looking forward to your feedback.
Cheers:D

[ridendude]

Here's the belt and some pics of the ride.

http://www.buellxb.com/buell_images/2386_20090503224107_L.jpg
http://www.buellxb.com/buell_images/2386_20090503224048_L.jpg
http://www.buellxb.com/buell_images/2386_20090503224030_L.jpg
http://www.buellxb.com/buell_images/2386_20090503224014_L.jpg
http://www.buellxb.com/buell_images/2386_20090503223958_L.jpg

[steve may]

Man that sucks! just out of curiosity how many miles did you have on the belt? And that's some beautiful countryside up there, bike looks great too!

[ridendude]

The bike has 36,000 km on the belt. I bought the bike used @ 16,000 km. I've put 20,000 on myself in 5 months. Road trips, commuting for work and of course downtown cruisin'[cool]. This past weekend was 1000km and the belt could have snapped in a lot worse place. I was only about an hour from home, and a buddy with a trailer was close by.:D
Cheers

[meetch]

Some great photos.. and by the sounds of it you got the life out of that belt, almost twice over.

[matter]

Just curious what year your bike is as my '07 belt is supposed to be a lifetime belt. I think '07 and up are lifetime warranteed?

Matt

[ridendude]

It's an '04 XB12S and it has the Goodyear Hybrex belt (newer style). If it's warranty that's great, but I'm thinking prob. not. My local dealer wants $252.00 for a new belt so I'm investigating my options.

[smirk]

[matter]

I think you can uprade to the '07+ lifetime belt, but I think you might have to change sprockets also. Might check with buellpartsguy on the forum.

[Stevenc150]

According to this thread, it's '05-later bikes have the upgraded "lifetime" belts & system. Broken Belt (http://www.buellxb.com/Buell-XB-Forum/Buell-Firebolt-XB12-XB9/Troubleshooting/rear-drive-belt)

Ridendude, you can purchase the upgraded belt system. Might be expensive, but at least the new belt will be lifetime warrantied by the dealership.

[FIDOSOL]

So what happens when I break my 'lifetime' belt? I mean after they tell me I must have 'abused' it.

[Stevenc150]

Guess it's like anything else, whether a warranty is honored or not is probably up to each individual dealership. Some are cool about it and some might give you some flack. Maybe BPG will chime in with his side of the fence.