The bike had been burning oil since I got it a year, but I've always been good about checking it and topping it off. Well, I had a little family emergency earlier this week and had to go up to my parents house about 2 hours from me. I wasn't thinking straight and didn't check the oil before I left. So I riding on the freeway and the engine starts getting really loud. Within a matter of about 10 seconds, the engine is screaming like metal on metal. I pull in the clutch and hit the kill switch and shift to neutral and coast to the side of the road. Immediately I'm thinking about the oil level. I ended up calling my brother with a truck to pick me up and we hauled the bike back to Northridge.

I filled the oil (actually I over filled it a little), but still when I hit the start button, it sounds terrible. Metal on metal sound. Did I comepletely ruin the motor? What do you think is damaged. I'm probably going to take it to Suzuki of Van Nuys, but what should I expect to be damaged?

Sounds like you cooked the bearings - major repair. I hope I'm wrong.

Expect everything to be broken.  Having cooked a few motors over the years (yes, I know, being able to admit it is the first step to recovery   ) I have killed variously the main bearings, the cam bearings, the pistons (don't ask  :x ), ther rings, the cams, the rockers, the valves and one head.  Running oout of oil is bad news.  I predict large sums of money leaving your wallet in a short time.  

lets hope for the best daniel..

that oil usage thing bugs me too.. i keep forgetting to check - but i got to remind myself - before every ride..

i forget sometimes, but i got to get used to checking it.

Well...I've been thinking. I was planning on selling it in September and buying a new bike (YZF600R). I might decide to sell it now as is, with the cooked motor, and buy that new bike a couple months earlier than planned. The reason being, it is my only form of transportation and I don't really have knowledge or time to fix it my self, and if I take it to the dealer to fix, I'm sure they'll charge me a whole lot more than I want to put in to this bike when I'm going to sell it soon anyway.

Do you think I would be able to get $1000 for it? Aside from this incident, there really hasn't been any trouble with it. It's a 1997 with about 7500 miles.

i dont think mileage would affect the deal in any way....

I doubt that you would get $1000 for it, but you can always try. If not then I would part it out.

Really...you don't think I could get $1000 for it. I figured a new (used) motor would cost about $500, maybe a little more. If it was running, before this happened, I probably could have gotten $1500 for it. That's how I came up with $1000. And if somebody wants to fix it themselves, they could probably do it for less than the cost of a new motor, then they'd have a pretty good deal on a bike.

Your $1500 estimate sounds about right,...but I don't know many people who would pay a grand for a bike that will need $500 worth of parts and an assload of labor to put back together when they could just go buy the same bike in good running condition for $1500 . Ya know? GS's are a dime a dozen. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a non-running GS500 is near worthless. If you want the most you can get for it, I'd part it out. As funny as it may sound, most bikes are worth more in parts.

(coughing) partitout........

Yeah I know what you're saying about someone might as well buy a running bike if they need to put that much money into it. I guess I'll have to think about parting it out.

Ebay....new motor...save yourself the headache