A buddy of mine had me go look at a 97DR650 he's thinking about buying. It's in very good shape but I have a couple of questions. 1. It has 30 000 kms (18000 miles)...is this getting up there for this engine/suspension? 2. All the pictures of this bike shows it having yellow fork boots, however this bike has purple ones??? My buddy wants the yellow ones, is he able to paint these (krylon fusion) or does he have to order/find some yellow ones?  

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If it all original & still in good shape, that suggests these are street/road miles.  If it was ridden much off-road, that is high mileage.  Very high.  On-highway it *might* be okay.

The problem is, how can you tell, is it really original or were cosmetic parts replaced.

-Vince

There are many here with 50 000+ kms still going strong. Backpackers tend to buy 'em in Sydney and head for Cape York (read: big trip) without any major hassles.

I have over 37,000 miles (close to 60,000 km) on my DR650, and so far have not needed to do anything major to it. It's still running well.  However, I haven't used it off-road at all (a few gravel roads is about it), and I ride very conservatively, so the bike has never been abused.

Mine has 30,000km on it and is getting a little low on compression, but still gets me where I want to go.
No probs. yet except a new clutch and brake pads.