New 450r member, first post, great forum guys!
I just sold my 08 700XX and picked up a new 09 450ER. Picking it up from the dealer, while they were going over their demo checklist, the dude was choking, pressing the start button, thumbing the throttle, and was totally out of sync getting it to fire up. It seemed like it was having a hard time getting going, but finally fired up. I too thought it was a noisy engine. After getting it home and reading the manual, I read that due to the "accelerator pump" there is no need to open the throttle when starting, in fact they say NOT TO and it "may" cause damage if you hold the throttle on starting. So then my fear that the noise was damage played on my mind all night, until coming on here and searching for "new 450r noise" and finding this thread. I will say that I warmed it up a bit and watched the oil flow in the small glass window and it looked clean, so I am going to assume that this is in fact just a normal noisy engine sound. I guess they call them "thumpers" for a reason. I would like to add that my 700XX was not this loud though, but made a similar noise at idle that always had me wondering about it. Having put on more than 30 hours on it and it never changed, I never paid any more attention to it. Thanks for the answers without me having to ask the questions!