Spline and ABS failures on a R1100RT - options?

[BobH]

Bike is a 2000 R1100RT with 30K miles on it. I have owned it for about ten months (original owner sold after a final drive failure standed him). Within the past week it's had a couple major new problems that have finally exhausted my patience with BMW also and I wanted to ask you guys' advice about the most cost-effective way to part ways with this bike and move on.

 

1) ABS control module failed last weekend, needs replaced (minimum cost if I do the work myself: used part $500, plus I guess a couple hundred in dealer labor for brake hydraulics power bleed and ABS computer reset)

 

2) tranny hangs up badly on downshifts lately; this evening I pulled the starter to have a look, and found that the clutch hub is hanging onto the tranny input shaft splines by a thread: can't see the working surfaces of the splines themselves but judging from the amount of free play/rotation of the clutch hub on the input shaft, the splines must be toast; can't believe they've held this long (can freely turn clutch disc more than 1/2" at its perimeter without budging the input shaft at all)

 

I love the bike but am a student and after a shockingly expensive ten months of ownership cannot afford to maintain this bike any longer, guess it's back to Japanese for now. Looking for any advice on what would be the most expedient course of action...

 

(- paying dealer to fix is out of the question; their estimates run to as much as or more than the value of the bike.)

- sell bike cheap as-is, essentially as a non-runner?

- fix tranny myself and sell bike as runner, but leave ABS broken? (i have tools and am probably comptetent to do the work, though finding time may be stressful). i don't have a clear understanding of what the parts cost would be for this job.

- fix splines and also the ABS, and sell for something much closer to book value?

- part it out?

 

Not panning for sympathy or dissing BMWs, just can't afford to run this bike any longer and need to move on with a minimum of further financial damage. Thanks very much for any advice you can offer!

sincerely,

Bob

[OoPEZoO]

Sorry to hear that Bob. Thats a lot of failures for so few miles. On my '00 RT......final drive went at about 75k miles, clutch wore out and found almost stripped input splines at 101k miles. I'm now at about 114k

 

1) Are you sure the ABS controler has failed? What are the symptoms? Did the dealer confirm this, or are you just getting flashing lights? If it has failed, you don't need it to ride. You just won't have ABS. If you go with a used unit, you can do the bleeding and ABS reset yourself. No need to piss money away at the dealer. Many of us here would be willing to walk you through it. Bleeding brakes on a 1100 is as easy as it gets.

 

2) Spline failures are tough. Its expensive to repair the damage. I spent about $1200 in parts last year fixing mine (new input shaft, clutch kit, new seals). I did all the work myself. A new input shaft is a little over $600, and you shouldn't need a new clutch at 30k miles.......so that might be an option. Unfortunatly, you don't know how much it is going to cost until you tear it apart.

 

Beyond that......where are you located? It would help everyone out if you filled in your profile.

[smiller]

Yeah, sorry to hear about the bad luck Bob. That is a lot of trouble at only 30k miles.

 

As Keith noted there are several minor problems that could be causing your ABS issue and the cure might not be as expensive as you think. Give us some more specifics and maybe we can provide some guidance. In any event the 1100 ABS system is relatively easy to work on and you probably won't need a dealer even for a major repair.

 

The splines are a bigger headache. Internal repairs are possible but the parts cost would exceed that of a used unit and if you have the time your cheapest option would be to wait until one of these appears on one of the usual used parts sources, probably would run around $500-$700. Another reason to go with an entire transmission replacement is that when a spline failure occurs at such a low mileage there is usually some contributing issue such as an alignment problem, and if this is the case repair of the original unit often only results in another failure in another 30k miles. Perhaps not an issue since you're not keeping the bike but just FYI.

 

So, if you've got the time to wait for the used parts to come along and the energy to go at the job (which is kinda a big one) then with a little luck you might get everything fixed for under a grand. Beyond that things start to get questionably cost effective and you may be better off parting out the bike or selling it as a mechanic's special, although those options involve some time and energy as well.