Penrod Posted February 12, 2006 Share Posted February 12, 2006 I'm very close to buying an 1150RT. About half of the bikes I see have high miles albeit well cared for miles. And yes, I know from reading numerous threads that these bikes get upwards of 100 to 150K before having major problems. My question is when they do have problems or finally "go" south, what options are there? With HD they will rebuild for you (at a price). Does BMW do this? If there are no cost effective options, I will go for a newer, lower mileage bike, otherwise I will get the one that comes with the options I want and at the best price, and just ride it til.... Link to comment
Paul Mihalka Posted February 12, 2006 Share Posted February 12, 2006 BMW does not do any rebuilding. If something breaks you repair it or have it repaired. I sold my '99 R1100RT a year ago with over 170K miles on it. In it's life it had it's failures that got repaired. At 170K miles I did not consider it any less reliable than at 50K miles. I know the person who bought it and it was in normal use all year without problems. Link to comment
Boffin Posted February 12, 2006 Share Posted February 12, 2006 What Paul said, but with the knowledge that you can get parts for many more years than most Japanese bikes. A few years ago I was in my dealer next to a guy ordering service parts for his 1936 bike. Cya, Andy Link to comment
smiller Posted February 12, 2006 Share Posted February 12, 2006 Probably the worst part of fully rebuilding an oilhead engine would be getting the engine out in the first place, since the bike is essentially built around it. But luckily bottom-end problems on these engines are very rare and the top-end repairs that very high-mileage engines might require (including cylinder and piston work) do not require engine removal and are actually relatively easy to perform. If you are capable of performing basic repairs on your own I wouldn't fear a higher-mileage bike as the engines themselves are pretty bulletproof. As you will no doubt read you do need to make sure that the rest of the drivetrain is in good shape, but in some ways a problem-free bike with higher miles may sometimes be a very good bet because most drivetrain issues seem to show up relatively early if they're going to show up at all. Link to comment
GordonB Posted February 12, 2006 Share Posted February 12, 2006 Be sure to check Irv Seavers motorcycles in Anaheim, a great bunch to work with and they have some good inventory on 1150's Link to comment
Penrod Posted February 13, 2006 Author Share Posted February 13, 2006 Great, just what I needed to know! Yes, Irv Seavers has been recommended by several BMW owners locally. And good point about the higher mileage bikes having "proved" themselves by being trouble free. Thanks for all the great (invaluable) info and help. Link to comment
FlyingJoe Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 I have heard of people with 300k+ on the orginal engine, but even if yours did have some catastrophic failure (such as a losing all oil out the sight glass and seizing or some other random event) you can get an entire engine with low mileage used for <$1000 at such places as the beemerboneyard http://www.beemerboneyard.com/coen1.html Link to comment
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