RT Saddlebags Suck (it's not what you think)

[Rusty1945]

Dropped the RT off for it’s 600 mile service Tues evening and picked it up yesterday. The service tech asked me to remove the saddle bags so they would have more room to maneuver and I did. Put the bags in the back seat of the car.

 

The first thing I did when I went to pick up the bike was to re-mount the saddlebags – very easy to do on the new RT’s. So I go to open the bag, push the button and lift up on the latch and, and, the bag would not open. Tried the other side, same thing – WTF. I tried harder and no dice, both bags were stuck shut. Embarassed, I got a service tech out there and he couldn’t budge them either. So he took one inside the dealership to “work” on it. I stayed out a few minutes trying to get the other one open and then went inside to find him there with the open saddlebag! He said after trying a few minutes the bag finally opened with a loud whooooooooosh, pop. The sound similar to opening a vacuum packed coffee can.

 

It seems that somehow a pressure difference developed from the bags sitting in the car in the sun all day. When the bag was taken indoors in the a/c, it cooled enough to reduce the vacuum. I went outside and tugged a little harder on the other bag and whoooooooosh, pop, it opened.

 

So what have we learned grasshopper? The RT saddlebags are not only waterproof, but darn near air tight as well. What I don’t understand is why this has never happened with the bags on the bike; it only happened after they were sitting in the car for a day. I’m wondering if it’ll happen when we start getting temps in the 90’s around here.

[Albert]

Interesting Rusty, I remember when I picked mine up the dealer made a point to say, "now the bags are water resistent, but they may not be waterproof". This caused some consternation on my wife's part but I didn't think it was a well informed statement just by inspecting the bags. I've never had them leak. When the GS riders hear about this they'll be using them as floatation devices.

[sprung]

When the GS riders hear about this they'll be using them as floatation devices.

 

LOL, that's pretty funny.

[Illini]

The same thing happened to me with my bike sitting in the parking lot at work all day. Would not open i thought they were locked so I put the key in and turned it right/left and still would not open. By a fluke a pushed down on the opening mechanism then pushed in on the lock and it opened right up. May have been the locking handle wasn't pushed in all the way when it was last shut????

[Iron Al]

By a fluke a pushed down on the opening mechanism then pushed in on the lock and it opened right up.

 

Mine do the exact same thing. I'm now just in the habit of pushing down on the opening lever before pushing the lock button. Kind of a pain but I just wrote it off as one of the idiosyncrasies of my RT.

[BMWSTeve]

When the bags are overstuffed or a piece of something is hanging out, the bag lids are hard to open.

I found the easy way to open a stuck bag...

 

1. Lean against the lid, towards the bike.

2. Push down on black paddle that latches the bag.

3. Push down on lock and hear the click of the latch releasing.

4. Now lift black paddle and the bag will open.

 

As an observation, I believe pushing down on the paddle does more to ease opening the bag than leaning on the lid, but a little extra never hurts.

 

I figured this out with having to stuff my 6th grader's backpack into the saddlebag when I pick him up from school. I have a sneaking suspisioun my kid is kind of lazy and would rather carry 20lbs of books rather than walking back to his locker and leaving empty handed.

[Rusty1945]

The same thing happened to me with my bike sitting in the parking lot at work all day. Would not open i thought they were locked so I put the key in and turned it right/left and still would not open. By a fluke a pushed down on the opening mechanism then pushed in on the lock and it opened right up. May have been the locking handle wasn't pushed in all the way when it was last shut????

Yep, the right bag has always needed a little push down on the lever to open; on the left one the lever pops right up when you push the button. But the other day when they were "sucking", the latches were working fine. I was just afraid to apply a lot of force to split the bags open - which turned out to be what needed to be done.