I've got a 1981 R65 in the shed with about 300,000kms on the dial, changed the battery a few times, wheel, swingarm and head stem bearings changed, cam chain changed, fed it Pennsoil from new, about 75% of the 300k would have been two up, probably 100k of dirt roads. Not unusual for the R Series bikes.

A few other bits and pieces have been changed - carb diaphrams, hand grips, HT leads, rear wheel after a bingle, I think the coils as well.

A good rule of thumb is to replace your BMW motorbike AFTER the warranty expires and a few miles BEFORE catastrophic and costly final drive repairs are needed.

That's what I try to do.

I have not been successful in this strategy...

My '83 G/S 800 has done 280,000 km and the '91 GS 800 265,000 km and neither of them need replacing.

This is all about the point at which a vehicle becomes 'beyond economic repair'. Just one example of this is companies that offer extended warranties on cars are writing vehicles off if they are more than a couple of years old and have had an incident which causes the air bags to go off simply because it is so expensive to reset them. The car is then sold on at 20% of it's market value.

With modern bikes there is so much non essential gubbins fitted, there comes a point where the owner may look at the market value versus cost of repair and decide that it's not worth the outlay even on a low mileage bike.

In a travelling situation you would obviously be better off with a simple machine that can be fixed at the roadside. If you prefer to use something full of technology, whether it's new or not is going to make little difference to the risk of a catastrophic failure which will be a serious hassle and expense to fix. Assuming you have kept up with the maintenance of the bike and replaced all the rubbish OEM components that were supplied as suspension with the new bike and you then suffer one of these catastrophic failures, replacing the bike is not necessarily going to be the most economic solution.

In summary, older low tech machines will go on forever, modern hi tech bikes could give up at any time and it's certainly not a function of mileage

My BMWR100 GSPD has been retired after clocking up 260,000km.

Its in a hanger at work, having been stripped down to nuts and bolts...cleaned and rebuilt again. There was no part of the bike that showed any wear and tear that was of concern, as over the years I have simply maintained, repaired and replaced parts as needed.

The only reason that I have retired the bike is because I have bought a BMW G650GS, The newer BMW is a lot lighter and gets almost exactly twice the distance for the same amount of fuel...about 75mpg, and with its new exhaust it appears to be getting even more efficient.

The old BMW is still useable, and I was actually thinking of using it as my off-road bike.

Wonder how many times this is 'beyond economic repair'?

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...1-42-bmw-70477

And how many kms would something 70 years old have ? Say 5,000km/year = 350,000km ...

1993 R100GSPD 97,000 miles, just about run in! Don't waste your time with new fangled oilheads. The old bikes are easy and cheap to keep running.

This "when to replace" talk sounds like consumerist (i.e. the common Japanese-) biker talk - buy a brand new, ride some 30 000 - 50 000 km sell it and buy brand new again. But claim around the forums how reliable the bikes have been. I think you cannot decide much about your bike unless you ride it well beyond 150 000 km.

My old worn used and abused R1100GS is around 260 000 km now and obviously it would be pointless to sell it. It's probably worth less than 1000EUR since nobody else cares what hardships or milestones its been through or if it's been to 6 continents and visited 80 countries other than me. It's simply the bike I have and I cannot afford anything else without taking away my trip budget. I'll probably just ride it till it's beyond repair, but not sure if it'll happen in my lifetime and I'd gladly take this bike into my own grave as well to continue my adventure travels in the heavens.

Cheers,
Margus

My 2004 R1200GS has now reached 169,200mls which for foreign people is about 270720km and it's going in for an oil change and a service tomorrow if I can get my fingers untwisted in time. Ride safe.

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Mike
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Mike is riding the twisty road in the sky

My 2005 R1200GS has over 230 000km

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www.whereishemuli.eu
Riding round the World

Facebook:WhereIsHemuli

One thing about older BMWs was that you could take off all the cosmetic items - side covers, mud guards, tank (not so cosmetic), tappet covers, store them, put some old ratty replacements on, and when you came to sell the bike you could put back all the nice shiny bits and pieces and with a bit of forethought a new speedo about 10,000kms before you were to sell. Hey presto a 300,000kms bike that has 10,000kms on the clock and looks lkie it just got out of the showroom. Not that I'd ever do anything like that!!!

replacement parts don't have to be expensive, you could bike a near whole bike from the brakers yard...

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https://fernsforays.wordpress.com/

Sticking with one of the bikes in the OP question (only because it is getting the biggest response), it is good to hear some real feedback, by which I mean from owners, about the 1200GS.
(All as reported in the posts below).

It still leaves the question open concerning when these bikes will finally keel over and die, but this under-stressed big cc engine seems to be very capable of racking up big mileages. There again, BMW fans have always known that!

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Dave