Common Problems & Faults Encounterd Or Known With Bmw R1150gs
 

I m trying to Prep my R1150GS (2003/10000 miles on clock) for an overland trip to Asia. Can anyone tell me some of the common problems/faults they have found, or things that have broke while riding this bike. I know on the whole they are generally reliable, trying to find out some of the more specific issues people have encountered. Maybe I can then avoid these beforehand with some good prep work, if at all possible.
I m changing & replacing the normal stuff, brakes, fluids, lights, battery, shock so on. I’m interested in any electrical problems encountered. Also in people’s thoughts on if? and how do I reinforce the frame, (without blowing out the ABS LWR style).
Otherwise just any general and random thought on bike prep for this kind of trip would be appreciated.
Cheers
Paul

There is a good thread on here about reinforcing sub-frames. Whether or not you need to probably depends on how heavy you travel.

Stock shocks don’t seem to be up to the task of really bad roads so as you mention, you might want to upgrade to Öhlins or similar.

I would definitely use a dry cell battery; much more reliable and if you drop the bike with an acid battery, the acid can run over the bike in inaccessible places. (happened to me on a test ride)

Stephan

Not an owner of 1150 myself, but 1100, which is very similar, with just a minor differences.

Rear suframe is the same on the R850/1100/1150GSes, how to reinforce it, see here how it's welded: HERE.

Note that for solo you don't need it - just bin the solid top box (use an elastic luggage roll instead), heavy and vibrating solid top boxes are of the causes of rear subframes breaking on most of bikes. Go as light as you can, and it'll never break even in the tough conditions.

As on ANY bike, there are thousands of places it can break due to your own maintenance faults, crashes, wear, etc. Maybe keep an eye on the UKGSer 1100/1150 technical section, to see what probs people have encountered and fixes. It also educates you from real-life incidents, that may become very handy.

Route the fuel filter outside the tank, cylinder head protection, proper handguards, decent luggage (soft or hard is up to you), proper aftermarket shocks (Öhlins, Wilbers, WP etc) would be a nice buy, more powerful lights. Buy Haynes or Clymer manual, read it occasionally to get "the feel" of the bike's mechanics and electrics (if you aren't mech-minded person yourself). It may be useful on the road diagnosing the occuring problems.

But if you aren't perfectionist then I'd say 1150 is pretty much ready to RTW today, even in stock: jump on and ride on. :)

Although ordering parts with nowadays logistics (DHL/Fedex etc) is possible everywhere, maybe still consider carrying some spare parts discussed here. It may help you keep going on some annoying moments on the road.

Happy travels, Margus

EDIT:

Uh, Stephano was faster with subby part :)

Cheers, Margus

Common faults
 

Hall sensor's (ignition sensor) have been known to fail.

One part that is worth carrying, I'm told, is a rear bevel bearing and seal for the final drive. You're up the creek if it fails, and its not expensive or big to carry. We carried one for our GS. It never had any problems though. Other stuff er carried and didn't need were a few spokes and an alternator belt.

As Margus stated earlier items we also fitted included engine bars, and auxillary lights. The latter do help with the 1150s beam. The 1100 is said to have a healthy beam, so not such an issue there. I also fitted front suspension wishbone protectors so that a fall would not cause the swinging of the barrs to damage the wishbone or steering stop.

Ours was heavy but did very well.

If you have a spoked wheel BuMWuh then either replace with cast wheels or take along at least 50 spare spokes. This is the real weak point once you start to ride them off road.

The rear subframe has ALWAYS been a problem on BuMWuhs. Why they haven't gotten around to fixing it when it's been causing problems since the 5 series is beyond me. Personally I thonk it's a sad indictment of the whole BumWuh manufacturing organisation, and just skimming the surface of the real problems of the company.

Garry from Oz.

I had heard something similar and carried a handful of spokes too, but never had any problems, fortunately.

Having said that I think that cast wheels would be even more vulnerable off road, no?

spare parts
 

I gues there is always going to be an element of suck it and see, we cant pre plan for everything. Also unfortunatlly my back up grew in the 4 wheel drives have other filming deadlines. So im on my own I guess

This is strange.. I've heard the exact opposite, that if going off road, wire wheels are better than cast.. they can be repaired/straightened out if necessary.. (what's a bumwuh..??)

Errr ... MX and Enduro bikes all have spoked wheeels ... because they are much better at surviving dirt roads than cast wheels ...

BMWBirdss bike had cast wheels .. creacked at Innaminka ...

I'd suggest that Garry is in the minority in his preference for cast wheels.

Oil heads - non CANbuss ...
Failures -
Petrol filter
Alternator belt

then you get the less often ones
Gear box input shaft seal ? that needs to be chacked .. could be only a small run of them...?
Hall effect sensors (and wiring going up to teh connector under the tank ...
etc...

Now that is complete bollocks :)

Ridden lot of 2-up on my R1100GS (Behr cross-spoke wheels), with around 200kg loaded on the bike over potholed, suspension bottomed out often. Rocks flying between the spokes. Sometimes I do some more technical offroad too, even smaller jumps with the bike that weights 250kg wet + 85kg rider - how much beating the wheels take compared to a 100kg weighting offroad bike?

And with nearing to 100,000kms on those wheels, NOT a single spoke has broken per such usage of the bike :)

Got to say the BMW patented cross-spoke wheels are among the toughest wheels you can get, and another big pro is you can also use tubeless tires. The only con I know is: they're heavy!

Name me a big trailie bike that has a good rear suframe up to carry 200kg on it over potholes and corrugations? :)

Seen 'em broken on all - Trans Alps, Africa Twins, Super Tenere's, 950/990s and the list goes on. Haven't seen an exception yet.

I reckon 95% of the big trailie bikes need a rear subframe reinforcement for the very serious stuff (2up full of luggage OR solo and light but then extreme offroad).

Ok, first up BuMWuh is lower case for BMW (buh, muh, wuh).

Question was asked re 2003 GS1150. I know 3 people in Melbourne who owned GS1150s. All 3 snapped 3-4 rear spokes EVERY time they rode a reasonable distance, either on road or off road.

BuMWuh has always had wheel problems. In '79 I crossed the Sahara on an RD350 - closely followed by 5 frenchmen. One on an XT500, two on R90/Ses and two on R90/6s (GSes didn't exist at this time).

The two yammies with steel rims and spokes got through unscathed wheel wise. All four BuMWuhs "squared" their alloy rims and broke many spokes, requiring COMPLETE wheel replacement.

In addition, two of the BuMWuhs snapped their front forks clean through at the bottom triple clamp and ALL four snapped their rear subframes. Neither Yammie had any fork, suspension or frame damage (the closest thing to frame damage that I sustained was breaking the rear engine mounts). I was also carrying a steel chest containing tools and luggage and a 50 litre plastic fuel container + 10 litres of water ALL mounted on a rack aft of the rear wheel and acting as a giant lever to bend the rear frame (if it could).

I'm not surprised to hear about BuMWuhs having problem with cast wheels either - they simply design their bikes for aesthetics (to some) and not practical use.

As you have probably surmised by now, I believe BuMWuhs to be HIGHLY overrated. In essence, you pay twice the price of the Jap equivalent, for what is really only half the bike (in other words you're paying four times what they are worth)

I've just finished my China ride on a little local 125cc ROAD bike with cast rims. The worst damage I have had is snapping the luggage rack and four punctures. I know that a BuMwuh could NEVER have made it through those same conditions without requiring major repairs - witness the Around the World ride by 2 clowns on BuMWuhs and their frame snapping issues in Mongolia (and their wishes that they could have been on an a local "little" bike like their fellow rider rather than riding something that needs a stepladeer to climb aboard).

Yes, I've ridden them (best thing about them is the huge lean angle) but would NEVER contemplate owning one. I owned a 7 series car once and that was enough to turn me off for life too.

Garry from Oz.

Crap!

My old rims were used for 180kkm.
No spokes was changed, no bearings, no brake-disk, nothing!

I suspect there are far more than three BMW R1150 or R1100GS owners on here and I wonder how many have had similar problems. If they were that bad noone would recommed them Perhaps this is down to the riding style of the fellows your end. I'm not going to question your experiences: I was not there, but as was the case with Margus, I, too, rode a 1150 two up for 11000 km in South America and did quite a bit of Off-raod (albeit only about 600-700 km of the total). This is still no small distance, and the bike suffered no failures. On the shipping terminal scales the bike weighed 380KG, with only a 1/4 of a tank. And its two passengers were not on-board. Kevin and julia Sanders would not attemtp and beat a world record on a bike they did not think up to the challenge

You do pay for the badge with BMs, I don't deny that and, personally, I don't give two hoots about the street-image of a bike, but rather its reputation (To underline my point, I just bought a Ural!). Nonetheless, no other bike manufacturer has had an overland pedigree bike series going for as long as the GS range. Let alone one that has kept the company in decent business (BMs highest consistent sales outside Police applications, I believe) Other contenders were the Africa Twin: discontinued, the Teneres discontinued. And these were not capable of comfortable two up travel. @ owners have often said they are underpowered for that.

now? The DL series from Suzuki is about the only new bike I can think of and that also has some achilles heels to contend with. KTM are fun, but I would not personally trust their reliability. Moto Guzzi? Buell? Varadero?!? These are styled bikes but not seriously aimed at RTW. That said, I don't think the new R1200s are either, although owners may disagree.

Japs make very good bikes (I have owned 16 from the big four over the years), but that does not mean that BM are abritrarily crap. Nor does paying extra for the name mean that the product is crap. You pay for a Honda badge too, when compared to Kawasaki or Yam prices...

No disrespect here.. but anyone who would rather write bumwuh..?? instead of BMW has to be suspect.. and the same for their 'advice'...

I too have ridden thousands of miles with my 1150 well loaded with camping gear, not much off road, much some pretty appalling/bumpy surfaces with out a single spoke breaking.

Who would take an advice seriously from a person who never owned one on longer terms and just knocking it anyways? There lies the truth.

IMHO, just another equivalent of some members here on HUBB, who never owned one but bash the crap out of them with examples taken from the "thin air" ("I've seen this and that on the road" etc pseudo-arguments) :) It's not just GS but about some other bikes too.

It's called a 'selective-seeing' of faults when you've never owned one and look for reasons to smear it.

Ride safe, Margus

This made me smile :-)


As Margus has said there is NOT ONE PROBLEM with the spoked Gs wheels,
me own R1100Gs moto 150,000 miles (about 240,000km's) and not
a problem with them. I use the moto everyday for work and play (off road).
Overland to India and South America and me wheels are still spot on
just a little dirty ;-)
Regards
joe

This one never survived..

Thanks for the info guys
 

Thanks for all the info guys, I now have a better understanding off the best way to prep my bike and what to carry with me on route. Which was the original reason for the post.

I’m also now loaded with all this information (things I never knew I even wanted to know) about steel, alloys and spoke wheels on BMW’s. Remind me not to stand next to some of the “wheel guys” in a pub when you get into it.:thumbup1:
Now I wil go and try to pursuade the Mrs to stop buying shoes and get her to save her money for a good set of spanners. What do ou mean alloy spanners are better than steel ones oh god here we go again !
Cheers guys:mchappy:

Nice one :-)
You'll have a ball,
enjoy take loads of foto's and keep us posted...
regards
joe

No disrespect either Sleepy but my naming conventions have nothing to do with what I think about vehicles. I also call MGBs "MugBuhs" and Suzuki GSXes "Guhsuxes", it's just the strange way my mind works. :cool4: Try playing around with my UID a little and you'll see where my mind is at.

Anyways phtest, good to hear you now have the info that you need.

Garry from Oz.

if your going to use a cost/price equation, don't forget the all important resale value after you've ridden it around the globe.

Japs value = peanuts ( so original cost is written off)

BMW value = still very valuable ( cost probably works out cheaper than buying the cheaper bike in the long run) :clap:

I'm raising the dead here, not to join in a my-dog-is-better-than-yours debate, but solely for googlelanders out there just using the Net as it was intended--for information.

Having said this, the spoke issue is unqualified nonsense. This is not an opinion. The ill-fated bikes mentioned in the anecdote were (as also noted by the poster) not GS bikes, and as such did not enjoy the benefits of BMW's unusual, outer-mounted spoke design. I've ridden my R11GS where they are not welcome--over crash-plate bashing, tire-thumping, twisty single track, up rock scrambles, on whoopdedoo's, and down 2500 miles of endless, endless washboard--the latter in a single trip. I have in fact posted pictures elsewhere from said trip of my shock, after the upper mounting eyelet had torn clean off. Sadly, the image didn't capture the nearby snickering of my spokes.

I'm still riding my '95 R1100GS with 100,000 miles on it, entirely original save for tires, pads, belts and one hall effect sensor. All spokes have come along for the ride.


As for opinions and selective sight, my two pence is this: save for the occasional Goldwing that has snuggled and cooed its way down plushy pavement, I've never come across a single Japanese bike that had more than 70K on it. Of course they exist, but it doesn't take Leonard Nemoy or National Geographic to find one.

My advice would have been: sure, take a spoke with you, but save room for a hall effect sensor and an alternator belt.


Hope this finds someone like myself, looking for information, and that the OP's ride is still going.

1150gsa
 

I was in the same position few month ago before I picked my 1150GSA and spent hours online looking for answers, should I get a BMW /why /does they fail too much...blablabla I soon realized that the BMW are great and even if they break ( all bikes do )they are pretty good RTW bike easy to aminatin and most of the problem with them have been already observed by other travellers, the few electrical problem or fuel pumpor even spoke are not to be a big worry and the space required for spare parts is not that big.Thanks god for Fedex the important ( missing) part can come in few days . The biggest problem with BMW is that most of the people spend more time talking about thier failure (FD...)than riding them , I asked many RTW travellers if they wood take another BMW for a long and most of them answered yes ( they are not all masochist I hope)

PS: I did cross africa on a old R90 and didn't any real problem

Good luck

I'm on my 2nd 1150GS, and 4th BMW (other a F650 and F800S).
I've done 90,000kms on my first 1150GS, about 15,000kms was on gravel roads, never had anything that went wrong. Great bike.
Then I bought the 1150GS Adventure (new) and has since riden it for almost 180,000kms, most of it two -up with RTW lugguage etc.

The most anoying problem I encountered was that I had to replace the rear wheel bearing 5 times. So my advise to anyone out there is to carry a spare 6917 bearing, two or three extra shims of various thickness and a 7mm allenkey (to open the diff). Educate yourself on how to replace the bearing. Check the diff regularly and change the oil regularly, especially after some water and river crossings. See also my other post here on the modification that I've done to an Angular Contact bearing.

Regarding the spokes, my bike broke about three spokes on the rear wheel, not a big issue really. I always keep one spare with me.

I weigh about 120kg, wife is about 60kg and lugguage another 50kg. The standard rear shock is a bit soft for this weight, but you dont need to buy expensive aftermarket shocks. I stripped the coil spring from the strud and added a 20mm spacer to make the spring stiffer. It worked great, and never bottoms out and handles perfect, especially two-up etc. Cheap and easy.

My ABS/Servo system failed at about 85,000kms, so I just removed it and ever since used normal brakes. This is unfortunately not just a remove and go operation, and need some time and electric work to get around it, but only should cost you new brake hoses, nothing else. Somewhere I have the wiring diagram how I did mine, so will happely share it with you if you encounter this problem. The removal of the pump created a nice packing space under my fuel tank for those emergency brake downs like the bearing etc.

My RID panel also failed, but you dont need it and I've riden the last 10,000km without it and will do so untill I can find a secondhand one for a reasonable price.

I carried an altenator belt with me all the way, but never had a belt failure. Other than that the 1150GS is actually a very reliable bike and I'll ride mine for many more years to come.

My servo didn't fail but I removed it anyway. Used std brakes. Saved 10kg off the bike weight.

Just use some brake line to bypass the servo and wire up some relays to make the brakes work. Simple.

Spoked wheels a weak point?? NOT!
 

Put a bend in a cast wheel and try and whack it back into shape? You now have a two piece wheel!

Squillions of dirt bike racers and riders can't be wrong. If cast were better for dirt/rough stuffthen spoked wheels would have gone off the market yonks ago because the cast wheels are cheaper and a lot easier to make and set up.

My R1150GS has 145,000kms on it. I bought it off a friend, We are both giants, 6'3"/310lbs and have partners that are mature and are carrying a bit of spare beef. We don't travel light and the bike has blasted over Australia's rough roads and trails at warp speed for the past 10 years without a wheel problem. I checked them recently and they were ok. The spokes are all original. I will buy some spares if my mate can't find the spares he bought when the bike was new and he carried them on every trip for the first few years.

Now, If I could squeeze my ZRX1200R motor into the Beemer, I would be in hog heaven!