OOF! Why not just get a japanese bike and not do anything but ride it?

Well, we are talking about a 15 year old bike that should be used for another 70kkm. Most Japanese bikes don’t even last 70kkm wihout serious work
Two days of preparation isn’t that bad, or?

Greetings Al

I went through the same search that you are doing now about two years ago and I would be very wary about buying any GSPD without actually seeing it or knowing it's history.

All the PD's I looked at (with one exception) had done over 100k even when the owners had them listed as 70k (the odometer only counts up to 99,999) I suspect the bike you mention that has done 6k is in that category.

In the end I bought one that had done 120k and I was the fourth owner but I had every service/parts receipt since the bike was new so knew what had been done to it.

While nothing was particularly wrong with it I ended up stripping it down to the frame cleaning and regreasing everything which was very worthwile as I found some non obvious problems (frayed wiring, stripped bolts) including bodgey work done done by others.

I also ended up doing virtually all the things suggested by the other people in this thread as they are known(?) faults of the GSPD and has been said earlier any +10 year old bike needs significant work and this will cost you money and time

Is there a particular reason you wanted a GSPD? While I am very with happy mine now and since we are travelling two up I wanted a bike larger than a 650 single, that and a few other reasons (shaft vs chain, simple tech) was why I choose it, but a new(er) KLR650, DR650, F650, etc may be an option for you. You will still need to spend money but at least you have a known bike. Also a loaded GSPD is a weightier beast to pick up!

Finally if you are travelling two up I would recommend at upgrading the alternator. We discovered that running two electric vests (78watts extra) on top of the standard electrics on the GSPD was enough to prevent the battery from being properly charged even though we were at highway speed for virutally all our travel. Getting on the bike and finding a totally flat battery in a Canada carpark after three weeks of travelling did not make me a happy camper. Bugger.

Regards

Ian

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Always have plan B, and maybe plan C
www.travelswithkitty.com

Open any top box of any BMW stock luggage set for a GS and gee whiz - go figure "Built by Tourtech" is stuck on the inside. Son of a gun. Tough boxes, I know I've beat mine up pretty good and would buy another set tomorrow if I needed them. Ps. They are ugly. In a pretty sort of way. No, come to think of it they are just plain ugly. But I like em. They work, they're dry and you can use them as lawn furniture. So there.

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Ride Safe...Stu

Stu

Have you had a Touratech top-box fall off yet? I've heard of this happening. Mine came close, with one of the mounting plate bolts breaking. Once the bolt went, it was possible for the box to tilt up far enough to slide over the lock.

That could have been nasty for whoever was following.