How many is too many?

[Zi0N]

Hi all,

So how many miles on a GSA is too many?:

I am looking at buying a R1200GSA 2008 model or onwards second hand. I have read all the posts from other members and seen lots of guys on or around 20k miles/32k km still driving a trouble free bike.

Looking at the available bikes on the market I also see a very big amount of bikes on or around the 30k km mark.

So the question is how bad is it to buy a GSA (with FSH) on 30 or even 40k km for half the price of a new bike? Is there any hidden costs in the services I should be aware of?

And finally any pointers on specific things to look at when buying 2nd hand would be greatly appreciated.

[marty hill]

I ride 30k miles a year/several friends have over 100k miles on their 1200GS's.
30km's is nothing. Some bikes have problems/others don't.

[Zi0N]

Thanks for the reply marty!

That sounds very reassuring. Here in South Africa a bike with 30k - 40k km is deemed to be high mileage and the 2nd hand prices on those bikes drop very dramatically after that range (unnecessarily it seems).

So on how many km's would the guys with the high mileage bikes say the maintenance cost/hassle becomes higher than the price of a new bike? 150k, 200k maybe even 300k km's?

I don't want to buy a bike with higher mileage and anyway spend the money on parts/services, or is this very unlikely to happen?

[marc]

Every beemer I know of save one was either destroyed in an accident or, most commonly, sold by an owner who wanted something new. The one that was different had a catastrophic engine failure -- at 180,000 MILES.

At 30-40K Km the bike is broken in. But all the newness has worn off. That newness is important to some. They will sell or trade the bike to get something that has newness, again. Another reason to sell the bike is warranty. Some folks can't handle the idea that a machine is not covered under warranty and will only keep the machine until the warranty is up.

I've not found a correlation between maintenance cost and age of bike on the K bikes, oilheads, or hexheads. Perhaps I haven't kept them long enough. I do use an after market suspension and figure I need a suspension rebuild every 30K miles or so.

Beemers I've owned:

R80RT -- sold to a friend at 80-something thousand miles because I was bored with the bike and wanted something new.

K11LT -- traded in at 50K miles because I was seduced by the K12LT

K12LT -- sold at 24K miles because the love went away. I try not to let myself seduced by bikes any more.

R1150RT -- sold at 36K miles because I made the mistake of test riding a GS.

R1200GS -- still own at about 60K miles

R69S -- Restored at unknown mileage (50K? 70K?) Another 20K miles put on since then.

Most of them last as long as you wish them to last unless destroyed in an accident.

[Zi0N]

So I guess the notion of newness is relatively unquantifiable?

Or is there some measure you can put to it like drive-slop, looseness of controls, rattles, deformed seat cushion, drop in power, corrosion? I guess i'm thinking in terms of a used car here or is it not the same thing at all?

BTW Thanks for the great reply marc!

[marc]

Good question. I suspect that "newness" varies from individual to individual. When you're no longer upset because you dropped the bike and added a new scratch the "newness" may have worn off. When the warranty has expired the "newness" may have worn off. When you stop visiting various forum to learn if the noise you hear is something bad or "they all do that" the "newness" may be gone.

I don't care much about "newness", gauging my bike interest mostly in terms of boredom. When I get bored with a bike I get rid of it. Some bikes are more boring than others. Except for the K12LT I owned. That was a case of two year old buyers remorse. I didn't keep it long enough to get bored.