Business use: am I the only one

[chriscanning]

Hi All!

Many thanks for your comments and experience.

My K1300GT is an experiment. R1150RTs are getting harder to find in good condition and some of the reliability stories around the later boxer engines are worrying. The GT came with a year's warranty although terms and conditions are as bad as ever and a full BMWSH for what its worth.  If the experiment fails, the loss is tax deductible, but the question of what to replace the RTs with remains.

At £1 per litre, payback on the GT ratio change is achieved via fuel saving after 100000 miles; at £1.40/L it goes down to 69000 miles.
If journey time saving is considered, payback is achieved if it helps me avoid two missed appointments.

As I only need pannier capacity for overnight stays, I think I will be taking them off before tomorrow's journey which should stretch tank range to the full.

Kind regards tw

In your situation I'd run Japanese every time either GTR or FJR yea yea I know but then the biggest problem you'd have is making sure you didn't die of boredom and it took me 30 years before I got fed up with all things Japanese,but in your situation business is business there's no room for sentimentality,regardless I remain an interested spectator.

[tiggerwood]

All good clean stuff.

I've managed to a few hundred miles on a 50,000 mile FJR: it felt worn out.
By comparison most BMWs feel taut and nicely run in at the same mileage.

I priced up camchain and tensioner blade replacement on a V4 Honda: it supports an old snippet of information that the big H had a design life target for bikes of 25,000 miles. Factor this in with dealer servicing on a new bike for two years and what I get through in pads, discs and tyres: I'm much better off buying secondhand and doing the easy bits myself.

Whole life costing on a Honda NC750 became less interesting with the news it would take ten hours labour to do a camchain change.

Modifying the fuel filler neck is fine if you want to fill up and then ride, but this doesn't always fit my pattern of work. During the last twelve months, my longest working day involved a return journey of 586 miles on two tanks of fuel and there are many days when I need to fill up just before my first destination so I can get to the second without delay. My average distance before refuelling is 229 miles.

Until another manufacturer produces something with the same level of economy, creature comfort and overall running cost as a secondhand BMW, I may be stuck with them.  I don't suppose a bike with gear-driven camshaft V four engine, shaft drive, touring chassis and fairing would sell in large-enough numbers.

The K1300GT may prove to be a cul-de-sac, but let's see.

[TomL]

I'm still going to be looking after my own bike Chris and the decision was prompted by news of the K1300S being discontinued.

That's fair enough but from my angle I see someone who was quoted as saying he's going to run his K into the ground,the next thing we see is holes drilled in the clutch basket and money spent on spares and it still wasn't working right and then a 1300 turns up.

You got me there Chris. Funny thing was that it was running perfectly when I put all the original parts back on and traded it.

[Phmode]

You scared it half to death Tom. I'm not telling mine it is living on borrowed time just in case.

B 

[Greenman]

Hi All!



At £1 per litre, payback on the GT ratio change is achieved via fuel saving after 100000 miles; at £1.40/L it goes down to 69000 miles.
If journey time saving is considered, payback is achieved if it helps me avoid two missed appointments.

Kind regards tw

Looks like a lot of work and potential heartache for a 3-4 year payback.
And presumably that doesn't include the increase in insurance premium for a modified bike.

[chriscanning]

It's all in the home work,I'd bet good money there's another ratio option as I found out with my 1100s,as for insurance  who the hell would know what ratio bevel you have their all the same case

[Phmode]

Well, if someone is killed in a 'simple' bike-related accident, some keen forensic investigator may well discover an anomoly. It might not have been anything to do with the cause of the accident, but one bets that the victom's solicitors will have a field day, not to mention a huge pay day!

Brian (who isn't saying don't, just don't expect that no-one will find out)

[tiggerwood]

Good news & bad news.

Already covered the insurance side, however the ratio change may have to wait until I find access to a  BMW parts database.

A quick look at the final drive internal drawing in the repair manual suggests that the mix and match approach with older crownwheels and pinions may not work. 

More anon...

[chriscanning]

You've been reading far to many fairy stories Brian,there is not the slightest give away with any BM bevel that tells you what ratio it is and I've got one 

[chriscanning]

Good news & bad news.

Already covered the insurance side, however the ratio change may have to wait until I find access to a  BMW parts database.

A quick look at the final drive internal drawing in the repair manual suggests that the mix and match approach with older crownwheels and pinions may not work. 

More anon...

As said at the beginning all roads lead back to Germany in my quest to track down what I was after I even accosted Bertie Houser at a WSB round the look on his  but he was very helpfull,and you can bet your life there are loads of bevel options but Jeeze finding such really is a trick,because as my mate found they like to keep things to themselves unless you turn up in person and then the flood gates open.

[Phmode]

You've been reading far to many fairy stories Brian,there is not the slightest give away with any BM bevel that tells you what ratio it is and I've got one 

Back in the early '70's a mate totalled his rally car and claimed it was a road accident. The insurance company suspected he had done it on a rally, which was excluded from his terms and conditions.

The loss adjuster arrived with a fairly impressive tool kit and after about an hour of poking around discovered Burton Engineering adjustable cam chain timing wheels on his Lotus Big Valve Twin Cam engine. This would have normally entailed the removal of the engine strut cross brace followed by the cam box cover. As it was, the accident had smashed the alloy cover revealing the evidence of the tuning that had taken place and not been declared.

If they want to get you, you are got and any fool can count the teeth on a bevel drive and knowing my luck the casting would have broken in the accident.

Brian (who thought he had declared his love of fairy tales in the earlier post about Puff the Magic Dragon  )

[chriscanning]

Great story Bri meanwhile out the real world ,I have a lot to do with a bike breaking business(anyone who goes to the Stafford Classuc show can meet us on our stand) stolen recovered,damaged repairable and the latest thing is confiscations and I can assure you that is not how modern day loss adjusters work.

Completely different subject but those folk who complain bitterly about insurance costs are more than quick enough to have their bike written off just because it fell off the side stand,which brings us back to what poor old Mr Parry will have to deal with

[JackSnipe]

 Welcome, all sounds interesting but too much fafing around. Better bet IMHO a Pan, far more reliable than a standard K Bike or any BM for that matter. This bike has proven to go on and on and will do 250 miles between fill ups. This bike is quick as well, maybe it does not have quite the get up and go of a K13, so what it will still outgun 99% of what it is up against on a daily basis. Work is work and a car/bike for work is a work vehicle full stop, if it is boring so what if it does the job well and fairly economically. By the way the Pan is not boring just accomplished all round.

JS

[Niall]

Wow - that is all getting very heavy.

I ran BMWs as bikes of choice for the company (my company) because of 6,000 service intervals, reliability and a reasonable resale after X years of service

I would chop bikes in when they couldn't be covered by the extended warranty. No garage has a lot to do with what you can or can't do as does limited off road parking. I too would aim for the one tank a day regime to save time and effort, so you didn't have to waste time either finding fuel on the way to work or the way back, you knew where it would be. When you're clocking 1,000 miles a week, the 6k service is a boon. And when you're doing that mileage and the time it takes, I would question anyone on "they do their own servicing". I didn't have the time. I had weekends only and there were things I wanted to do. My regime on the service was to leave work early on the Thursday, drop the bike off and get a service loan, work Friday as normal and collect the bike on the Saturday morning. This gave the garage the longest period possible to find/fix any issues,

I run with panniers and top case - to carry my stuff and to protect me (panniers keep them cars away from your legs)

When I switched from R11rts to the K12LT, it actually saved me money. The fuel use was far lower on the LT and way offset any additional time on service costs. Went through a 99LT, then an 03 to an 05.

The 03 went after 2 years because of changes to the extended warranty. I kept the 05 for 3 years because of a change to the warranty and at 82,000 miles and 3 years, it needed serious work. It was replaced with the 08 GT

That had enough range to do my daily trek and if I didn't ride flat out, was exceptionally economical. Going over a real 85 starts burning fuel, over 100 and the range is dropping

I still have the 08GT, because its covered by the extended warranty. If it wasn't, it would go.

When I was shutting the company up, I had a valuation from the dealer which I sent to my accountant. That "proved" its value for resale and write down

I had a TMax and then the Burgman as cover for the LT and then the GT. Both needed fuel at the half way point. The Burger was the better of the two and I'd still have it were it not for the car than ran into the back of it, destroying it in the process

The mods I make to a bike are for my comfort and use, and don't cover particularly giving better fuel economy. For the LT, that meant a shelf above the instruments for the sat nav and a better screen. For the GT, better seat, screen, wind deflectors, iPod integration, shelf for the sat nav above the instruments, and fuse boxes to get around the electrics

 

[tiggerwood]

Jacksnipe: thanks for the suggested alternative ride which may get a look in if my current plans come to naught. I should come clean and admit that fun trumped boring when selecting the GT. A low mileage NC750 using non-franchised servicing would undercut the GT running costs in all areas, but the dearth of suitable aftermarket weather protection rules it out - that and the fact that my local Honda dealer thought a twenty mile road test was more than adequate for me to make a decision (and then he cancelled my booking because he didn't want the bike going out in the rain!).

Niall: sounds like you may have done a few laps of the same track WRTo business bikes. Like you, servicing and repair of business bikes I normally pay another to do for the same reasons. Frequency and convenience of servicing are more important considerations than cost:  I used franchised dealers when I had extended warranty but, they quickly tired of me putting miles on their loan bikes (I did warn them beforehand...). Having said that, one of them let me run in an F800ST demonstrator (1100 miles in 24 hours was enough to to put me off purchase).  Now, I'm lucky to have an independent source of servicing and MOTs within 500 yards of my house.

Panniers off today, I've managed an accurate 54.6MPG over 268 miles at legal limits which suggests I might chance 290 miles between fills under similar circumstances.

My changes are normally for comfort and economy. Wunderlicht wind deflectors have made a big difference to hand warmth. A lifting handle to ease the strain of centre stand use is the only other mod. I'll make for now.

To keep this part of the site light-hearted, I'll raise a another topic to share my progress once I have some data.

Thanks to all for the welcome: it was much more than I expected tw