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The Fatal K - flaws

12K views 36 replies 19 participants last post by  FlyingDuck 
#1 ·
Let me share a long standing thought. But first, I bought a very slightly used K 100 RS when it was less than 1 yr old; I hated it! Many years later I 'got a deal' on a K 11 RS and used it for miles, mostly for commuting, and augmented that with a K 75 RT , Istill have that bike and consider it to be my winter bike, largely because of the decent fairing. I am retired now and a few years ago bought a clean, used K 1200 RS, largely based on its looks! Frankly, it does not get used much.

Any way, What can we agree was always the classic K's #1 annoyance, embarrassment ? I would say the damn oil burning! haha, like an old 2 stroke each time you start it after time much on the side stand. Ever wonder why??

Here is my opinion: The R bikes evolved over years and were clearly designed by motorcycle users. The K bike was flawed to start, it was designed by Automobile people! Example' any R bike owner knew that at least some times if the bike were parked on the side stand, it would start with smoke from the left cylinder, the right side never smoked! So some genius says lets make a bike with a car styled engine(fine so far) and lay it so all 4 pots are on the left! What the hell? Imagine if someone (like an R bike rider) reversed the drawings and so the exhaust and head were all on the right side! No smoking on start up, no years of excuses, pinned rings etc that never really solved what could have been prevented on the drawing board.. Oh well.

Next, the early instruments were taken from a 3 series car and put 'out in the weather'. the instruments work ok on a car right? more issues with car thinking, eventually they let the instrument box breath one way with Gore tex.

Excess weight? Look at the knee facing / inner fairing panels on an early K ; made of thick composite like an auto's interior! very HEAVY,

I happen to like my K 12, but it could never be my only bike, I find it too heavy to be 'fun'. I prefer a lighter bike most of the time. like my KTM 990 SMT and 950 ADV. I believe it is the last Beemer to have round analog gauges, a detail I prefer to digital stuff. Pirates Lair sells nice polished aluminum trim rings to go around those BTW. Just my thoughts...
 
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#2 ·
K bike flaw #2

my follow up for every one's consideration;

Vibration! The first 1000 cc bike buzzed badly! No surprise, look around, smaller inline 4 are smooth at below 1000 cc but get buzzy at the i liter mark. In cars, the rubber mounts allow inline 4s to get up to about 2 liters, then they get balance shafts for the larger displacements. Back to bikes we get 3 options, live with it, get a balance shaft, or rubber mount the engine.
For the K 1100 line the foot pegs were on a rubber mounted subassembly so the riders feet were vibe free, the hands still got some though in spite of weighted bar ends. The K 1200 models got a whole new frame and isolated the engine in rubber mounts, that is very effective in squelching the vibes but added weight! A K 12 is substantially more heavy than the K 11 predecessor. (Just like the rubber mounted engine later model Harley Sportsters are about 60 # heavier than the older solid mount models) You need a very strong frame when the engine can not be used as a structural member!

And from left field look at the K 75. Until the 6 cylinder came along the 3 cylinder K 75 was the smoothest modern BMW without a doubt, because from the start it had a balance shaft! (actually weights on the intermediate shaft) Sadly the K 750 engine was never improved over its life. Consider, the K 100 went on to the 16 valve head 'upgrade', then grew 10 % to become the 1100, and then grew again to become 1200 cc. the explanation was there was no room between the cylinders to grow further. What if the 3 cylinder 750 got a 4 valve /cylinder head and grew to around 900 cc? well we would have a bike with an excellent exhaust note and smooth performance as well as less weight. Triumph and Yamaha both sell similar size 3 cylinder models for years. BMW 6 cylinder cars were well loved, to me a 3 cylinder bike is a sweet ride with a similar sound. The K 75 was dropped, supposedly because sales lagged, basically it was low in performance by the mid '90s compared to other 750 cc bikes. As sort of a funny side note to that consider that the original CB 750 Honda was considered to be so fast and smooth when it came out in 1969, the K 75 had highly similar power and weight but a couple decades later it was too slow. I had my 'arm twisted' to ride a dealer's K 1600, for me it is just way too big, but a K 900 RS might have been 'the love of my life'.
 
#3 ·
Shit Bogie, You do know your "Flying Bricks". And from a freakin Long Islander. I went to high school in White Plains but my mom's family was from Free Port. I can remember when there was nothing out the Island but duck farms. I'm a Westerner since the late '60s, now living in Seattle, and can't imagine what it's like to try to ride a bike around in NY these days. I haven't been back since the late '90s when I had to come back to bury my dad. Even in the middle of that major bike boom, on a sunny July Saturday I think I saw only 2 motorcycles going up the Taconic State Parkway. New Yorkers never did take to bikes and law enforcement did not like my go fast, straight pipe CH one bit.

I rode H-Ds for 50 years and only went to an '08 K-40 S in 2011 so I'm still a Beemer student. Your observations clear up a few questions I had about the K-Bike lineage. When I asked franchise shop people what was with the complete redesign of the bike with the transverse engine, nobody had an intelligent answer. One day I did ask why late Brick bikes were so cheap, the kid at the counter just said, "Too fucking heavy". Now I see why; they took a perfectly good stressed engine design and built a huge frame around it just to isolate vibration. That's like deciding you don't like the cables hanging down on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge so you start poring cement under it. They could have balanced the engine and saved the whole integrity of the bike. I do like my bike but we are putting up with 3 complete redirected energy changes. I'm guessing the power loss must be at least 20%.

After the advent of the 1600, I consider the entire K Series as gone; a damn shame too. Once this "Adventure" thing peters out, I'm thinking they might very well close the doors. They have threatened to do that in the recent past as it is and they are making money hand over fist selling cars. the insurance Companies have wanted motorcycles off the road since the '60s. I think they may get their way.

I'd like to hear any other insights you have about K-Bikes. If I were just a little younger I'd probably work up a project bike of my own with a late Brick engine, be damned the vibration. I've done quit a few fast H-Ds and one Knuckle restoration so I'm used to the work. Only trouble is I turn 72 this month. I'll watch for your posts. Good luck with that NY traffic.
 
#4 ·
I have owned a few K series in the 1200 and 1300 variety and still have a K1300S that is my daily rider. Owned several "R" models, however, cannot give up the power of the 1300 which is derived from the F1 engine BMW developed for that series. 1600 is just too big in my opinion and will probably jump to Kawasaki's H2SQ for my next sport tourer unless BMW decides to provide another model similar to the K1300S that I currently ride. Great bikes, cannot say enough good about the experiences this model has provided me over the years.
 
#5 ·
People whine about the K100s and K1100s buzzing but I've owned many and if you keep them properly tuned and SYNCH THE F'N THROTTLE BODIES then they do just fine. I do 14 hour days on mine and they don't buzz at all. No, they're not as smooth as a K75 but a well-balanced triple is going to be smoother than a four cylinder wasted spark system any day of the week.
 
#6 ·
FWIW, I have had 2 K bikes and can agree that they are heavy. In fact, the '87 K100RT was top heavy enough to be a hazard at parking lot speeds. I didn't experience vibration as you have and never had any smoking after leaving it on the side stand. (My old Bonneville did this a lot, then blew up. Twice). Sold the first K bike because I wanted the '03 K1200GT in its first year. Engine vibration is non-existant, no smoking, and it is much less top heavy. I ran/run the piss out of both bikes, both with over 100K miles. Put me down as a satisfied customer, no real complaints.
 
#7 ·
Bogie 52: I totally agree with you about the oil burning. I talked about it to my dealer when I first noticed it on my K bike, who explained that it was due to the bike being parked leaning left and suggested that I use a rear stand to have the bike sit upright.
I bought a Wunderlich paddock stand and for a while the problem was fixed but when I started the bike recently, to my dismay the oil burning was back.
I guess the only real solution would be not to park the bike for an extended period of time...
 
#8 ·
I had my K1200GT in the shop for a ABS problem. This was at a dealer in Mesa Arizona in July. They completed the work the evening the day before I picked it up. So it had been parked on its side standing in 90 plus heat for more than a day. When started the whitish cloud cleared the parking park and exterior sales area. Everyone seemed to find a reason to go inside. It looked like some kind of military training exercise. I laugh about now but it was extremely embarrassing.
 
#9 ·
For the most part, the smoky exhaust on startup is a problem common to nearly all motorcycles and nearly no automobiles because cars do not have separate oil tanks that sit above the level of the motor and most motorcycles do. In a car engine, all the oil is stored in the oil pan under the motor and is cycled to the engine and returned to the oil pan. Every thing remains the same, even over time.

Where as on a motorcycle, the oil is usually stored above the engine in a tank. Over time when sitting, oil leaks past the mechanism intended to retain the oil in the tank i.e. Ball Check or Close tolerance of the pump dive, or what ever. The leaked oil all finds it's way to the lower end where the space is insufficient to hold all of it so it fills to the point that when started, the crank or flywheels as the case may be, picks up so much oil and flings it up into the bores that the rings can't deflect it fast enough so the oil smears past the rings and get's burned in the combustion chamber.

Eventually, the oil pump cycles the excess oil back up to the tank and the smoking stops. The Preferred way to handle the condition is to drain the lower end of the engine hopefully via a drain plug and manually return the oil to the tank. Any time you have oil getting past your rings and burning out the exhaust, you are oil fowling your spark plugs and adding a thick layer of soot to the combustion chamber and valves. All this carbon takes many miles to burn off and actually never does. These deposits build up into a cake that deforms the intended flow pattern of the head and becomes a glowing carbon igniter that sets off the gas charge prematurely causing detonation; a condition that can be rephrased as your fucking motor eating itself alive.

All the situations mentioned by you guys are variations on the same theme. The side stand problem is the same thing but only effecting one side of the motor. The moral of the story is, if you don't start you bike for a month or two, it's a good idea to drain the lower end before starting and pore it back into the oil bag.
 
#10 ·
Smoke

I guess my K1200GT does not stay still long enough for me to see any problem. Had a K1200S with no smoke just brass parts in the oil filter and a blown trans. Bought a K1600GT man was that bike heavy and traded it for a much older K1200GT (08) and now love riding again. I would buy a new GT today but not going to happen according to BMW. I do not want to buy a non BMW but I know mine will not live for ever. As long as parts can be found I will rebuild.
 
#11 ·
Dream Weaver,
You would have been better off with a 1300 in either of the available models. They fixed most of the problems with the 1200s by then. The Trans and nearly everything else on your '08 GT is the same exact parts as your 1200 S so it's just as likely to blow a Trans as your S was. Actually if I'm not mistaken, they didn't change much in the 1300 Trans either. Most of the changes were done elsewhere in the Drive Line.

I ride an '08 1200 S myself and have updated most of the dive line to 1300 parts. I can assure you that you will be doing the same thing yourself. The Clutch issues are the same in 1200 S, R, and GT which is directly related to the Trans problems you experienced. Being old school, I am also not a big fan of Speed Shifters. That instantaneous gear banging can not be good on your Shifter Dogs.

But the weakest link in any sequential transmission is the Shifter Forks. They are always thin crescent shaped fingers that get bent when a miss-shift is bad enough. This throws the engagement timing off and you get multiple gears remaining partially engaged which starts chipping Gear Teeth and Dogs alike. It's just a matter of time before 2 Gears remain completely engaged and that's when your Transmission scatters itself on the street. Fortunately the Trans usually fails to shift before things deteriorate to that point.
 
#12 · (Edited)
You are completely incorrect! VERY few modern bikes still use a remote oil tank (dry sump) design, and no BMW does. The Honda CB 750 was the first and last Japanese multi built that way BTW! Bikes that did use a high mounted oil tank sometimes had problems with the oil draining back thru the check valve and filling the sump(common on Nortons), that made the engine hard to start and possibly smoke a little too. K bikes smoke WAY more than that!

Get an old airhead and park it, on the side stand, many times it will start with a puff of smoke ( it seems to depend on the position of the left piston while stopped), but ONLY from the left exhaust. Get a classic K and park on the sidestand for a while, such as overnight, all 3 or 4 cylinders are leaning left and on startup some smoke will blow out, often a very embarrassing amount like an old VEGA. It seems a piston at the top of its stroke will allow the length of the cylinder wall to become wet with a puddle of oil, it is not all scraped off on start up and a lot burns for possibly a blocks riding distance.

At first BMW advised owners to use synthetic oil, it was supposed to 'burn less', but no improvement was noted! Later they pinned the rings so no end gaps (as done on 2 stroke engines) could face down. That helped but certainly did not end the problem. I am careful to use the centerstand for overnight parking on my 2 K bikes, and one is a 2003.

Be assured if this was not an embarrassing concern for BMW, they would not have pinned the rings in an attempt to fix it. One other
owner option is to run the bike at the lowest oil level all the time; not an idea I would suggest!

Another crazy idea I had back when the K's were fresh, was that some after market company could manufacture a replacement forging that both the side and centerstands mount to. Make it like many Spanish bikes , and let the bike park leaning to the RIGHT! haha, and end all smoking forever!
(All the classic Ks have the stands on a forging that bolts on below the engine, a design unlike most bikes that attach the stands to the frame.)
 
#13 ·
Wow, owned three k1200 bricks, a 98RS, 04RS, and 04GT with around 170K miles down range.

IMO the 04 K41 is likely the best fast sport touring bike ever made. The bike is an ICBM across the open plains and a serious liter sportbike contender in the mountains with the right rubber.

The reliability is 2nd to none "if you do all the recommended servicing".
 
#14 ·
Noob,
I did not mean to suggest the classic Ks are not fine bikes, they certainly were. Had the engine's head been to the left, and also the exhaust pipe, I think with no oil burning the design could have lived longer. I especially think the 3 cylinder should have grown to 900 with head 4v/cyl head.

BMW famously created the original K line after having been beaten by Honda when they released the first opposed 4 Gold Wing. They scrapped their opposed 4 water cooled bike and came up with the K 100. So it seemed funny to me at least that years later K seemed to be for the Kawasaki inspired 2nd gen series. For those that do not know why the BMW was considered a Kawasaki inspired design, I will explain. Previous to the 900 Ninja, Japanese transverse multis ran the timing chain between the cylinders, that was to aid in cooling the air cooled engines. Kawasaki built the water cooled Ninja and subsequent models like an auto engine with the timing chain at the left end. Of course BMW put the timing chain at the end of car engines years before the Ninja- but it is where the comments came from back then.

But as Ouroborous eats his tail, the circle goes around, I have read Kawasaki built the original Z1 900 using design details and measurements taken directly from the German Horex 450 Imperator of the previous decade.
 
#15 ·
Great story, but having worked for BMW corporate for most of the 80s it couldn't be further from the truth that any Japanese manufacturers had any influence on the development of the brick powered k-bikes. In fact, BMW viewed Japanese bikes at the time as cheap disposables bike like Chinese scooters today.

Bmw's sole focus was leading the premium bike market.
 
#17 ·
When the original K 100 was released it was frequently explained that BMW had a flat 4 gold wing like bike design planned, and rather than appear to be copying Honda they instead started over, I did not make that up! It was written in various magazine reports at the time.

The Horex 450 was an especially fine running bike in its day, doubling the performance to a 900 cc inline four was Kawasaki's goal. details like bore and stroke, rod length, and all the other dimensions of a successful design make sense to copy. The alternative would be lots of expensive and time consuming experimentation.

Look at the original Triumph 3 cylinder Trident, the only in line multi that drove the clutch from the end of the crankshaft. that was a problematic design detail. Literally everyone else took the drive from between cylinders. A simple but major design idea copied! like driving the cam from the end or middle, like stacking the gearbox these days to shorten the engine block. Can you actually imagine the BMW new K series, or the S series started with a blank sheet? Obviously BMW wanted to compete and started by copying what was accepted and known to work. BMW cannot afford another weird or unique model that just being different is likely to have problematic issues, just like the classic K bikes oil burning after resting on the sidestand. Th S series is super competitive racing with the Japanese inline 4s, BMW took a proven design and apparently tweaked it with all their own performance tech and came up with a winner. They could not have done as well as quickly had they gone 'weird' on their own.

You call the position of the cam drive trivial, but decades of Japanese designs have evolved so many 'trivial choices' that it would be very risky to be different.
 
#16 ·
That doesn't actually happen

I have worked on the designs of a lot of complex systems.
Often we get told or asked to design something based on someone else's product but with some changes.
It is not actually possible.
Once you start with parts of another design it is not possible to just change some details.
It is not even possible to do that with your own designs.
Evolving a design the way a bike or car design evolves is a big job. It is not much easier than starting from scratch.
Details like where the timing chain goes are trivial. The details around the location of the timing belt are huge.
If they weren't engines would have some common components, but there are almost none.
 
#19 ·
For cryin' out loud. if you don't like to smoke on startup, use the effing centerstand. i did for 12-odd years. But I weigh 280, so it wasn't difficult to get it up. If you can't get it up, maybe a Yamaha is for you.

Now I run a 2010 K1300GT. It's not perfect, but after two years as fourth owner I'm crazy impressed (still) about what a mind-bender the bike is in comparison to the K100RS (I owned 2 '85s, only 16 VINs apart from each other).

Well there will always be those dissatisfied few, or several.

I used to work in the environmental consulting bizness. Occasionally the media would tell a story of someone or some building affected by mold, and sure as the sun sets in the west, we'd get calls. I was the recipient of one person who went on and effing on, about how her family never got sick in the mainland but did frequently since moving to Hawaii. How she was sure that when the maintenance guys at the condo opened a wall for some reason, she saw mold. How she wanted us to come "test" for it. How surprised she was when I explained that such testing, to be reasonably reliable, would cost several thousand dollars. That there was no regulatory standard to which the results could be compared. IT ALL WENT OVER HER HEAD WITHOUT SLOWING DOWN IN THE LEAST. Finally I asked "do you own or rent?" She said "rent". I told her that the solution was very simple: MOVE. Again she couldn't hear me, and launched into another litany of woe. Finally (after being tied up with this whiner for some 45 minutes) I gave her the phone number of a lately dissatisfied ex-employee (highly qualified, too) and she would call him. Next time I saw Kevin, he was pretty salty about the handoff.

But there it is.... if you don't like it, effing move. Rant over.
 
#21 ·
I started this calling the oil burning a 'fatal flaw'. I still own 2 K bikes also, but they were dropped long ago and at least one reason why I would imagine is the 'embarrassing' oil burning on startup, an issue other bikes don't have and this was supposed to be an especially up market design! Seeing that cloud from other owner's bikes surely cost BMW some sales over the years.

Watch riders in general; very few use a center stand on most bikes, many bikes don't even have one. Lots of us K owneres do use the stand for overnight parking.

Enjoy your K!
 
#23 ·
After I discovered the problem on my 07 K12R and the recommended solution, I purchased a paddock stand. For a while the smoke stopped at startup but then it returned. So I'm not sure that a centerstand is the solution.
I like the bike too much to part with it (a lot of memories) so sometimes one can't simply move on.
Just sayin'.
 
#26 ·
Interesting thread. Thanks to all who posted.

My K12RSs (2), would smoke on startup if run hard and immediately put on the side stand. With my first (a '98 bought in '97), I could just sit on the bike and keep it upright for awhile and it wouldn't smoke after being put on the side stand. Didn't seem to need that with the '02.

The smoking seemed to stop after the bikes were well broken in but that may have been due to not running them as hard after the "new" wore off.

The current routine is to put it on the center stand when in the garage, but to use the side stand in parking lots. I use the trick of gently rocking the bike x 1 to make it easier to put it up on the center stand.
 
#28 ·
you kinda remind me of one Vic Willoughby you had a page named Techni Talk, in the 60,s in Motorcycle a monthly mag, paper actually, in my Norton days, he was a brilliant bike engineer, specialty engines, gearboxes
For myself from mid 70,s til 2012, think it was , I never owned or rode a bike, then , I bought the k1200gt, rode the 14000km in 6 weeks in USA sold it, it had it's faults but my oh my, the handling in the swervery at speed and the power were astonishing for this 72 year old
the power coming into Salt Lake City, saved my live, when two utes tried to squeeze me, big second cogger, they did not get me
rgds
Stuart
 
#29 ·
Not guilty

The only time my 1997 K1200RS smokes is when I lend it to a friend and he gets off after half an hour to light up a cigarette to calm his nerves, not realising how quick the old girl is once she lifts up her skirt and starts to gallop.

My 56,000 mile bike is always left on the main stand and uses perhaps 1/3 pint of oil every 5,000 miles. I still think it has the highest quality build of any mass production motorcycle ever made, and will still be running when my (admittedly awesome) K1300S Motorsport is in a skip.
 
#31 · (Edited)
K100RS - I disagree with most of the negative comments. I had two 1985 K100RS's, both bought new in 1985, one of them on a bike tour of Germany. I had intended to sell one of the bikes, but I liked them so much I kept both, until the first one was totaled in a wreck in 1987. The second one? I kept it as my only bike for 30 years! (With a 10-year layoff during children.)

I had customized the bike to eliminate some annoyances, so here is my short list of annoyances and what I did about them.
1. vibration causing heat shield to vibrate noisely, and eventually break the bolts. Replaced the stock bolts with bigger ones, basically. Not as pretty. but worked for 25+ years.
2. Handlebar grips too small - replaced with fatter Gold Bond grips.
3. Seat - replaced with Corbin seat. Everyone has one problem or other with almost every stock bike seat.
4. Heat from engine at slow speed (here's a real annoyance, especially living in Phoenix. ) - installed aftermarket fairing panels that sealed off the area under my knees.
5. Vibration - like every 4 cylinder I've ridden, it's buzzy at some speeds, very smooth at others. I avoided the buzzy RPM's. I think the K1300s is similar, but a small bit worse in the handlebars. (K1300s is MUCh better in the footpegs. I added grip puppies on the K1300s as I wanted to keep the stock warmers).
6. Gas tank heat. Apparently the fuel pump on a K100 recirculates a bit of fuel back from the engine to the gas tank. Or the heat just rises into the tank. Whatever, but on a hot day (100+F) that tank can get so hot my thighs were red after a ride. I wanted side panels on the tank, but never got any, so I just avoided pressing legs against the tank in slow, hot conditions.
7. Smoking at start up. SO annoying, an why didn't the engineers just flip the design so the heads were on the right side? MY solution was pretty simple. I *always* used the centerstand when stopped. No more problem, plus I didn't have to worry about the side stand sinking into hot asphalt.

After 30 years I didn't really trust the K100 on long trips anymore. It had died on me twice around town for failed fuel pump and once due to a broken ground wire. I decided to splurge on a new K1300gt and went to the dealer for a test ride. And found out they hadn't imported that model for years. So thought about a K1600, but they had no demos at that time. But there was this gorgeous K1300s MS... One test ride was all it took. I eventually sold the 1985 K100RS to the mechanic who worked on it for years for $1000. He had a primer red K100 tank in his garage already to replace the primer white one I had on. (Had to replace gas tank, all rubber bits, fuel injectors and a bunch of other stuff after letting the bike sit 10 years.)

In the follow pictures, you can see some of the mods I discussed above, plus rubber gaiters on the fork seals.

http://www.cjcphoto.net/k1300s/images/150217-113044-00-80-rx100m2.jpg


http://www.cjcphoto.net/k1300s/images/150217-113111-00-82-rx100m2.jpg

http://www.cjcphoto.net/k1300s/images/150217-113122-00-83-rx100m2.jpg
 
#33 ·
I had an '85 K 100 RS from new and put 70k miles on it. The only real issue I had was the engine heat on hot days, not much you can do about that. I solved the tingling hands by swapping the RS bars for a set off a "C" model. I never really had a smoke problem, must have been lucky I guess. Over the years I've owned a lot of other 4 cylinders and I wouldn't say the K series was any buzzier than the rest. My current K 1300 GT is electric motor smooth in fact.

I've owned 4 K bikes and 3 twins and honestly never had any trouble to speak of from any of them. I guess my '07 had some fueling issues on hot days occasionally but nothing to write home about.
 
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