Hi all. I'm wanting to buy a BMW R1200GS. Probably between 2004 and 2007. Just wondering if there is anything I should be watching out for , any common problems or faults. Any advice will be much appreciated. Thanks very much in advance.
Everything? Final drive, driveshaft and rear wheel carrier ("flange") immediately come to mind. All those things have gone bad & had to be replaced on my '05. Lucky when the FD/DS when I caught it before the DS destroyed the swingarm. Now that everything's been replaced, it's not so bad, but given the chance to do it over, I wouldn't buy a bike from that generation on a dare.
Final drive was only issue for me,BMW replaced it under warranty at just over 30,000 miles. Early 05 did not have EWS antenna failure issues. My bike at 79k miles has good flanges(uncertain if they replaced that when FD was done) Early 05 had better toolkit than later ones. I would not shy away from one,if you know its history. JR356
Thanks for the advice. Have been looking at the facelift models from 2009, but a tad expensive for me. Will keep looking. Thanks again.
An 05 will have enough miles on it by now that most things will have been taken care of.Like the others have said driveshafts and wheel flanges and ask how often the brake fluid was changed.My 05 is at 88,000 miles and still does everything I want it to.Good luck.
Seems that I've encountered a lot of folks that have had relatively trouble free 2007s. Not sure why? I've put 126K on mine without a single hiccup and it's not been babied. Plenty of people have reported issues with FD failures and driveshaft u-joints ......... but I've also talked to plenty that like me, have not had any issues at all. For me the fuel strip is the first thing that comes to mind. Mine is a little "notchy", but never has completely failed. BMW has acknowledged this and has a free replacement program in place. Good Luck!
Bought a new non ABS 1200 in '05, put 33K overloaded miles on it with nary a problem. Best motorcycle I've ever owned....see my sig line video for some of the abuse it went through...
In 05 the GS moved away from the solenoid for the brakes (I believe that was the term). One advantage of the 07 over the 04.
Over the years I've heard nothing but horror stories about the 1200 series. Was there a time frame or a point where they were sorted ? I've known owners that are friends as well as people I have met on travels that have recalled stories of EWS, fuel pump relay, drive failures etc. One guy wouldn't take his bike out of the country as he had no faith in it due to previous breakdowns. What say you ?