Has BMW been bad to you? Did you buy a New BMW lemon? Have you spent too long at the service shop, dealing with "technicians" who think you're an idiot? Did the electrics start failing? Did your beautiful New BMW start stalling? What about that transmission? Did BMW tell you it was your imagination? Did your sub-frame crack? Did they promise they'd call you soon to arrange something?

Don't worry you're not the only one who bought a BMTroubleU, but now you can tell the world your real "BMW Experience" by simply emailing your story and images to rayone2.3456 AT blogger.com you need to replace ' AT ' with an '@' cos I get too much spam (privacy statement)

Friday, August 14, 2009

K1300R Wonky Bike poor customer service (Serious)

Friday 14 August 2009: I picked up a brand new BMW K1300R from Procycles Hornsby. I immediately noticed some steering misalignment to the right and I also noticed the camber of the bike not to be the correct 90 degrees but +/-88-89 degrees.

As the initial excitement began to fade and I had spent some time with the bike, the steering misalignment and camber began to disappoint me, so I decided to rule out my subjective observations and measure the alignment and camber.

  1. I remove the BMW emblem on the steering bridge.
  2. I aligned the bars/steering bridge with the frame and the rest of the bike using a string to make sure each handlebar tip was of equal length to the frame and the center of the bike taking a line from the steering adapter.
  3. I then placed a 20cm plastic rod in the middle of the bridge to mark the centre point in relation to the center of the bike.
  4. I marked the centre position on the instrument panel.
  5. Over numerous days I checked the steering angle, taking special note of the road cant / and any other surface features that could possibly influence the observations.





It immediately became clear that the steering was angled to the right. Being a brand new BMW I couldn't believe something so basic could be off and decided to reexamine my measuring approach, so I continued with the previous test and proceeded to carry out an additional alignment tests...

  1. As before +
  2. I purchased a 30cm oil spirit level
  3. Put a bolt through the steering adapter (the hole in the middle on the steering where the emblem was) so as to provide a level platform for the spirit level… this will prevent unevenness in the steering bridge influencing the measurement.
  4. I placed the spirit level flush with the bolt, centered with the bars/bike and flush with the handle bars.
  5. Over numerous days I checked the steering angle and camber, taking special note of the road camber / and any other surface features that could influence the observations.

Again it immediately became obvious the bike was leaning over on the right and the straight spirit level showed the bars were around 2-4 degrees off centre.

Fig A. is how the handlebars appeared relative to the front assemble frame mount.
Fig B. is an approximate representation of what the spirit level was indicating while riding in a straight line on a flat road.
Fig C. is an approximate representation of how the bike looks from the rear while riding in a straight line on a flat road.


I delayed contacting my BMW dealer until the bike was ready for it's 1st service, confident they would quickly remedy the issues.


Keywords: K1300R, Review, New, Test, Crooked, Misaligned, Scissor type, Steering link, Rear offset

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