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Maintenance cost

newrider

New member
I'd appreciated some feed back here; I purchased as my first bike 9 months ago a F700GS. It's coming up onto the 12,000 mile service and I'm a little taken aback by the cost. Is $500 reasonable? I know they're checking the valve adjustment and replacing the plugs, but that is still alot of money. I was shocked also by the oil change cost of $125, only 3 quarts of synthetic plus oil filter - 15 minutes?? Wonder what it costs for the K1600 bikes?
 
I do most of the maintenance on my wife's F650GS. Things such as oil/filter change, chain and sprocket replacement and brake pad and fluid replacement. All pretty easy stuff. I had the valves checked and plugs replaced at a dealer and it cost $190, including $70 for a new valve cover gasket. The bike had over 30k miles on it and the valves were well within spec. The F series of bikes are pretty easy to do routine maintenance on except the valves; getting to them can be a challenge.

Consider doing some of the maintenance yourself and save money and have fun. Look for a local club that may offer tech days, get a Haines manual or a shop manual and take on the simple tasks first.

Good luck.
 
Holy moly $190 is too CHEAP ... I think they punched your ticket in wrong ... :laugh

Even I wouldn't do valve adjustment on an F twin for only $190, and I work cheap! :)

To the OP - have them break the cost down into parts, and labor in hours and units - then apply the shop's hourly rate. See where you get.
 
Word on the street is that the 18,000 mile maintence on the 1600 GTL is $1000.00. I do most of my own work now, but if I ever buy an 1600 I'll have to learn to do it.
 
Reasonable? Entirely subjective.

Typical? Seems within range.

(And just wait til it's time for pads and rotors.... :laugh)
 
Even I wouldn't do valve adjustment on an F twin for only $190, and I work cheap! :)

To the OP - have them break the cost down into parts, and labor in hours and units - then apply the shop's hourly rate. See where you get.

Okay, you are all making me doubt myself. I'll have to ask Annie how much it was; she is the keeper of such paperwork. My memory is $190, but my memory has been known to be a tad off... Stand-by.
 
Big Sky BMW, Missoula MT

Check Valves and replace spark plugs:

PARTS
Cyl Head Gasket - $85.99
Spark Plugs (2) - $25.98
Shop Supplies - $7.13

LABOR
1.5 hours - $142.50

TOTAL
$261.60

So much for memory. Still not so bad. It's the $86 gasket that seems unreasonable.

So the OP said his dealer wants $500 to do this work plus an oil change. If that is correct, then the oil change is awfully expensive. At a dealer I'm guessing the oil and filter would cost around $70-75. So, just what is their hourly shop rate?
 
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Word on the street is that the 18,000 mile maintence on the 1600 GTL is $1000.00. I do most of my own work now, but if I ever buy an 1600 I'll have to learn to do it.

Mine ran a hair under 700 and included one extra thing I can't remember at the moment. :). If you're valves are out of spec than I've seen them up near 1k but very few seem to be out at 18k. (Mine were done at grassroots bmw - good folks, gave me a loaner bike for the day and I put 500 miles on it. :) )
 
Paid over $900 for my F800GS at Blackfoot in Calgary but that included new chain and sprocket. Still thought it was a bit steep.

Looking at the bill they charged by the book. As an example, the air filter change (as part of the 20,000k inspection) alone was $70 (35 for parts, 35 for labour). All the plastic was off and changing the air filter is a 2 minute job but they charged every sequence out like they had to start from scratch. It left a bitter taste in my mouth when I left.

The dealer I use in Winnipeg charges by the hour only so the same check for my wife's F650GS was just under $300 (no oil/filter change).

All of our warranty will expire in the spring and I am kind of grateful because now I don't have to worry about voiding a warranty by doing some of my own service.
 
thanks

thanks everyone for the response regarding cost of maintaining my 700GS. Looks like my economy BMW isn't so economic after all. I suspect that I can do most all maintenance myself except for valve inspection; wonder what the additional cost would be if adjustment was necessary. I do remember asking the sales man questions regarding maint cost and he said that all I ever had to do was oil changes. Probably thought I would be scared off if I knew the real cost. Now the real issue is warranty; for 3 years I must spend alot to keep up my end of the contract. Also, are the valves ever out of specification??
 
Just my opinion, but except for the valves and what you can replace easily on the way out of the valves (i.e. the plugs & air cleaner) there really isn't much to do beside oil/filter, chain, visual checks, and walking around the bike with a torque wrench.

I did my own oil changes - keeping the receipts and taking a picture of the bike with the parts splayed out in front of it just in case there was a question, and then paid to have dealer do the two valve lash checks that were required within my 3-years.

If you get a GS-911 you can read the bike's computer which keeps an internal "clock" for when the next valve lash check is due....
"On paper" it is every 12K miles, but apparently if you don't thrash the bike with lots of high RPM running the internal computer gives you more miles before it "thinks" the lash check is due... IIRC the GS-911 said my 2nd lash check was not due until 27K miles or something like that ...

My first check no adj. needed, my second and third checks both needed one valve adjusted.
 
Just my opinion, but except for the valves and what you can replace easily on the way out of the valves (i.e. the plugs & air cleaner) there really isn't much to do beside oil/filter, chain, visual checks, and walking around the bike with a torque wrench.

I did my own oil changes - keeping the receipts and taking a picture of the bike with the parts splayed out in front of it just in case there was a question, and then paid to have dealer do the two valve lash checks that were required within my 3-years.

If you get a GS-911 you can read the bike's computer which keeps an internal "clock" for when the next valve lash check is due....
"On paper" it is every 12K miles, but apparently if you don't thrash the bike with lots of high RPM running the internal computer gives you more miles before it "thinks" the lash check is due... IIRC the GS-911 said my 2nd lash check was not due until 27K miles or something like that ...

My first check no adj. needed, my second and third checks both needed one valve adjusted.

Don't forget brake fluid and the coolant.
 
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