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clutch life?

31310

The Blue Max
What life expectancy for clutches have members experienced? I know it depends on riding style, two up, commuting and such. My '07RT has 177k kms (110 k miles), no slipping or other problems, I don't hot rod, ride two up about quarter of the time. Any feedback out there? Gary.
 
There are LOTS of responses out there to that question. I try not to be "that guy" but this is a really good "use the search feature" topic. Also, for the reasons you already mentioned, clutch life will be very highly variable. With that many miles, it will depend on the riding styles of all the previous owners more than it does about yours.
 
With the RT being on the street, ridden responsibly, you can easily get 150K+ out of a clutch. With a GS it will be different as they do go off road more but even mine was good for 100K+ as I sold it by then.

A side story, back in the 80's my dad's 5 speed 733i got 250K miles on one clutch with 4 people driving the car at various times.. None of us were drag racing or doing stupid things. When the engine needed to be replaced, the clutch had a lot of live left in it and the dealer knew the old one was the original but still was amazed by it all. YMMV
 
Here are two data points:

2000 K1200LT ... a bike people often complain about having a short clutch life. I inspected mine at 67K miles and it had more than 70% of its usable clutch lining left. I had put 47K of those miles on using the clutch properly.

2004 R1150RT... I bought it at 33K and removed the gearbox to inspect the input splines (they were fine), inspected the clutch plate and it was down to the rivets. I was reminded of the seller's comment that he was in the habit of starting off in second gear with a passenger on board marveling at the available torque.

It all comes down to how its been used.
 
I'll be the bad example. 2013 R1200RT

Lots of low speed maneuvers/training with heavy clutch work (I'm a motorcycle instructor). Lots of wheelies and fast riding. Couple of track days a year on it for the past 7 years. Clutch started slipping in 6th gear around 85k and I had it replaced.
 
Thanks for the replies, sounds like I'll be able to ride another season or two yet.
 
I have a 2013 RT also. I’m approaching 72k, so far so good. Ex motorcop, and if we burned out that dry clutch it was our a$$. Needless to say our training included a lot of free wheeling and if we feathered the clutch, kept RPMs very low. I do most all of my own work, but that’ll be $1,100-$1,200 I’ll have to spend lol


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